| Musi | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Bengkulu South Sumatra |
Native speakers | 4,008,000 (2020)[1] |
Austronesian
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mui |
| Glottolog | musi1243 |
 The distribution of Musi lects across southern Sumatra. | |
TheMusi languages consists of a collection of closely relatedMalayic varieties spoken in the eastern and northern regions ofSouth Sumatra, as well as parts ofBengkulu. The Musi languages has a relatively high degree ofmutual intelligibility, despite its speakers not sharing a unified ethnic identity. Generally, speakers of Malayic varieties in this area refer to their language (in Indonesian) asbahasa 'language' + [name of region/river/ethnic group], regardless of whether it is classified linguistically as an independent language or a dialect.[2]
McDowell & Anderbeck (2020) classify the Musi varieties into two main dialect clusters: (1) Upper Musi and (2) Palembang–Lowland, which are further divided into subclusters and dialects, each with its own distinct characteristics. This classification is not purely based on the comparative method, which seeks to reconstruct the direct ancestor of these varieties, but rather on a synchronic dialectological approach. This includes lexicostatistical analysis, the distribution of phonological innovations, and mutual intelligibility testing[3] The classification of the varieties is as follows:
This classification has been adopted with modifications byGlottolog in its latest version (4.8). AllISO 639-3 language codes for Musi varieties were merged into [mui] in 2007 by theSummer Institute of Linguistics, except for the code [liw] for Col.[4] The old codes for Musi language varieties ([plm], [lmt], [pen], [rws]) are no longer actively used but still retain their assigned meanings as defined in the Standard.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)