4.2 Relationship between Lohorung Pangma and Southern Yamphu Rajarani
4.2.1 Lexical similarity results
The lexical similarity between the Lohorung in Pangma and the Southern Yamphu in Rajarani is 66 percent. While this is a rather low percentage of lexical similarity, intelligibility testing was necessary to
confirm that they are separate languages.
4.2.2 Intelligibility testing results
The results of the Lohorung Pangma RTT administered to people in Rajarani are displayed in Table 2.
Table 2. RTT results for Southern Yamphu speakers Rajarani Rajarani scores
Lohorung Pangma story
Avg 61
SD 19.3
n= 10
The average score for people who took the RTT in Rajarani was low at 61 percent, with a high standard deviation of 19.3. Usually, contact is a primary factor in high standard deviation. However,
none of the RTT participants reported having ever been to Pangma, and have not even been to Sankhuwasabha district. There is also no predictable demographic influence on scores.
4.2.3 PrePost-RTT question results
After listening to the Lohorung Pangma story, participants were asked, “What village do you think the storyteller is from?” No one could identify the location of the storyteller’s speech variety.
Even though RTT scores were low and most participants said they did not understand all of the story, most seven of ten reported that the speech is only a little different from their own. Because none
of the participants identified where the storyteller was from, these responses were based on the speech sample itself, not on the linguistic identity of the speaker.
4.2.4 Summary
Low lexical similarity and RTT scores confirm that Lohorung and Southern Yamphu Rajarani are different languages. Speakers of Southern Yamphu identify themselves ethnically and linguistically as
Yamphu. However, the majority of respondents in Rajarani felt that Lohorung speech is only a little different from their own language.
5 Dialect variation and attitudes
Descriptions of dialect boundaries are informed by gathering lexical similarity information and testing intelligibility between language areas. In order to investigate potential dialects within Lohorung, we
administered the Lohorung Pangma Recorded Text Test RTT in Angala, elicited wordlists in Pangma, Angala, and Dhupu, and conducted informal interviews in each location. This section will discuss the
findings of these tools by comparing Angala and Dhupu with Pangma.
5.1 Lexical similarity results
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