Sentence Repetition Test SRT Recorded Text Test RTT Wordlist

3.2.4 Wordlist

Each wordlist was gathered with the assistance of one or more mother-tongue speakers of the speech variety in question and double-checked with different individuals. 3.3 Analysis 3.3.1 Sociolinguistic questionnaires The answers to interview questions in different locations were compared and evaluated in light of other observations and test results. This was done for both the group and individual interviews.

3.3.2 Sentence Repetition Test SRT

The SRT scores were compiled and compared in two different ways: First, the mean and standard deviation were calculated for men, women, each age group and each location, as well as for location groupings and the entire test population see 4.2 below. The means were then compared, using the two-sample t-test to see if the differences between them are statistically significant. See Appendix B for the two-sample t-test. Second, the percentage of test subjects who scored 25 or lower was calculated for the age-sex categories within every test location and location grouping. A score of 25 represents a proficiency level of 2+ according to the scale of the Reported Proficiency Evaluation RPE to which the SRT was calibrated Radloff 1991. In other words, the percentage of test subjects who performed at less than level 3 good, general proficiency was calculated.

3.3.3 Recorded Text Test RTT

As for the RTT scores, the mean and standard deviation were first calculated for all the different groupings see 4.3 below. The means were compared with the two-sample t-test as described above. Unlike in the SRT analysis, the scores were also compared according to the subject’s level of formal education, since schooling is likely to have a great impact on Amharic proficiency.

3.3.4 Wordlist

The wordlist transcriptions from this survey and the ones previously collected in Wenbera and Bulen Lemma and Wedekind 2002 were entered into WordSurv version 5.0 beta for lexicostatistical comparison and calculation of lexical similarity percentages. 4 Results 4.1 Sociolinguistic questionnaires 4.1.1 Multilingualism