Palembang, also known as Palembang Malay (Baso Pelémbang), is a Malayic variety of the Musi dialect group primarily spoken in the city of Palembang and nearby lowlands, as well as a lingua franca throughout South Sumatra. Since parts of the region used to be under direct Javanese rule for quite a long time, Palembang is significantly influenced by Javanese, down to its core vocabularies.^[3]

While the name Palembang in the broad sense can also refer to the Musi dialect group as a whole,^[4] it is most commonly used as an endonym for the speech used in the city and its immediate rural vicinity.^[5][6]

Based on lexicostatistical analyses, mappings of sound changes, and mutual intelligibility tests, McDowell & Anderbeck (2020) classify Malayic varieties in southern Sumatra into two dialect groups, namely 1) South Barisan Malay (also called Central Malay or Middle Malay) and 2) Musi. Palembang is part of the Musi grouping, specifically the Palembang–Lowland cluster, which also includes the Lowland subcluster containing Belide, (Downstream) Lematang, and Penesak varieties.^[7]

Internally, the Palembang subcluster can be divided into three dialects, namely 1) Palembang Lama ("Old" Palembang), 2) Palembang Pasar ("Bazaar" Palembang) and 3) Pesisir ("Coastal"). Palembang Lama refers to the traditional variety spoken natively by ethnic Palembang communities, both within the city and the "relic areas" around it. Meanwhile, Palembang Pasar is a koiné that has become a lingua franca to bridge interethnic communication in Palembang and other major population centers throughout the region. This variety is often used polyglossically with Indonesian (resulting in the so-called "Palembang Indonesian" variety) and other regional languages/dialects in the area, both Malayic and non-Malayic.^[8][9]

In terms of lexicon, Palembang Lama retains many Javanese loanwords that are no longer used by speakers of Palembang Pasar. This decreasing number of Javanese loanwords used by Pasar speakers is linked to the rise of Standard Indonesian influence in the daily speech of urban areas. In terms of phonology, Pasar speakers also tend to realize Proto-Malayic *r as an apical trill [r] as in Standard Indonesian, instead of using voiced/voiceless velar fricative [ɣ~x] as is common among traditional speakers of Palembang Lama. Lastly, only traditional speakers consistently maintain a distinction between schwa and /a/ in final closed syllables.^[10]

To the north and east of Palembang, towards the border with Jambi Province and the waters of Bangka Strait, there exists the Pesisir or Coastal variety, which is structurally very similar to the urban Palembang dialects. That said, Pesisir speech in the outer areas share high lexical similarity rates with neighboring Malayic lects of Jambi and Bangka.^[11] In addition, Pesisir speakers are not as tied to the Palembang ethnic identity as the speakers in the urban Palembang area and its immediate vicinity.^[12]

Dunggio (1983) lists 26 phonemes for the Palembang dialect; specifically, there are 20 consonants and 6 vowels.^[13] However, another study by Aliana (1987) states that there are only 25 phonemes in Palembang, reanalyzing /z/ as an allophone of /s/ and /d͡ʒ/ instead.^[14]

An orthography has been made by the local office of Language Development and Fostering Agency. It is closely related to the Indonesian Spelling System, using the same 26-letters Latin alphabet with the optional use of the letter é.^[16]