LEXICOSTATISTICS ANALYSIS OF YORUBA, UTESE AND ITSEKIRI

ABSTRACT

This research is on lexicostatistic analysis of Yoruba, utese and itesekiri. The aim of this study is to establish the historical relationship between the different languages. The study examines the degree of relatedness between the languages by investigating the degree of mutual intelligibility among the speakers of the languages. The method of data collection and data analysis is done by using appropriate linguistic method both the primary and secondary method of data collection. The objective of this study is to highlight and interprete the similarities and differences between Yoruba, Utese and Itsekiri, this research shows the cognates, partial cognates, and non cognate, to establish the languages that has relatedness, by using the lexico statistic theoretical framework, the lexicostatistic is a method of comparative linguistic that involves comparing the percentage of lexical cognates between languages to determine their relationship. The finding of this work reveals that the Utese and Iteskiri language are single language on their own, they are not dialect of the Yoruba language because in other for a language to be considered to be a dialect it need to have 70 percent cognate words according to the lexicostatistic analysis.