A Sociolinguistic Survey of Nilgiri Irula

DigitalResources Electronic Survey Report 2018-010

Researched and compiled by Sylvia Ernest, Clare O’Leary, and Juliana Kelsall A Sociolinguistic Survey of Nilgiri Irula

Researched and compiled by Sylvia Ernest, Clare O’Leary, and Juliana Kelsall

SIL International® 2018

Data and materials collected by researchers in an era before documentation of permission was standardized may be included in this publication. SIL makes diligent efforts to identify and acknowledge sources and to obtain appropriate permissions wherever possible, acting in good faith and on the best information available at the time of publication

Abstract

The purpose of this sociolinguistic survey of three Nilgiri Irula [iru] speech varieties (Mele Nadu, Vette Kada, and Northern) was to provide an initial assessment of the viability of vernacular literature development. The fieldwork was conducted during the latter half of 1992 and the early part of 1993. The original report was written as an unpublished paper that was completed in mid-1993. The research instruments used for this survey were wordlists, Recorded Text Testing (RTT), sociolinguistic questionaires, and a Tamil Sentence Repetition Test (SRT) that was developed during the course of the fieldwork. SRT results indicated that more than half of Irula speakers, especially those living in more remote villages, would probably have difficulty using complex written materials in Tamil. Questionaire results indicated that Irula is a vital language and is being maintained consistently within the Irula community. RTT results, along with dialect attitudes and reported contact patterns, tentatively pointed to Mele Nadu Irula as the preferred form for language development and literacy materials.

(This survey report written some time ago deserves to be made available even at this late date. Conditions were such that it was not published when originally written. The reader is cautioned that more recent research may exist. Historical data is quite valuable as it provides a basis for a longitudinal analysis and helps us understand both the trajectory and pace of change as compared with more recent studies.—Editor)

Contents

Abstract 1 Introduction 1.1 Geography 1.2 The Irula people 1.3 Varieties of the Irula language 1.4 Irula groups excluded from this research 1.5 Goals of the sociolinguistic survey of Nilgiri Irula 1.5.1 Identification of Irula dialect areas 1.5.2 Intelligibility between Irula dialects 1.5.3 Dialect attitudes and contact patterns between different Irula communities 1.5.4 Language attitudes and use: Irula vs. Tamil, Kannada, Badaga 1.5.5 Levels of proficiency in Tamil among the Irula 1.6 Summary of findings 1.6.1 Identification of Irula dialect areas 1.6.2 Intelligibility between Irula dialects 1.6.3 Dialect attitudes and contact patterns between different Irula communities 1.6.4 Language attitudes and use: Irula vs. Tamil, Kannada, Badaga 1.6.5 Levels of proficiency in Tamil among the Irula 2 Dialects of Irula 2.1 Lexical similarity 2.1.1 Procedures 2.1.2 Irula dialect areas 2.1.3 Lexical similarity with related and neighboring languages 2.2 Intelligibility between Irula dialects 2.2.1 Identification of test points for RTTs and sampling 2.2.2 Results of recorded text testing 2.2.3 Perceived comprehension of texts vs. RTT scores 2.2.4 Mixing of Tamil as an aid to comprehension of RTT texts 2.2.5 Conclusions regarding dialects of Nilgiri Irula 3 Language use, attitudes, and vitality 3.1 Procedures 3.2 Dialect attitudes and contact patterns between different Irula communities 3.2.1 Perceived dialect similarity and difference 3.2.2 Communication and contact patterns between dialect areas 3.2.3 Perceptions of dialect purity or mixing 3.2.4 Positive or negative attitudes towards other dialects 3.3 Language attitudes and use: Irula vs. Tamil, Kannada, Badaga 3.3.1 Domains in which Irula is consistently used 3.3.2 Domains in which other languages are reported to be used 3.3.3 Attitudes regarding language use for education and literature 3.3.4 Attitudes and beliefs regarding the maintenance of Irula 4 Levels of second language proficiency among the Irula 4.1 Reported proficiency in Tamil/Kannada/Badaga according to questionnaires 4.2 Tested levels of Tamil proficiency on the Tamil SRT in Nellithurai 4.2.1 Sampling for the Tamil SRT in Nellithurai 4.2.2 Tamil SRT results 4.2.3 Conclusions based on the Tamil SRT results 5 Recommendations for an Irula language program 5.1 Recommendations for further research 5.2 Recommendations for language development iii

