South Estonian is spoken in South-Eastern
Estonia, encompassing the
Tartu, Mulgi,
Võro and
Seto varieties. There is no academic consensus on its status, as some linguists consider South Estonian a dialect of
Estonian whereas other linguists consider South Estonian an independent
Finnic languange. South Estonian is largely mutually intelligible with modern standard Estonian, although
diachronically North and South Estonian are separate branches of the Finnic languages.