Previous research Purpose and goals

1.6 Previous research

Previous sociolinguistic surveys have been carried out in this area, and the data from these reports were utilised in this survey. This was the runway from where the research has taken off. Table 3. List of previous surveys carried out in the area Name of the report AuthorCompiler Primary focus Date of Publication A Sociolinguistic Profile of the Bhils of Northern Dhule District Stephen Watters Bhili varieties spoken in northern part of Dhule district of Maharashtra 2013 A Sociolinguistic Survey Report on Dungra Bhils Abraham G, Sunil Mathew Identification of standard dialect in which Dungra Bhili mother tongue literature could be developed 1996, January The Bhil Country of India: A Sociolinguistic Study of Selected Peoples and Languages Loren W. Maggard, Vinod Wilson Varkey, Kishor Kumar Vunnamatla Identification of major language varieties spoken by different Bhil groups 1998, September

1.7 Purpose and goals

Main Purpose: Finding out the need for mother tongue literature in the Noiri language so that communication with the people can be effective. Additional purpose: Determining whether Dungra Bhili language development could serve the purpose of Noiri speakers. In order to carry out these tasks, the following goals were set: • To define the geographical area of the Noiras. Tool: Language information questionnaire. • To distinguish how Noiri is lexically different from other surrounding varieties. Tools: Wordlists. • To gauge the intelligibility of Dungra Bhili among Noiri speakers. Tool: Recorded Text Test. • To assess the attitude of Noiri speakers to the Dungra Bhili variety. Tool: Post RTT questionnaire. • To evaluate bilingualism of Noiri speakers in Marathi in Maharashtra and Hindi Madhya Pradesh. Tools: Informal interviews and observation. • To evaluate language use and language attitude of Noiri speakers towards their own language variety. Tools: Informal interviews and observation. 2 Lexical similarity comparison Differences among speech varieties happen gradually and slowly over geographical distance. Linguists speak of this change in a language as a dialect chain when it occurs in a linear fashion, and as a dialect network when it is multidirectional. The languages spoken by different Bhil groups of western India comprise a dialect network, where the isolation of Noiri from the entire continuum is not so easy to accomplish. Nevertheless, attempts were made during previous research to this end. Maggard et al. 1998 cluster Noiri, Barutiya and Dungra Bhili in one group, and Watters 2013 groups Barutiya 13 and Noiri together. These works would at least help us to draw an outline boundary of Noiri in the vast Bhili ocean. The following is a report of the effort by the present researchers to gauge the relationship of Noiri with other varieties.

2.1 Procedure