the university of chicago the phonology and ... - SIL International

In some cases, differences in levels of intelligibility were observed within a
group. For example, in testing Linda speakers on Mono, some male speakers understood
the text well, many speakers understood the general outline of the text, whereas young
female speakers understood practically nothing in the text. In testing Yakpa speakers on
Mono, a group from one village understood both Mono texts well, but groups in two
other villages understood only the general outline of one text and nothing in the second
text. In testing Linda speakers on Ngbugu, most members of the group understood
nothing of the text, but a few men understood the general outline.
In general, speakers of Central Banda speech varieties had good intelligibility
with other Central Banda speech varieties, whereas texts from the Peripheral Banda
languages were usually not understood at all. This suggests that the Central Banda
varieties are best understood as dialects of a single language. However, due to the
tentative nature of the testing method, this must remain an open question until more
accurate testing is performed.
1.3 Ethnology and history
The Mono people live in the border region between the tropical rain forest to the
south and the savannah to the north. The year-round average high temperature is 90
degrees with about 65 inches of rain per year. The rainy season lasts from around April to
November, and the dry season from December to March each year.
The Mono people are predominantly agriculturalists. For subsistence, they raise
manioc, corn, rice, plantains, sweet potatoes, palm nuts, peanuts, spinach, tomatoes,
onions, pineapple, sugar cane, bananas, mangos, and papaya. As cash crops, they raise
tobacco, cotton, and coffee. A tobacco processing plant and a cotton company are located
in Bili. In addition, they raise small domesticated animals such as pigs, chicken, goats,
and sheep. Large domestic animals such as cattle and horses do not survive long in the
region due to the presence of tsetse flies. Hunting and fishing are common activities. The
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