Appendix A: Lexical similarity study procedures and additional matrices Appendix B: Irula wordlists Appendix C: Recorded Text Test (RTT) procedures Appendix D: Transcribed Irula texts used for Recorded Text Tests Appendix E: Tamil sentence repetition test (SRT) procedures Appendix F: Tamil SRT results Appendix G: Bibliography of additional references on Irula References

1 Introduction

1.1 Geography

In Tamil Nadu, the people of the Irula tribe live in several districts, including Nilgiri, Coimbatore, Periyar, Salem, and Chengai Anna (formerly Chengalput or Chingleput). This survey was done only in the Nilgiri and Coimbatore districts. Map 1 shows the political divisions by state, district, and taluk in southern India. The Nilgiri district covers a surface of 2,549 square kilometers at an average elevation of 6,500 feet. Mysore plateau lies at the north and Kerala state at the west. At the east lies the Bhavani River. Zvelebil (1981:470) says, One of the most striking features of the Nilgiris [the mountains from which the district derives its name] is their massive appearance. In every direction the sides of the hills leading up to the plateau are steep and often precipitous. To the southeast, east, and northeast there is a steep fall of about 5,000 feet to the Coimbatore plains. On the northwest the slope is more gradual, but to the north there is a steep fall of about 4,000 feet. The steep sides leading up to the plateau were until a few decades ago, and to a great extent still are (particularly in the west, northwest, and north) covered with thick, almost impenetrable jungle and precipitous rocks, inhabited by the tribal complexes of the Kurumbas and the Irulas. The Nilgiri district consists of four taluks: Gudalur, Ootacamund (Ooty), Kotagiri, and Coonoor. According to the 1971 census (Census of India 1971), the total population of this district is 494,015 (without Badugas). Mettupalayam taluk (the only taluk of Coimbatore district covered in this survey) lies southeast, at the foothills of the Nilgiris range.

1.2 The Irula people

Irula is one of the tribes in the state of Tamil Nadu. Irulas also live in the adjacent states of Karnataka, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh. The name Irula is probably derived from the Tamil [tam]1 word irul. Since most of the Irulas live in the relative darkness of thick jungles, this seems to be a fitting name. Another possible reason for the name is the fact that the complexion of the people’s skin is very dark. There is no written record of the origin and migration of the Irulas of the Nilgiris. According to some Irulas, they migrated from the plains. One Irula man told a story about the origin of the Irula people and their kulams (clans). He said that a long time ago, before the creation of human beings, the Hindu deity Lord Shiva and his wife Parvathy came to this world on a tour. At that time, Lord Shiva took two handfuls of mud and made two images, which he left on the ground as he and Parvathy continued their tour.

1Ethnologue (Simons and Fenning 2018) ISO language codes are listed only with the first occurrence of each language name in this report.

Map 1. Map of Southern India

Adapted from Wikimedia CC BY-SA 3.0. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nilgiris_district_Tamil_Nadu.png. (Accessed on 6/30/2014).

While they were returning back to heaven, Parvathy asked Shiva to give those two images life. So he gave them life, and they became a man and a woman. They gave birth to eight children: Kupper, Sambar, Devanar, Kalketti, Koduvar, Pungar, Parader, and Kurunagar. Hence, the eight Irula kulams have been classified according to these eight names. The kulams play a very important role for the Irulas in marriage and other social functions. For example, they have a restriction that they cannot marry within the same kulam. Irulas are non-vegetarians, and they eat rice and pulses. They drink coffee and tea. Most Irulas work as laborers in the coffee and tea estates for very low wages. They also have their own gardens where they cultivate coffee, tea, jack fruit trees, and guava trees. Every Irula settlement has its own leader who is called the maniyakarar. He is responsible for the whole village and is very important in their social functions such as marriages and funerals. Irulas bury their dead, in contrast to cremation (as is practiced by caste Hindus).

