Java in Indonesia

Kurt Stenross has written:

'Madurese seafarers' -- subject(s): Commerce, Government policy, Praus, Lumber trade, Madurese (Indonesian people), Shipping

Answers: Indonesian, Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, Dutch, and several others.

Indonesia has the second-largest multilingual population in the world, after Papua New Guinea. It has 726 languages, the most common being Indonesian, Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese and Minangkabau.

Indonesian has been used as a lingua franca of the Indonesian archipelago for centuries. It is a standardised form of a language originally spoken in northwestern Sumatra. Before that, a variety of dialects were spoken, such as Javanese, Sundanese and Madurese, most of which (including these three examples) are still spoken today by thousands, sometimes millions, of people.