3.2.2.1 Kozhiyala Tamil Muthuvan
A Tamil Muthuvan story was recorded in Kozhiyala, a settlement of Devikulam Tahsil. Kozhiyala is an interior settlement that is situated in the forest. This would represent a central area of the Tamil
Muthuvan variety. Idamalakudi is also a major settlement of Muthuvan and may be the most geographically central place for Tamil Muthuvan. However, the researchers could not get permission to
enter that area.
3.2.2.2 Thalayirappan Malayalam Muthuvan
Malayalam Muthuvan is spoken in Adimali block of Devikulam tahsil. Most of the settlements are in very interior locations. A Malayalam Muthuvan story was recorded in Thalayirappan settlement. The
settlement is six kilometres away from Adimali town and more easily accessible than other Malayalam Muthuvan settlements. This ideal location both represented the Malayalam Muthuvan variety and allowed
the surveyors to have good contact with the people.
3.2.2.3 Kavakudi Tamil Muthuvan
Kavakudi is a Tamil Muthuvan settlement. It represents the north-eastern concentration of Tamil Muthuvan settlements. This site was selected for gauging comprehension of Tamil Muthuvan people of
the Malayalam Muthuvan text from Thalayirappan. Another reason for selecting this site was to investigate the acceptability of the language used in the Kozhiyala story that comes under the central area
of Tamil Muthuvan variety.
3.2.2.4 Kodakallu Mannan
A Mannan story was collected from the settlement of Kodakallu in Devikulam tahsil to investigate whether there is any variation in the Mannan variety, as had been reported by this people group. It was
believed that recording a story in one extreme end of the area and administering comprehension testing with it in another extreme end of the area would help clarify this situation. It was reported that people in
Kodakallu speak a pure variety of the Mannan language, as compared with other Mannan settlements in that region. This is an interior village and has little direct contact with outsiders. The researchers had
already made good contacts with the residents, which also supported the selection of this site for story collection.
3.2.2.5 Kumily Mannan
Kumily is located at an extreme southern end of the Mannan area. It was reported that their speech form has a unique style. Thus, it appeared to be a good location in which to check the acceptability and
understanding of the speech form used in the Kodakallu story.
3.2.3 Intelligibility testing results and analysis
The results of intelligibility testing are shown in table 9. The rows of the table list the villages where the stories were tested and the columns list each story used for testing. Hometown and control tests are given
in shaded boxes.
Table 9. Results of Recorded Text Testing
Stories Played Communities Tested
Snake Story Tamil Muthuvan
Our Lifestyle Story Malayalam Muthuvan
Elephant Story Mannan
Kozhiyala Tamil Muthuvan
Avg SD
N=
95 6.5
11
Thalayirappan Malayalam Muthuvan
Avg SD
N= 87
13.1 11
96 4.2
11
Kavakudi Tamil Muthuvan
Avg SD
N= 90
7.6 11
82 15.8
11 Kodakallu
Mannan Avg
SD N=
91 5.7
10
Kumily Mannan
Avg SD
N= 92
7.7 20
In interpreting RTT results, three pieces of information are necessary. The first is average percentage shown as Avg , which is the mean or average of all the participants’ individual scores on a particular
story at a particular test site. Also necessary is a measure of how much individuals’ scores varied from the community average, called standard deviation shown as SD. The third important piece of information is
the size of the sample, that is, the number of people that were tested at each site shown as N=. In addition, to be truly representative, a sample should include people from significant demographic
categories, such as both men and women, young and old, and educated and uneducated.
The relationship between test averages and their standard deviation has been summarised by Blair 1990:25 and can be seen in table 10.
Table 10. Relationship between test averages and standard deviation
Standard Deviation High
Low
Average Score
High
Situation 1 Many people understand the
story well, but some have difficulty.
Situation 2 Most people understand
the story.
Low
Situation 3 Many people cannot understand
the story, but a few are able to answer correctly.
Situation 4 Few people are able to
understand the story.
Since results of field-administered methods such as Recorded Text Testing cannot be completely isolated from potential biases, O’Leary 1994 recommends that results from RTTs not be interpreted in
terms of fixed numerical thresholds, but rather be evaluated in light of other indicators of intelligibility such as lexical similarity, dialect opinions, and reported patterns of contact and communication. In
general, however, RTT mean scores of around 80 or higher with accompanying low standard deviations usually ten and below; high standard deviations are about 15 and above are usually taken to indicate
that representatives of the test point dialect display adequate understanding of the variety represented by the recording. Conversely, RTT average scores below 60 are interpreted to indicate inadequate
comprehension. The following section highlights the results of comprehension testing, discussed in terms of the understanding of each story.
