Bengkulu language

Bengkulu Malay
Bahaso Bengkulu
Region	Bengkulu Province, Sumatra
Ethnicity	Ethnic population: 66,000
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (disputed) Malayic South Barisan Malay Bengkulu Malay
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bke retired and subsumed into pse
Linguist List	pse-ben Bengkulu, Bencoolen, Bengkulan
Glottolog	beng1290
Linguasphere	33-AFA-du

Bengkulu Malay or Bengkulu is a Malayic language spoken on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, around the city of Bengkulu, in the rest of the Indonesian province of Bengkulu and in the Pesisir Barat Regency ("west coast") of Lampung Province. It is more closely related to other Malay variants in Sumatra such as Col, Jambi Malay and Palembang Malay as well Minangkabau spoken in neighbouring West Sumatra than to the Rejang language, which is also spoken in the province.

Phonology

Bengkulu is written in the Latin alphabet and sometimes in Rejang script.

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p ⟨p⟩	t ⟨t⟩	tɕ ⟨c⟩	k ⟨k⟩	ʔ ⟨k⟩ (coda)
	voiced	b ⟨b⟩	d ⟨d⟩	dʑ ⟨j⟩	ɡ ⟨g⟩
Nasal		m ⟨m⟩	n ⟨n⟩	ɲ ⟨ny⟩, ⟨n⟩ (before c/j)	ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Fricative			s ⟨s⟩	ɕ ⟨si⟩		(h ⟨h⟩) (coda)
Lateral			l ⟨l⟩
Tap			ɾ ⟨r⟩
Semivowel				j ⟨y⟩	w ⟨w⟩

The letters ⟨f⟩, ⟨sy⟩, ⟨v⟩ and ⟨z⟩ are used in loanwords from Indonesian.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ⟨i⟩		u ⟨u⟩
Middle	ɛ ⟨e/é⟩	ə ⟨e⟩	ɔ ⟨o⟩
Open	a~ɑ ⟨a⟩

Bengkulu diphthongs are ⟨ai⟩, ⟨au⟩, ⟨ia⟩ and ⟨ua⟩ (where "ia" and "ua" are used in loanwords).