6 For a list of one hundred words, Lugbara and Madi might show a total number of
degrees of phonetic difference of 150 for 450 comparable phones in 84 words, while Lugbara and Kebu might have 57 total degrees of difference for 120 comparable
phones in 20 words. To compare the amount of phonetic variation, we calculate the ratio of degrees of phonetic difference per hundred comparable phones. For Lugbara-
Madi, this is 150450x100, or 33; for Lugbara-Kebu, it is 57120x100, or 48. Thus we note that not only does Kebu exhibit weak lexical similarity with Lugbara, but even
when the Kebu word resembles the Lugbara word, it tends to be less similar to the Lugbara word than the Madi word is.
2.1.2 Phrase lists
Inter-language intelligibility does not only depend on how similar the words are in the two languages. For the speakers of two related speech forms to understand each
other without having to learn each other’s language the speech forms must have a similar grammatical structure. Realizing this fact, we attempted to compare low-level
grammatical features by means of a thirty-five-item list of phrases, clauses, and questions. The list see Appendix 9 consists of two major parts: verbal research the
first twenty items and research of the noun phrase the remaining fifteen items. The verbal research was considered the most important, so that in cases where only some of
the data could be collected, the first twenty items were elicited; where possible, however, the full list was elicited.
No quantitative procedure has been developed to measure how great a hindrance to comprehension a given grammatical difference would be. Thus, this report only makes
simple qualitative statements about dialectal grammatical differences and alternative possibilities within a dialect or cluster. These are taken into account together with
conclusions about inter-language comprehension made from lexical comparisons, intelligibility testing and sociolinguistic observations.
2.1.3 Sociolinguistic questionnaires 2.1.3.1 Purpose
The purpose of the sociolinguistic questionnaire is to gather an adequate sampling of information about language and dialect use and attitudes relevant to determining
needs for separate languagedialect development versus standardization within a language area. Strictly speaking, the questionnaire was actually an interview schedule
since the questions were posed orally and answers noted by the researcher. A true research questionnaire would be answered in writing by the person being questioned.
2.1.3.2 Methodology
Beginning with the results of wordlist analyses, speakers of a dialect or dialect area are questioned in the area of language and dialect use and attitudes with reference to
languages and dialects surrounding them having greater than 70 lexical similarity. There is value in random sampling and also in sampling special interest groups. The
7 main questionnaire is intended for a broad cross section by random sampling see
Appendix 9. The supplements contain specialized questions for church leaders, educators, and government officials. In order to refer to the significant dialects of an
area in question 17, the researcher elicits dialect names according to ‘folk perception’ and sees how those relate to the results of the wordlist analyses.
2.1.3.3 The questionnaire
The questions cover five areas: general information, language use, attitudes towards language use, dialect use, and attitudes towards dialect use. It was necessary to take
great care in selecting wording in English, French, Arabic, and Bangala because the terms ‘language’ and ‘dialect’ are not used in the same way everywhere.
This general sociolinguistic questionnaire SLQ was supplemented by two others. By means of formal interview we probed language use and attitudes both in churches
and in schools. See Appendix 9 for examples of both the church leadership questionnaire and the Primary School questionnaire.
2.2 M
