CHAPTER ONE
BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
1.0 INTRODUCTION
This work sets out to do a comparative study to determine the status of the Ikere and Ijebu varieties of Yoruba in order to find areas of convergences and divergences which will help determine the level of mutual intelligibility between them. The motivation for this study is that there have been some controversies as to the relatedness between these two language varieties. Thiswork sets out to examine the Ekiti and Ijebu varieties of Yoruba in the light of these controversies and establishes their linguistic status as well.
The study is divided into four chapters. Chapter one is the general introduction to the study. It entails the preliminaries, the Ikere and Ijebu varieties of Yoruba: the languages and peoples, the aim, scope of study, significance and methodology of study. In chapter two a review of relevant literature is carried out. It entails a linguistic viewpoint, a theoretical review, definition of terms and definition of terms. For chapter three, the data collected is analyzed and the results are also presented to show the convergence and divergence between the Ikere and Ijebu varieties of Yoruba. Chapter four entails the concluding remarks where the summary of work done, findings and conclusion are presented. This is followed by the references and appendix sections.
Languages are used in different forms, in different situations and for different purposes. This use of language has given birth to various forms. For example if a dialect is defined as a geographical sub-division of language, we do not come very far without the definition of language and sub-division is not a very clear concept either. Therefore discussions of the terms will be necessary. These discussions will be treated in the second chapter of this study.
According to Catford (1965:84), a language variety is:
“a subset of formal and or substantial features which correlateregularly with a particular type of socio-situational feature”.
A language can thus be defined as abody of words and system used for communication among people of a particular nation or area. This definition only scratches the surface of language as a whole, but it is essential in the understanding of the afore-mentioned terms.
A dialect then,is a variety of language that is distinguished from other varieties of the same language by features of phonology,grammar and vocabulary, and by its use by a group of speakerswho are set off from others geographically or socially.
This work sets out to do a comparative study to determine the status of the Ikere and Ijebu varieties of the Yoruba language in order to find the areas of convergences and divergences which will help determine the level of mutual intelligibility.
However, there has been some controversies as to the relatedness or otherwise between these two varieties. This work also sets out to examine these varieties and establish the linguistics status of these varieties as well.