After listening to the story, we asked respondents where they thought the storyteller was from, 100 replied “Hedangna.” Their ability to correctly identify the location the speaker is from tells us
there are identifiable differences between locations and that there is extensive exposure or contact with Hedangna speech.
Participants in Seduwa also reported a generally positive attitude towards the Yamphu spoken in Hedangna. In response to the question, “How do you like their speech?”, a majority of respondents
56 said the Hedangna Yamphu was “good.” The remaining 46 of respondents said it was “OK.” When we asked how different the language in the story was from their language variety, nearly all
respondents 86 sai d it is “a little different” than the Yamphu in their village.
7.4 Dialect Mapping data
The dialect mapping participatory method was carried out with two men from Hedangna. Two is not an ideal number of participants for dialect mapping. Still, the data gleaned from these two men is useful.
When asked about where Yamphu is spoken differently, they separated all the villages on the same ridge as Hedangna from Makalu Seduwa. They also mentioned several phonetic differences between
Hedangna and Seduwa. One example was a greater degree of retroflexion in Seduwa.
7.5 Previous research
In his introduction, Dr. Roland Rutgers discusses dialects of Yamphu 1998:7–8. Rutgers divides the Yamphu language into three dialects: Hedangna and the nearby villages of Uva, Pupuwa, Mansima, Ala,
and Uling, Seduwa and Valung, and Num. He collected data on the Seduwa dialect in 1991 and found that the dialect in Seduwa differs from the dialect in Hedangna by some notable phonological and
morphological features. It is possible that morphological differences are part of the reason people tested in Seduwa scored rather low on the RTT despite a lexical similarity between the locations that is not
significantly different than the similarity between Hedangna and Num or Khoktak.
7.6 Summary
Based on the average RTT score of 62 in Seduwa on the RTT from Hedangna, lexical similarity of 85 between wordlists from Hedangna and Seduwa, post-RTT responses that reflect perceived differences
between the language in the two villages, previous research by Rutgers, and dialect mapping information, we suggest that the Yamphu in Seduwa is a distinct dialect from the Yamphu in Hedangna.
In order to determine the nature of the differences between the two varieties, further investigation would be required. Any materials that are developed in Hedangna should be tested in Seduwa for extensibility
and acceptance.
Additionally, there is evidence to suggest that the language in NumKhoktak is also a bit different from Hedangna and from Seduwa, though further testing would have to be conducted to confirm this.
8 Summary and recommendations
8.1 Desires for development