1.3 Varieties of the Irula language

The Irula [iru] language is a South Dravidian language closely related to Tamil. In this survey, three major dialects of Irula were investigated among the Irula people living in the Nilgiris and the surrounding region. According to the work of several scholars (Parthasarathy 1986; Perialwar 1987 and 1991; Zvelebil 1973, 1979, and 1981), these dialect groups have been named: Mele Nadu Irulas live in small mountain villages in the Kotagiri and Coonoor taluks in the Nilgiris. Mele Nadu indicates the upper country dialect of Irula. Vette Kada Irulas live mostly on the plains and foothills south of the Nilgiris range, primarily in the Mettapalayam and Coimbatore taluks of Coimbatore district. These Irula are sometimes also called Irula Pallars. In terms of population, the Mele Nadu and Vette Kada Irulas combined were estimated at 5,800 in 1978 (Zvelebil 1981). Northern Irulas or Kasabas live on the northwestern side of the Nilgiris range, in the foothills and plains towards Karnataka state. The Northern Irula dialect group is the smallest in terms of population, estimated in 1978 to number around 1,000 (Zvelebil 1981). Although the Northern Irula are sometimes referred to as Kasabas in the published literature (Parthasarathy 1986; Perialwar 1987, 1991; Zvelebil 1973, 1981), individuals interviewed in the course of this study explained that the term Kasaba (which may be derived from the Tamil word meaning ‘confused’) is somewhat derogatory and that they referred to themselves only as Irula. Thus, this dialect group is distinguished as Northern Irula throughout this study. The position of Irula as a separate language from Tamil or as a divergent form of Tamil has been debated by scholars. Zvelebil (1973:3–5) points out, Since Irulas were first mentioned in literature, their language has always been considered as a form of Tamil, usually ‘bad’, ‘vulgar’, and ‘corrupt’ Tamil. Some of the Irulas, though not all of them, are inclined to regard their language as a kind of ‘bad Tamil’, too. Zvelebil goes on to reference several late nineteenth and early twentieth century scholars whose works refer to Irula as a corruption of Tamil. More recent linguistic research by Diffloth (1968) and by Zvelebil (1973, 1979, 1981, 1982) has emphasized the affinities between Irula and pre-literary and early literary Tamil. Diffloth (1968) has labeled Irula as “a close relative of Tamil,” and as “a Dravidian language of the Tamil-Malayalam group.” Zvelebil (1973:58) considers Irula “an independent South Dravidian language closely akin to Tamil, especially Old Tamil, with some Kannada-like features.” He posits that Irula must have separated from Tamil quite early, before the separation between Tamil and Malayalam.

