Ogan-Besemah - Orientation

Identification. The name Ogan-Besemah" refers to an ethnolinguistic grouping of peoples living primarily in the province of South Sumatra, Indonesia. Members of the several peoples comprising this grouping consider themselves more akin to each other than to their neighbors—the Komering to the south, Malay speakers to the east, and Rejang to the north. Residents of the area sometimes refer to the entire grouping as Ogan" or "Dempo" people, but more often distinguish between two subfamilies (hence the hyphenated name used here): the Besemah subgroup to the west (often written "Pasemah") and the Ogan subgroup to the east.

Location. The Ogan-Besemah area covers most of South Sumatra Province, from the outskirts of Palembang city on the east to the mountainous border with Bengkulu on the west. The area rises from the eastern peneplains to a high coffee-growing region in the west.

Demography. The province of South Sumatra (103,688 square kilometers) had about 6 million inhabitants in 1989; probably about half that number are of the Ogan-Besemah grouping (censuses do not ascertain language or ethnic affiliation). During the past quarter-century Besemah peoples have expanded southward into Lampung Province.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Ogan-Besemah dialects are in the Western Indonesian Branch of the Austronesian Family and are closely related to Malay. They form a continuum or chain of intelligibility across the area. Speakers distinguish among dialects on the basis of degree of difficulty. Within the Besemah category speakers group the Lematang, Kikim, Lintang, and Besemah dialects as highly mutually intelligible, and the Semende (or Semendo) dialect as somewhat more distant. Among Ogan dialects are Enim, Musi, Rawas, and Ogan proper, all highly mutually intelligible. These languages were once written in a local Sanskrit-derived script (generally called Ka-Ga-Nga), which is rarely used today; only Latin and Arabic scripts are taught in the schools. Nearly all Ogan-Besemah speakers are also fluent in the Palembang dialect of Malay, and many also command the national language, Bahasa Indonesia, which is derived from Malay.