• To study the differences, if any, among the various speech varieties spoken by the Bhumij
population; and to determine if any particular variety is considered standard, central or pure. •
To investigate the degree of intelligibility between Ho, Santali, Mundari and Bhumij. •
To look into the extent and level of community bilingualism in Oriya, Hindi and Bengali.
2 Linguistic aspects of Bhumij speech found in this survey
2.1 Lexical similarity comparison
One method of gauging the relationship among speech varieties is to compare the degree of similarity in their vocabularies. This is referred to as lexical similarity. And logically, communities that communicate
in a speech variety that has more terms in common with another—thus a higher percentage of lexical similarity—understand one another better than do those communities that speak a variety that has fewer
terms in common with another. However, lexical similarity alone cannot indicate how well certain speech communities will understand one other, but it does help in gaining an initial view of relationships
between languages, and often provides direction for further study.
2.1.1 Procedures
The tool used in determining lexical similarity in this survey was a 210-item
2
wordlist, consisting of items of basic vocabulary, which has been standardised and contextualised for use in surveys of this type
in South Asia. These wordlists were transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet IPA, which is given in Appendix A, and the words collected are presented in Appendix B.3.
Every wordlist was compared with each other wordlist, item by item, to determine whether each item was phonetically similar or not. Those words that were judged similar were grouped together. Once
the entire wordlist was evaluated, the total number of word pair similarities was tallied. This amount was then divided by the total number of items compared, producing what is called the lexical similarity
percentage. For example, if between two wordlist sites a total of 207 items were compared and 176 of these word pairs were deemed similar, then the lexical similarity percentage would be 176 ÷ 207 x
100 = 85.
This process of evaluation was carried out according to standards set forth in Blair 1990:30–33 and facilitated through the use of a computer program called Wordsurv Wimbish 1989. This program is
designed to quickly perform the counting of word pair similarities and to calculate the lexical similarity percentage between each pair of wordlist sites the geographical locations where the words were
gathered. For a fuller description of counting procedures used in determining lexical similarity, refer to Appendix B.1.
2.1.2 Site selection
Many of the wordlists utilised in this survey were obtained from Varenkamp’s work 1989, 1990. This included seven Bhumij, two Mundari, a Bhumij Mundari wordlist, a Santali wordlist from a dictionary
and an Oriya wordlist. One Bhumij, one Mundari, one Ho and a Santali wordlist were collected a couple of months before this project commenced. Finally, a Bhumij and a Mundari wordlist were elicited during
the investigation. The sites of the wordlists used in the analysis are shown below in table 1, and can be located on map 3.
2
The total number of vocabulary items compared is sometimes less than 210 for certain wordlists, usually because a particular item is not familiar to the language assistants or the proper word cannot be obtained
.
Table 1. Sites from which wordlists were obtained
Language State
District Village
Bhumij Bihar
Singhbhum Champi
Bhumij Bihar
Singhbhum Ladhiramsai
Bhumij Bihar
Singhbhum Munduy
Bhumij Orissa
Balasore Baigodia
Bhumij Orissa
Mayurbhanj Dighinuasahi
Bhumij Orissa
Mayurbhanj Dumadie
Bhumij Orissa
Mayurbhanj Madhupur
Bhumij Orissa
Mayurbhanj Mohuldiha
Bhumij Orissa
Mayurbhanj Podadiha
Mundari Bihar
Ranchi Chalagi
Mundari Orissa
Mayurbhanj Dhungarisai
Mundari Orissa
Sundargarh Jharmunda
Mundari Dictionary
Bihar Ranchi
—— Bhumij Mundari
Orissa Mayurbhanj
Udala Ho
Orissa Mayurbhanj
Dillisore Santali
Orissa Mayurbhanj
Nayarangamot ia
Santali Dictionary
Bihar Santal Parganas
? ——
Oriya Orissa
Cuttack ——
2.1.3 Results and analysis
