<![CDATA[Language variation reflects the cultural and geographical diversity of a speech community and is commonly manifested through differences in phonological systems. Although Malay is widely spoken in the Riau Islands Province, comparative phonological studies focusing on Malay subdialects in Lingga Regency remain limited. This study aims to describe and compare the phonological characteristics of the Malay subdialects spoken in Resun Village and Dusun II Tajur Resun, Lingga Regency. The research employed a qualitative approach with a descriptive-comparative design. Data were collected from six native speakers through observation, unstructured interviews, and audio recordings. The speech data were transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and analyzed through phonetic and phonemic comparison. The findings reveal that both subdialects share several identical phonological features, particularly in the realization of vowels, consonants, diphthongs, and phonemic systems in a number of basic lexical items. However, phonological differences were identified in two major patterns: vowel modification (/o/→/u/, /a/→/ə/, and /ə/→/i/) and sound addition through paragoge, marked by the insertion of the glottal stop /ʔ/ in word-final position in the Dusun II Tajur Resun subdialect. These findings demonstrate that the two subdialects maintain close linguistic relationships while exhibiting distinctive phonological characteristics. The novelty of this study lies in providing the first comparative phonological description of the Malay subdialects of Resun Village and Dusun II Tajur Resun, contributing to the documentation and preservation of Malay linguistic diversity in Lingga Regency.]]>
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