language in the story was the “Same,” “A little different,” or “Very different” from the language spoken
in Devitar, 100 reported that it was “A little different.”
None of the respondents in Rajarani had been to Hedangna. After listening to the Yamphu story, when asked, “How much of the story did you understand?”, 40 of respondents 410 said they
understood “Less than half.” An additional 40 said they understood “most.” Seventy percent of respondents said that the language of the story was “a little different” than the language in Rajarani.
Thirty percent said it was “very different.” These responses correlate quite strongly with the lowest scores on the RTT among Rajarani respondents.
6.2.4 Summary
Among the people we tested, there is a distinct difference between the Yamphu spoken in Hedangna and the Lohorung spoken in Pangma. Based on low lexical similarity percentages and low average RTT
scores, the two varieties are distinctly different languages. Many of the post-RTT comments, however, reflect the strong ethnic identity of the Lohorung and Yamphu being brothers historically.
The lexical similarity between wordlists elicited in Hedangna and Devitar 79 as well as between Hedangna and Rajarani 76 is on the lower side, providing evidence that the Yamphu in Hedangna
may be a distinct language from the Southern Yamphu in Devitar and Rajarani. The RTT results in Rajarani on the Yamphu test were very low average 44, giving additional evidence that Southern
Yamphu is a distinct, though related language to Yamphu.
6.3 Southern Yamphu [lrr]
6.3.1 Lexical similarity
The lexical similarity between wordlists elicited from Southern Yamphu in Rajarani and Lohorung in Pangma is 66. Based on this low lexical similarity percentage, Southern Yamphu and Lohorung are
likely separate languages.
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The RTT data in 6.3.2 will provide additional support for this hypothesis. In the previous subsections we have discussed data showing that Southern Yamphu is a distinct
language from Yamphu. Even though Devitar and Rajarani are distant geographically, the Yamphu language in these two
locations is 89 similar. The word list in Rajarani was taken from a group of men that included representatives from Bhode, Manoboduk, and Rajarani. They insisted that the language is the same in
these three areas and were always in agreement on the entries for the words. Because there is little variation between the percentages of lexical similarity, and the people
consider the Yamphu language in these areas to be very similar, we would suggest that these areas represent the same language variety, Southern Yamphu. Intelligibility testing between Yamphu in
Rajarani and Devitar would verify this assumption.
6.3.2 RTT results
In Table 6 the average score and standard deviation for those who took the Lohorung RTT in Rajarani are displayed.
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See rationale in section 6.2.3.
Table 6. RTT results for Rajarani on the Lohorung RTT Test Location
Rajarani Southern Yamphu
Lohorung Pangma
Story Average
Score 61
Standard Deviation
19.3 Sample
Size 10
The average score for people in Rajarani who took the Lohorung RTT was 61. The standard deviation was rather high at 19.3. This average score is slightly high enough that more information is
needed in order to conclusively determine the level of comprehension of the story’s hearers. Based on the high standard deviation, however, it is likely that a large percentage of those tested in Rajarani would
have trouble understanding the Lohorung variety. Usually contact is a primary factor in high standard deviation. However, the data does not show if contact with Lohorung speakers is a factor in the variation
of scores. None of the RTT participants reported having ever been to Sankhuwasabha district.
6.3.3 Pre- and post-RTT question results