1.4 Irula groups excluded from this research

Irula peoples living beyond the Nilgiris and surrounding area are also identified by several different names. There are four major groups of Irula peoples which were not investigated in the course of this survey. The Urali are the fourth major dialect group speaking a language which is said to be a divergent form of Irula. This group lives in the Sathayamangalam area of Periyar district in Tamil Nadu, east of Nilgiri district. Zvelebil (1979:475) estimated that there may be approximately 3,000 Urali Irula speakers, though no census has counted the Urali as a separate group. Mohan Lal (1991) has given the most complete description of Urali. His work treats Urali as “a distinct speech variety” (41), though he notes the shared features with Tamil, Irula, and Kannada [kan]. Mohan Lal says that the Uralis believe their ancestors “migrated to their present place from the Nilgiri mountains centuries ago....There is no evidence to show that the Uralis…have contact at present with the Irulas of Nilgiris. Between these two ethnic communities, there is no social or linguistic contact.” There are small villages of Irula or Iruliga in southern Karnataka state, perhaps numbering between 700 and 3,000 persons. According to Kempe Gowda (1974:11, quoted in Perialwar 1991) the Karnataka Irula dialect “lexically, phonologically, and structurally resembles more with Kannada than with Tamil.” Irulas related to the Vette Kada Irulas of Tamil Nadu are living in the Attapaddy area of Kerala state. Perialwar (1991:44) states that these Irula originally came from the Vette Kada Irula areas of the Coimbatore District, through a mass migration during the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries. Perialwar (1991:45) reports that the Attapaddy Irula dialect is divergent from the dialects in Tamil Nadu, although there are some marital alliances between the Attapaddy Irula and the Vette Kada Irula of the Coimbatore District. The 1981 census (Census of India 1981) reports 17,832 Irula in Kerala, though no distinction is made between the Irula tribal designation and those maintaining the Irula language. The largest numbers of persons reporting themselves as Irulas according to the 1961 census (Census of India 1961) are not living in the Nilgiris region, but in the following districts: Chengai Anna, formerly Chengalput or Chingleput (24,000 persons); Ambedkar and Tiruvannamalai Sambuvarayar, together formerly North Arcot (21,000); South Arcot (12,000); Salem (4,600); and Tiruchirappalli (2,000). Perialwar (1991:47) has claimed that Excluding the different sub-groups of Irulas found in the districts of Nilgiris, Coimbatore, and Periyar of Tamil Nadu (also Attapadi Irulas of Kerala), all other Irulas found in Tamil Nadu are speaking only local Tamil dialects. It seems that except the common name Irula, they are linguistically and ethnically different. Zvelebil (1973:4, 8) has also pointed out the confusion between caste and tribal designations of different Irula groups, particularly in the census figures for these regions; he states that the Irula of Nilgiris are a separate group from the Irula in these regions and indicates doubt as to whether these Irula ever spoke something akin to the Nilgiri Irula language. However, no scholar has recorded any specimen of the language spoken by those ethnically labelled as Irula in these regions, nor given any conclusive evidence about their levels of proficiency in Tamil. If these large numbers of Irula people speak a form of language which they would call “Irula,” it is likely to be quite different from that spoken in the Nilgiris area. Other names which have been used to refer to Irula or possibly Irula-related peoples include Irular, Iruligar, Illiga, Irava, Korava, Eravallan, Yerukala/Erukala, and Kad Chensu. Eravallan and Yerukala are names used in Karnataka and Kad Chensu in Andhra Pradesh.

1.5 Goals of the sociolinguistic survey of Nilgiri Irula

The purpose of the Irula survey was to provide an initial assessment of the viability of vernacular literature development with regard to dialect intelligibility, bilingualism, and language attitudes. There are two major questions regarding translation of vernacular literature into Irula:

1. Are the Irula sufficiently proficient in Tamil to enable them to understand Tamil materials? Is Irula literature development needed on the grounds that Irula people exhibit only limited proficiency in Tamil? 2. If language development in Irula is proposed, which dialect of Irula would be the most effective vehicle for the development of written literature? The objectives of the Irula survey could thus be divided into five areas of investigation. These divisions and the relevant issues included under each are listed below.

1.5.1 Identification of Irula dialect areas

The three major Irula dialect areas described in section 1.3 were investigated. This included only those Irula people living in the Nilgiris and surrounding region. As mentioned in section 1.4, there are several other areas where ethnic groups calling themselves Irula are located. The investigation of the sociolinguistic situation among these other Irula groups, and the comparison of such findings with the results of this study, is an area for future research.

Lexical similarity between three Irula dialect groups

The similarity of lexical usage between Irula speech communities was investigated through the collection and comparison of eleven wordlists. The goal of the wordlist investigation is the identification of dialect groups according to percentages of similar lexical items in current use. Thus, the procedures for determining similarity groups require the grouping of identical or very similar pronunciations of the elicited words. The results are therefore somewhat different than a comparative historical cognate count. A description of procedures used is summarized in Appendix A and a fuller explanation is given in Blair 1990:26–33.

