Reported dialect boundaries silesr2015 022.

2.2 Reported dialect boundaries

When collecting data for the language use questionnaire, the surveyors asked people how they group themselves based on language. Groups of men and women 16 were asked to list the villages where people speak exactly like them as well as the villages where people speak the same language but differently. The interviews were often dominated by the people who were more proficient in English, but the survey team felt that the responses given were typically consistent with the group consensus. The residents of the Galeya area reported four different dialect groups: Galeya Momo’awa and Sebutuya wards, Basima Lau’oya and Duduna wards, Ulua Ulua ward, and Gameta Gameta ward. Reported data suggests that the dialects spoken from Gameta to Sebutuya wards make up a dialect chain with Basima at the centre. People in the Basima area included the other three dialects as part of their language, and said that of these three, Gameta is most different from their own. People in every dialect agreed that they belong to the same language as Basima. Residents in Sebutuya ward farthest south, however, said that Ulua and Gameta 17 are not part of the same language as them. But the people in Gaula Momo’awa ward, to the northwest of Sebutuya did include Ulua and Gameta in their language group. The most frequently mentioned difference between these dialects is that the Galeya dialect uses ‘h’ where the other areas use ‘s’. For example, the word for ‘friend’ in the Galeya dialect is hegu, but it is segu in Basima, Ulua, and Gameta. People reported that the difference between the dialects is in pronunciation rather than vocabulary. Residents in all areas referred to those in other areas as either “pulling,” “cutting,” or “twisting” the words. 18 There were, however, some references made to lexical differences between the areas, such as the word for ‘taro’, reported as dedeba in Ulua but bwagau in Gameta, or the word for ‘fish’, which was reported as iana in Lau’oya and daidai in Ulua. Some people reported further dialect distinctions within these broad areas with minor distinctions in pronunciation; however, these views were not held by the whole community see Appendix B for further details. In summary, although people identify themselves under four different dialect names, people from every dialect area include people from all the other dialects as speaking the same language with a different accent, with the exception of people in Sebutuya ward who do not include people in Ulua and Gameta wards as a part of their language group. All of the villages surveyed group themselves with the central Basima dialect.

2.3 Intelligibility