Citation
James J. Tyhurst. 1988. “Cultural identity perceived as linguistic identity: Results from a survey of the Nyang languages”. Presented at the 19th Annual African Linguistics Conference, Boston University, April 14-17, 1988.
Abstract
Linguistic and sociolinguistic data are both needed for surveys whose purpose is to identify the different dialect and language groups of a particular geographical region. This paper presents the results of a language survey among the Nyang languages of western Cameroon. The survey consisted of two questionnaires. A linguistic questionnaire tested for pronunciation differences and lexical differences between dialects and languages. A sociolinguistic questionnaire sampled speakers’ opinions about dialect and language boundaries. The results of the survey exhibit two ways in which speakers’ perceptions of what constitutes a speech community may differ from a linguist’s analysis of purely linguistic data. In one situation, speakers claimed to be part of separate language groups, even though the linguistic differences were quite minor and even though they agreed that intercomprehension was possible. Conversely, another pair of groups claimed linguistic unity, whereas the linguistic data indicated significant dialect differences (e.g. different noun class prefixes). There are several practical consequences of these results. First, due to the problem of sampling every village in a particular region, linguistic surveys often resort to the (sociolinguistic) question, “Which other villages speak the way that you do?” The results of the Nyang survey show that the answer to this question may not provide the information that the linguist is seeking. Second, the survey demonstrates that both the linguist’s and the speaker’s view of the linguistic community must be considered in order to provide a solid basis for language development programs. The choice of a reference dialect and the extent to which literature will be accepted in a community depends both on linguistic factors of intercomprehension and on sociolinguistic attitudes about speech communities.