Figure 8.3. Comprehension levels for Southern SY sentences. These results suggest that very high comprehension of the SY lect is limited to areas very close
geographically to SY.
7
We guess that JR Libo county may have better coverage over the whole Southern Sui area since its pronunciation chapter 5, sections 5.2.3 and 5.4.7 and vocabulary see
chapter 6, sections 6.3.3.2 and 6.4.4 are more representative of the Southern dialect area as a whole. The standard deviations for the SY RTT results were slightly higher than for the GC test see above,
possibly because average scores were generally lower. We consider the TZ results unreliable due to the extremely high standard deviation. Some of the participants in TZ were upper middle school students
due to a shortage of other people available to take part in the test. These students probably had a higher level of contact with other dialects than those participants who had only been to a local first or middle
school.
8.5.3 Intelligibility of Yang’an Sui LW
Results of the LW Yang’an RTT are shown in figure 8.4. The two datapoints in the Yang’an dialect area both achieved average scores of over 97. Locations in the Western and Central subdialect areas, both
extremely close geographically to the Yang’an region, scored between 82 and 91. In areas further afield, where people are unlikely to have had any exposure to the Yang’an dialect, scores were very low,
ranging from 45 in SY to 64 in SW. This suggests that inherent intelligibility between Yang’an and other Sui dialects is low. If a speaker of another Sui dialect has not heard Yang’an dialect before, they
will find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to communicate with a Yang’an speaker.
7
Anecdotal reports indicate that only the districts of Shuiyao, Yongkang and the former township of Shuiqing all in Libo county speak in the same way as SY. We suspect that high comprehension of the SY lect is limited to these
areas.
Figure 8.4. Comprehension levels for Yang’an LW sentences. Standard deviations were often over 10, in particular in areas geographically close to but not
belonging to the Yang’an dialect area. This suggests that the high scores in Central and Western areas were indeed due to contact—those with extended exposure to the Yang’an dialect scored highly, those
with little exposure scored much lower.
8.5.4 Intelligibility of Pandong Sui PD
Results of the PD Pandong RTT are shown in figure 8.5. Apart from subjects from the two locations within the Pandong dialect area 99 average in PD, 83 average in JL, subjects scored poorly on the
PD test. Perhaps because Dujiang is geographically a little closer to the Pandong region and because it shares some common recent sound changes with Pandong, DJ achieved a higher score of 76. Other
locations generally scored between 55 and 70. JR, the datapoint geographically furthest from PD, only scored an average of 40. Not only did speakers of other dialects score poorly on the PD test,
Pandong dialect speakers also scored very poorly when listening to other Sui dialects, indicating that there is very low mutual intelligibility between Pandong dialect and other Sui dialects. Standard
deviations were all under 15, an acceptable figure given the low overall scores.
Figure 8.5. Comprehension levels for Pandong PD sentences.
8.6 Conclusion
