With such a high standard deviation, language contact may play a role. The data shows that the three Lohorung participants with the lowest scores have never been to Hedangna. Men scored higher
than most women and all said they had been to Hedangna. Their higher scores could be due to more extensive travel and contact with Yamphu.
Respondents from Hedangna had both a higher average score and higher standard deviation than those from Pangma. It is possible that people in Hedangna understood the Lohorung story better than
people in Pangma understood the Yamphu story because Yamphu people are more exposed to Lohorung than Lohorung people are to Yamphu. Hedangna is more remote than Pangma. People from Hedangna
travel through Pangma to reach the district headquarters, but people from Pangma have fewer reasons to travel to Hedangna.
4.1.3 PrePost-RTT question results
After Yamphu speakers in Hedangna listened to the Lohorung story, we asked them a series of questions related to the language they heard in the story. When asked where they think the storyteller is from,
most respondents recognized that the storyteller is Lohorung. Two believed he was from a different Yamphu area Num or Devitar and two others believed he was from another country India or
Germany.
Respondents were also asked if they liked the speech of the storyteller. Half of the respondents thought the Lohorung speech was “OK” while the other five respondents had a variety of opinions about
it. The responses were quite varied, with little correlation to contact with Lohorung or their RTT score. There is a high degree of contact with speakers of Lohorung in Pangma at least eight of ten have been to
Pangma, which may explain why there is a higher degree of comprehension of Lohorung among Yamphu respondents than there is of Yamphu among Lohorung speakers.
Participants were also asked how much they felt they understood the story and to identify how different the storyteller’s speech was from their own. Only one respondent felt they understood all of the
story and they said the speech was very different from their own. All but one said the language is different from theirs. While Lohorung and Yamphu are separate languages, their identity as “brothers”
and shared vocabulary create an affinity that allowed several respondents who said they only understood half of the story to also say the storyteller’s speech was only a little different from their own.
Post-RTT questions in Pangma show different patterns. After listening to the Yamphu Hedangna story, every respondent identified the storyteller as being from Hedangna. While some respondents
clearly recognized the speech as Yamphu, others called it their own variety Lohorung. Despite the fact that many people scored quite low on the RTT, they still said the speech was “good,” “OK,” or even that
it was their own language.
There is a slight correlation between the scores of those who have travelled to Hedangna and those who have not. We only know that five respondents have been to Hedangna and the average score among
them is 52 percent with a standard deviation of 11.5. This implies that few if any of the people who have been to Hedangna understand the story. The average score of those who have not been to Hedangna is
lower with a higher standard deviation.
4.1.4 Summary
