Abstract
This research aims to identify the lexical similarities and differences between the Sungai Kunyit sub-dialect and Standard Minangkabaunese. A qualitative descriptive method was used in this study. The data were collected through fieldwork and interviews with native speakers using a total of 239 words—207 from the Swadesh list and 32 additional culturally relevant vocabulary items. The analysis involved lexical comparison and dialectometric calculation to determine the percentage of lexical similarities and differences between the two varieties. The results show that 201 words are similar and 38 are different between the Sungai Kunyit sub-dialect and Standard Minangkabaunese, resulting in an 84.1% lexical similarity and a 15.9% difference. The lexical differences appear across several categories, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, determiners, and subordinate conjunctions. Some of the lexical differences involve complete substitutions rather than minor phonological changes. These findings indicate that while the Sungai Kunyit sub-dialect is closely related to Standard Minangkabaunese, it still retains distinct lexical characteristics. Therefore, it can be concluded that the Sungai Kunyit sub-dialect and Standard Minangkabaunese belong to the same language family with high similarity, but regional lexical variation is present and significant.