| Musi | |
|---|---|
| Musi Malay | |
| Basé Musi | |
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | South Sumatra |
| Ethnicity | Musi |
Native speakers | (~600,000 cited 2000 census)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mui |
mui-sek (Sekayu) | |
mui-pel (Penukal) | |
mui-kel (Kelingi) | |
| Glottolog | nucl1812 |
 The distribution of Musi lects across southern Sumatra | |
Musi (Basé Musi) is aMalayic variety spoken primarily in parts ofSouth Sumatra,Indonesia. While the nameMusi in the broad sense can also refer to the widerMusi dialect network comprising both Upper Musi andPalembang–Lowland clusters,[2] it is locally used as anendonym specific to the variety spoken in the upstream parts ofMusi River.[3]
Based onlexicostatistical analyses, mappings ofsound changes, andmutual intelligibility tests,McDowell & Anderbeck (2020) classify Malayic varieties in southern Sumatra into two dialect groups, namely 1)South Barisan Malay (also calledCentral Malay orMiddle Malay) and 2)Musi. The Musi grouping can be further divided into two clusters: 1) Upper Musi, containing Musi Proper (i.e. the lect referred to as "Musi" in local usage), Rawas, Pegagan, andCol, and 2) Palembang–Lowland, containingPalembang and Lowland subcluster (Belide, Lematang Ilir, and Penesak varieties).[4]
All Upper Musi lects lostProto-Malayic *h word-medially, including between like vowels, e.g. *dahan >dan 'branch'.[5] As with other Southern Sumatran Malayic lects, *r is sometimes reflected as [r] and [ʔ], contrasting with a velar/uvular rhotic. More uniquely, Upper Musi lects evince 1) the loss of initial *r, e.g. *rumah 'house' >umah and *rusa 'deer' >use; 2) the shift of final *-ri >-ray, e.g. *jari 'finger' >jaray and *duri 'thorn' >duray, and 3) the merger of final *-ar, *-ur, and *-ir > -[o(ɰ)], e.g. *akar 'root' >ako, *bibir 'lip' >bibo, and *kapur 'lime' >kapo. The last merger did not happen in Rawas, as it only reflects the *-ar >-o shift. In addition, while most Upper Musi lects shifted final *a > [e], Rawas shifted the vowel to [o].[6]
Musi Proper is spoken throughout parts ofMusi Banyuasin andMusi Rawas regencies inSouth Sumatra. Internally, it can be divided into three subdialects, namely 1) Sekayu, 2) Kelingi, and 3) Penukal, each roughly corresponding to the names of the geographical area where they are spoken.[1][7] Sekayu is spoken in and around the town ofSekayu, Musi Banyuasin, and is the central variety.[8] Kelingi is spoken in parts ofMusi Rawas Regency and neighbors the Sindang Kelingi subdialect of Col to the west. Meanwhile, Penukal speech area covers most ofPenukal Abab Lematang Ilir Regency, bordering to its south the Lowland lects of Lematang Ilir and Belide, as well as the Highland (Central Malay) lect of Benakat.[1][9][10]
