Linguistically, it is typified by agglutinativity, a very small phoneme inventory (around 11 compared to around 44 in English), whistled speech, and the use of tone.

Since at least Barboza Rodrigues (1892), there have been three ethnic names commonly listed as dialects of Mura, or even as Muran languages.

[citation needed] The Mura/Bohurá endonym is Buhuraen, according to Barboza Rodrigues (1892),[failed verification] or Buxivaray ~ Buxwarahay, according to Tastevin (1923).

[citation needed] They also record,[failed verification] Mura is often proposed to be related to Matanawí.

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Mura language varieties.