A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF UMUOBIALA DIALECT AND STANDARD IGBO LANGUAGE

ABSTRACT

This study examines a comparative analysis of Umuobiala Dialect and Standard Igbo language. It presents a comprehensive comparative analysis of linguistic features between the Umuobiala dialect and the standard Igbo language. This research was done in order to prove that Umuobiala dialect of Igbo and the standard Igbo language have a high degree of mutual intelligibility. This research work examined the words in these varieties by employing the use of SIL Comparative African Wordlist (1700 words) where 400 words was used out of the 1700 words for this study. The research work applied the Comparative method framework and lexicostatistics analysis framework in determining the cognate and non-cognate that occurs in the vocabulary of these varieties. This researcher collected primary data from oral interview which was also audio-recorded to preserve the natural flow of speech and ensure accurate transcription, and the secondary data which was collected from various sources, including literature, official documents, and traditional texts. The researcher used qualitative analysis approach to analyze data for this project in order to determine the degree of mutual intelligibility. The findings of the study reveal that about 73.5% linguistic similarities existed between Umuobiala dialect and standard Igbo language. The lexicostatistical analysis of the collected data showed a very high degree of intelligibility, with approximately 73.5% of total cognates, which includes 60.5% complete cognates and 13% partial cognates while the degree of non-cognates is 26.5%, demonstrating that Umuobiala dialect and standard Igbo language are mutually intelligible. This study recommends that scholars can use this work as guidelines to other research work such as lexico-syntactic analysis and morpho-semantic analysis.