2 Goals of the research
The main research goal of this survey conducted in November 2004 was to determine the optimal language for literature and educational materials in ethnically Shabo areas. The main concepts involved
in addressing this question are language attitude and bilingualism. The objectives pertinent to these concepts include assessing the Shabo people’s attitudes toward and proficiency in both Majang and
Shekkacho.
The purpose of this study was not to look at possible changes in attitude and language use over time, since the previous research done on Shabo has focused largely on description of the language and
the attempt to classify it. In an effort to get an overview of the sociolinguistic situation and to find new information about language attitudes and multilingualism among the Shabo, the main strategy of the
study was the use of questionnaires described in section 3 below. The researchers hope this will provide a baseline for further studies that will compare the current data and conclusions to the future
status of language use in the Shabo area.
The research team decided to collect a wordlist as well, though it was outside the scope of the survey’s sociolinguistic goals. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, the team wanted to use the same
322-item elicitation list that was used for other languages surveyed by SIL Ethiopia and the Institute of Ethiopian Studies IES, enabling a direct comparison between those wordlists and the current one. Also,
previously published Shabo wordlists have been shorter. The one compiled by Anbessa and Unseth 1989, which includes data both from their own fieldwork and from Hoekstra’s list as published by
Bender 1983, includes 107 words. Fleming 1991 combined data from previous studies into a list of 268 words. The wordlist collected during this survey has already been consulted in a subsequent study
Schnoebelen 2009, and it is hoped that it will provide material for future comparative studies.
3 Methodology
Four different methods were used to accomplish the research goals. The procedures, data sources and analysis techniques for each are described below.
3.1 Procedures
3.1.1 Group and individual interviews
In Dushi village, the first community visited during this survey, a group sociolinguistic interview was conducted in order to get an overall picture of the sociolinguistic situation among the Shabo people
appendix A. The questionnaire was based on the S.L.L.E. Main Sociolinguistic Questionnaire as revised by Aklilu Yilma, Ralph Siebert and Kati Siebert Wedekind and Wedekind 2002. It was further revised
and retranslated into Amharic [amh] by Hussein Mohammed. Conducting this interview took several hours and covered the areas of multilingualism, language use, language attitudes, dialect attitudes, social
interaction patterns, language vitality and language development. The interviewer used Amharic and was assisted by a local interpreter, who translated between Amharic and Shabo so that all could
understand and contribute.
In Dushi, the group interview was followed by individual interviews with a cross-section of the population. These were also conducted in Yeri village, the second community visited during this survey.
The individual questionnaire includes a subset of the questions found in appendix A, focusing more on language attitudes, social interaction, language vitality and language development. It serves primarily to
double-check the accuracy of the information collected during the group interview. Again, the interviewer was assisted by a local interpreter when working with individual interviewees who were not
proficient in Amharic.
3.1.2 Bilingual proficiency self-evaluation
The Shabo people are found in an area of Ethiopia where both Majang and Shekkacho are spoken. Some bilingualism testing was therefore conducted to determine the level of proficiency in these languages and
to complement the evidence of language shift away from Shabo. Because no bilingualism test such as a Sentence Repetition Test SRT has been developed for either Majang or Shekkacho, a questionnaire was
used to investigate the Shabo’s self-reported proficiency in these languages.
The interview for bilingual proficiency was based on a questionnaire adapted from the US Foreign Service Institute Testing Kit, as reported by Grimes 1986. Its proficiency levels are based on those
established by the US Foreign Service Institute. It was translated into Amharic and slightly modified for use in Ethiopia. In the field, the questions were either asked directly in Amharic or through an
interpreter, as with the individual interviews described in section 3.1.1 above.
Ten subjects were tested in Dushi village for purposes of evaluating this methodology and for obtaining an estimate of bilingual proficiency in that community. The questionnaire was administered
orally, with each question to be answered by “yes” or “no”. All answers had to be “yes” through any given point in order to achieve at least the level of proficiency assigned to that set of questions see
appendix B. The exception was four items at the S-3 level, which required an answer of “no” in order to achieve level 3 proficiency.
3.1.3 Wordlists
