Palembang, also known as Palembang Malay (), or Musi, is a

Malayic language The Malayic languages are a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family. The most prominent member is Malay, which is the national language of Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia; it further serves as basis for Indon ...

primarily spoken in about two thirds of

South Sumatra South Sumatra ( id, Sumatra Selatan) is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the southeast of the island of Sumatra, The province spans and had a population of 8,467,432 at the 2020 Census. The capital of the province is Palembang. The pro ...

Province in Indonesia, especially along the Musi River. It consists of two separate but mutually intelligible dialect chains: Musi and Palembang. The urban Palembang dialect is a koiné that emerged in

Palembang Palembang () is the capital city of the Indonesian province of South Sumatra. The city proper covers on both banks of the Musi River on the eastern lowland of southern Sumatra. It had a population of 1,668,848 at the 2020 Census. Palembang ...

, the

capital city A capital city or capital is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, Department (country subdivision), department, or other subnational entity, usually as its seat of the government. A capital is typically a city ...

of South Sumatra. It has become a ''

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

'' throughout major population centers in the province, and is often used polyglossically with

Indonesian Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesian ...

and other regional languages and dialects in the area. Since parts of South Sumatra used to be under direct

Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...

and Javanese rule for quite a long time, the speech varieties of Palembang and its surrounding area are significantly influenced by

Malay Language Malay (; ms, Bahasa Melayu, links=no, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , Rejang script, Rencong: ) is an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language that is an official language of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and that is also spo ...

and Javanese, down to their core vocabularies. The name ''Palembang'' can refer both to the urban Palembang dialect, distinct from Musi dialect proper, or to the whole Palembang/Musi dialect group. This term is also the most popular

endonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

for the language and is prominently used in the academic literature.

Phonology

Dunggio (1983) lists 26 phonemes for the Palembang dialect; specifically, there are 20 consonants and 6 vowels. However, another study by Aliana (1987) states that there are only 25 phonemes in Palembang, reanalyzing as an allophone of and instead.

Vowels

In closed syllables, and are realized as and , respectively.

Consonants

Orthography

An orthography has been made by the local office of

Language Development and Fostering Agency The Language Development and Fostering Agency ( id, Badan Pengembangan dan Pembinaan Bahasa), formerly the Language and Book Development Agency () and the Language Centre (), is the institution responsible for standardising and regulating the Indon ...

. It is closely related to the

Indonesian Spelling System The Enhanced Spelling of the Indonesian Language ( id, Ejaan Bahasa Indonesia yang Disempurnakan, EYD) is the spelling system used for the Indonesian language. History The Enhanced Spelling of the Indonesian Language ( id, Ejaan Bahasa Indone ...

, and uses the Latin alphabet with the addition of the letter é.

Example text

References

Bibliography

* * * Malayic languages Palembang Languages of Indonesia Malay dialects {{malayic-lang-stub