3.2.3.1 Tamil Muthuvan story
The test subjects of Kozhiyala scored well on their HTT with a low standard deviation, indicating that the story adequately represents their speech variety. Post-HTT responses indicate that the subjects believe
that the language in the story is good, pure and represents their area. The Tamil Muthuvan text from Kozhiyala was tested among Malayalam Muthuvan subjects at
Thalayirappan for comprehension. The Thalayirappan subjects averaged 87 on the Kozhiyala story with a standard deviation of 13.1 which is neither high nor low. It is thus believed that most Thalayirappan
Malayalam Muthuvan subjects understand the Kozhiyala Tamil Muthuvan story, but some have difficulty.
Five out of the 11 Thalayirappan subjects mentioned that the Muthuvan language of the Kozhiyala text was mixed with Tamil. Three of the subjects stated that the language is Muthuvan, whereas two said
that the language is not theirs. Most of the subjects mentioned the name of Tamil Muthuvan settlements as being the origin of the text. The subjects identified the language used in the story according to the
language variety Tamil mixing, the people Tamil Muthuvan and previous contact having lived in that area. Four out of the five subjects that were asked the question “Was the text pure?” reported that “Yes,
it is pure and good.” Most of the subjects mentioned that the language variety used in the text was somewhat different either a little different or very different from their local language variety. Seven out
of 11 subjects whom the researchers asked this question reported that they fully understood the story, whereas three said they did not.
The comprehension testing among Malayalam Muthuvan subjects showed that many of them understood the Tamil Muthuvan variety used in the story. It seems that the Malayalam Muthuvan subjects
accepted the Tamil Muthuvan variety as a good variety. Most of the subjects reported that Tamil has influenced the language used in the story.
The Tamil Muthuvan subjects from Kavakudi scored an average of 90 with a standard deviation of 7.6 on Kozhiyala story, indicating that the subjects understood the story well. The language of the story
was identified as their village variety or other Tamil Muthuvan village variety. The Post RTT responses reveal that the subjects understood the story fully and commented that the language was pure.
3.2.3.2 Malayalam Muthuvan story
Thalayirappan subjects scored an average of 96 on their HTT with a low standard deviation of 4.2, indicating a valid HTT and an understandable text. The text was understood and identified by all the
subjects as being from their own variety. They also reported that the language of the story was pure and good.
The story from Thalayirappan was played for subjects in Kavakudi, a Tamil Muthuvan settlement. This was done in order to test comprehension and to learn about attitudes towards the Malayalam
Muthuvan language variety. The subjects from Kavakudi scored an average of 82 with a standard deviation of 15.8. Though it can be interpreted that the Tamil Muthuvan subjects understood the story,
the high standard deviation indicates that some of them had problems understanding the text.
The Kavakudi subjects identified the Thalayirappan text as belonging to Muthuvan, by stating Malayalam Muthuvan settlement names as the origin of the story, such as Kurathikudi and Padikappu.
Almost all of them pointed out that the text was mixed with Malayalam and that helped them in identifying the text as being spoken in the Malayalam Muthuvan variety. Only four subjects were asked
whether the text was pure – to which three of them replied ‘yes’. All but one subject reported that the Thalayirappan text was only a little different from their speech.
3.2.3.3 Mannan story
The subjects for the Kodakallu HTT averaged a score of 91 with a standard deviation of 5.7 on the ‘elephant story’. The subjects identified the language of the story as being the same as they speak in their
village and said that the speech variety is good and free from any mixing, except for one subject who reported that there is one Malayalam word in the text.
The 20 Mannan subjects in Kumily had an average of 92 on the story from Kodakallu, with a low standard deviation of 7.7. Various responses were given concerning the origin of the story. Four
mentioned that the story was from their settlement, whereas five realised that the story was not from their place. Three subjects said that it belonged to Kovilmala, the king’s place. Some subjects mentioned
other places by name. Finally, another five subjects said that they did not know where the story was from. The responses, taken as a whole, give the impression that a majority of the Kumily subjects did not think
that the story was from their own village.
Most of the subjects reported that, because of the slight difference in style, wording and tone from that of their own speech, the story was not from their own area. All but five of the subjects considered the
speech good and pure. Two subjects said that it was not pure because they believe that Malayalam language was mixed into the text. Half of the subjects stated that there is no difference between their
speech and the speech of the story. And about half of the subjects reported that the ‘tone and wording’ of the story is a little different from how they speak. All of the subjects claimed to have fully understood the
story. Some RTT subjects suggested that there may be minor variation among the speech varieties of Mannan in their style, wording and tone. Some influence of Malayalam vocabulary can be observed.
Despite these observations, most subjects understood the story.
3.2.4 Conclusion
