Along the coastline of Pahang, Terengganu Malay is spoken in a narrow strip of sometimes discontiguous fishing villages and towns.
Nonetheless, the essential unity of Pahang and Terengganu Malay is demonstrated by the number of shared lexical, syntactic, and phonetics innovations.
[11] Another theory by Tarmizi Harsah, suggests that the dialect originated from Ulu Tembeling, in deep hinterland of Pahang.
[13] However, Tarmizi's theory went against the commonly accepted Malay settlement patterns which began at the river mouth and coastal areas before dispersing inland.
Coastal Terengganu Malay, a relative variant with shared lexical, synctatic, and phonetics innovations, is spoken in narrow strip of sometimes discontiguous fishermen villages and towns along the coastline of Pahang.
Among the earliest attempt to classify these dialects and sub-dialects was by Asmah Omar who conducted her study based on the daerah (district).
She enlisted eight sub-dialects of Pahang Malay, namely the dialects of Pekan, Benta, Raub, Ulu Tembeling, Rompin, Temerloh, Kuala Lipis and Bentong.
Her view is based on the prestige of Pekan and Kuantan as the main economic, cultural and administration centres of the state.
[17] Other scholars like Collins and Tarmizi Harsah provided an alternative method in this dialectal study, focusing on the geographic units of river basins and coastal strips, rather than on the existing political boundaries.
On the other hand, both river basins and coastal strips are the features of topography that have greatly shaped the earliest patterns of migration and settlement in the Malay world of Southeast Asia.
The unique identity of Pahang Malay can be traced in three features of phonology; vowels before consonant [± coronal], alveolar trill and diphthongs /-ai̯/ and /-au̯/.
The contrast between coronals and non-coronals is among the first feature recognised by Collins (1983, 1998) and Ajid Che Kob & Mohd Tarmizi (2009).