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EVALUATION OF METHODS AND CONCLUSION
There are many methods to investigate the relationships between speech varieties, both diachronically and synchronically. The choice depends on the research questions
formulated. The sociolinguistic survey of the Bena language aimed at clarifying the dialect situation within the Bena-speaking area, especially a clarification of the number and
distribution of dialects, and the differences and intelligibility between the dialects.
The methods used to analyse the data in the collected word lists were the Blair Method in conjunction with linguistic maps and Gabmap, a web application which uses Levenshtein
distance. All of them have advantages and disadvantages.
4.4 Linguistic Maps
As already mentioned in section 2.3.1, linguistic maps and atlases have the advantage of showing the distribution of speech varieties or certain features of these speech varieties
geographically. Thus they help to see the geographical component in the differences of the language varieties. They are also relatively easy to produce and do not require special
training or knowledge.
On the other hand, linguistic maps are limited in the amount of data which can be displayed and analysed without the use of other methods. This may force the linguist to
select certain data which leads to subjectivity in what data are chosen. On the other hand, this limitation of the number of features possible for display might also help to focus on
certain features in speech varieties.
The simplicity of linguistic maps makes them easily comprehensible for the linguist and the non-linguist. Therefore they are a great tool for presenting data or findings of an analysis,
even if another method was used during the analysis.
4.5 Blair Method
With the Blair Method, like with the Comparative Method, one compares word pairs and notes sound correspondences. This is to a certain degree flexible but therefore also
subjective. Good documentation of the choices or adaptations is necessary in order to allow a reconstruction of the results by others and oneself at a later time and make necessary
changes possible.
An advantage of the Blair Method is that it results both in a list of phonological differences between the speech varieties and a classification for each gloss into similar and dissimilar
with another variety. Since it follows the same first steps of the Comparative Method, it is
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possible to continue with that method afterwards and to look for historical relatedness of the language varieties also with other speech varieties.
However, it takes quite a long time to analyse the word lists with the Blair Method and the results then need to be put into a presentable format, e.g. linguistic maps or tables. Due to
this inherent absence of a particular presentation format in this method, the linguist is free to decide on the presentation method and can choose to further process the results by
another method.
4.6 Gabmap
