ABSTRACT
A lot of works have been done on Igbo language classification and description. On the other hand, not too many works have been done on the Ika language and the contrast of Igbo and Ika varieties. The focus of this study however, is to carry out a contrastive analysis between the Ika and Igbo varieties. Previous works done on both varieties are focused on the establishment of the structural relatedness of Ika to Igbo language as well as the structural description of the varieties.
The hypothesis of this research is that Ika is a dialect of Igbo language. This research therefore is focused on establishing the structural relatedness of Ika to Igbo language which is the criteria for judging what varieties are dialects of same language and those that are not.
The data collected for this research was collected using the University of Benin two hundred word list. The language samples collected were subjected to an adequate linguistic analysis using the Lexicostatistics framework.
The findings of this research includes that Ika is not a language on its own but a dialect of Igbo language. It was observed that there is high degree of mutual intelligibility between the two compared varieties.
The research concludes that the structural closeness as well as the high level of mutual intelligibility between Ika and Igbo cannot be as a result of mere coincidence, language contact, or language borrowing but that Ika is related (structurally) to Igbo language than it is apart from it. In this research therefore, Ika is concluded to be a dialect of Igbo language.
