Central Malay

Central Malay, also called Middle Malay or South Barisan Malay is a collection of related Malayic isolects spoken in the southwestern part of Sumatra. None of the Central Malay isolects has more than one million speakers.

Central Malay
Middle Malay, South Barisan Malay
Native toIndonesia
RegionBengkulu
South Sumatra
Lampung
Native speakers
1.6 million (2000)[1]
Austronesian
DialectsBenakat
Bengkulu
Besemah
Enim
Kikim
Kisam
Lematang Ulu
Lintang
Ogan
Rambang
Semendo
Serawai
Language codes
ISO 639-3pse
pse Central Malay
Glottologcent2053

Name

Traditionally, the term "Middle Malay" (a calque of Dutch term Midden-Maleisch) is used when referring to this cluster. Later, to avoid misidentification with a temporal stage of Malay language (i.e. the transition between Old Malay and Modern Malay), the term "Central Malay" is used.[2] McDonnell (2016) uses the term "South Barisan Malay" instead, referring to the southern region of Barisan Mountains where these isolects are spoken.[3]

Varieties

Ethnologue groups together 12 isolects as part of Central Malay.[4]

There have been few researches on individual isolects within the cluster.

References
  1. Central Malay at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Adelaar, K. Alexander (1992). Proto-Malayic: The Reconstruction of its Phonology and Parts of its Lexicon and Morphology. Pacific Linguistics, Series C, no. 119. Canberra: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University. hdl:1885/145782.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  3. McDonnell, Bradley James (2016). Symmetrical Voice Constructions in Besemah: A Usage-based Approach (PhD thesis). University of California, Santa Barbara.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  4. Lewis, M. Paul; Gary F. Simons; Charles D. Fennig, eds. (2015). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (18th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
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