2.3.6 Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi
Neither Noiri nor Dungra Bhili shows a significant relationship with Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi, the respective state languages of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
2.3.7 Vasavi, Noiri and Dungra Bhili
Vasavas are found in the northern part of Maharashtra in Nadurbar district and the eastern part of Gujarat Bharuch and Surat districts. Watters attempted to compare different Vasavi varieties with
different Bhili varieties. They had compared Noiri Astambha wordlist with different Vasavi varieties, which ranges from 60 to 71 percent
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Watters 2013:19. According to the present survey the lexical similarity between Dungra Bhili and Noiri is 77 to 87 percent. Hence it would be plausible to think that
Noiri is closer to Dungra Bhili than different Vasavi varieties.
3 Dungra Bhili intelligibility among Noiras
Noiras live principally on the southern side of the river Narmada, whereas Dungra Bhils live on the northern side of it. Efforts to develop the Dungra Bhili language were initiated in 1995 and have been
going forward with responses from the people. Pre-primers and primers were produced, and post literacy materials are ready to be printed in the Gujarat script. The lexical similarity study of Dungra Bhili and
Noiri necessitates intelligibility
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testing to find out whether Dungra Bhili materials could be used among Noiri speaking people. This portion of the report deals with the attempt of the researchers to evaluate
Dungra Bhili intelligibility among Noiras.
3.1 Lexical similarity comparison versus intelligibility
In lexical similarity comparison, the researcher is investigating the possibility of a relationship among varieties by comparing the number of similar words. When lexical similarity is low, lower
comprehension is the possibility. But the increase of lexical similarity may not result in a proportionate increase in intelligibility, hence predicting adequate intelligibility based on a relatively high lexical
similarity is not sufficient. Nevertheless, it gives a working knowledge of the relationship among the varieties, but which may be inadequate to make a decision of a language program. Intelligibility testing
helps linguists locate variety boundaries and centres and accordingly make decisions about similar languages and dialects, where a number of languages or dialects are spoken Grimes 1996.
3.2 Tool for intelligibility testing
In this study intelligibility was evaluated using the Recorded Text Test RTT developed by members of SIL in Mexico. It is based on the methods set forth in Eugene Casad’s Dialect Intelligibility Testing 1974.
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The lexical similarity, compared during northern Dhule district survey, between Bhilori Barutiya of Mutalwad and different Vasavi varieties is 58 to 70 percent.
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The intelligibility can be inherent—the degree of understanding of a variety because of the inherent or genetic similarity—or acquiredlearned understanding a speaker obtained because of previous exposure to the variety. The
community would be homogeneous with regard to inherent intelligibility whereas heterogeneous to acquired intelligibility Blair 1990:24. Here we are concerned with inherent intelligibility of Dungra Bhili among Noiras.
Throughout this chapter, intelligibility refers to inherent intelligibility because the genetic relationship between Dungra Bhili and Noiri is substantiated through lexical similarity study and other background research.
The glossary of sociolinguistic terms in Lingua Links Library defines the Recorded Text Test as “a tool used to evaluate comprehension of a language or dialect consisting of a short text spoken by a mother
tongue speaker of the language variety being tested. Subjects listen to the text twice, and during the second audition answer questions about the meaning of the text in home language or dialect, which have
been interspersed in the texts at appropriate places.” For a fuller description of RTT, refer to Blair 1990.
3.3 RTT procedure
Kategori