Lexical similarity with related and neighboring languages

In addition to evaluating the similarity between Irula speech forms, the Irula wordlists were compared with previously gathered data from six related and neighboring linguistic varieties: Coimbatore Tamil, Kannada, Badaga [bfq], Alu Kurumba [xua], Betta Kurumba [xub], and Jennu Kurumba [xuj]. When investigating the percentage of similarity between related languages, the same counting principles were used as in the comparisons between Irula varieties. The goal of comparing Irula varieties with other related languages is an initial evaluation of relative levels of similarity between these languages and the collected Irula lists. The Irula varieties that can be identified with unusually high percentages of lexical similarity with other languages may be the less “pure” varieties of Irula showing more convergence with dominant neighboring languages.

1.5.2 Intelligibility between Irula dialects

Intelligibility between spoken varieties was evaluated by testing the comprehension of recorded texts from each of the three dialect areas. The texts used were simple narratives elicited in the following villages: Kolikarai from the Mele Nadu dialect, Nellithurai from the Vette Kada dialect, and Anaikatty from the Northern Irula dialect. These sites were selected to represent each of the three areas and to evaluate intelligibility between geographic extremes represented in these data. In addition to tested comprehension of texts, reported intelligibility was inferred from questionnaire and interview data collected in each of these three sites.

Assessment of intelligibility through recorded text tests (RTTs)

The method for recorded text testing (RTT) is described in detail in Casad 1974 and in Blair 1990. A brief summary of the method is given in Appendix C of this report. The main purpose for recorded text

6 testing is to collect a numerical indicator of the level of intelligibility that would be expected between speakers of the Irula dialect represented by the recorded text and those represented by a sample of test subjects in the test location. The results for each recorded text are expressed as the average of the percentage of correct answers to selected comprehension questions given by subjects from one test location.

Perceived comprehension of texts through interviews

In response to the taped texts, subjects were asked questions regarding how much they understood, and how similar or different the taped variety is from their own native dialect. These assessments are intended to offer a subjective or qualitative perspective on the numerical indicators given by RTT averages. The support or counterevidence gathered through these interviews is summarized in a discussion comparing these findings with the RTT results.

1.5.3 Dialect attitudes and contact patterns between different Irula communities

Interviews based on two standard questionnaires were used to gather information on four different areas related to attitudes toward Irula dialects and contacts between dialect groups. These results are summarized and discussed in terms of the potential impact of these factors on language program decisions in the following four areas:

Perceived dialect similarity and difference

Members of each of the three test communities were interviewed regarding areas where their language was the same or similar, versus areas where the Irula variety is different and perhaps difficult to understand.

Communication and contact patterns between dialect areas

Interviewed subjects were asked about the frequency of their contacts with speakers like those represented on the recorded texts. Questions relate to travel to other dialect regions, and frequency of communication and intermarriage with Irula from other areas.

Perceptions of dialect purity or mixing

Test subjects were asked to evaluate the “purity” of the Irula speech represented in the taped texts. In addition, interview subjects were asked whether the Irula spoken in their village is “pure” or “mixed.” If a speech form was identified as “mixed,” subjects were asked which languages are mixed with the Irula spoken in the identified location.

Positive or negative attitudes towards other dialects

In response to questions about perceived differences in the recorded texts, subjects often expressed attitude comments related to the speech forms and communities in a given location. In addition, test subjects were asked whether they would give their son or daughter in marriage to members of a community that speak like the recorded variety. Such questions lead to discussions of whether a dialect is perceived as prestigious or stigmatized.

1.5.4 Language attitudes and use: Irula vs. Tamil, Kannada, Badaga

In addition to attitudes and contact with other Irula dialects, the attitudes and use of languages other than Irula were also investigated through interviews. The goal of such investigations is an evaluation of the vitality of the Irula language and of the potential acceptance of published materials in the Irula language. Results from these interview questionnaires are summarized and discussed in terms of their impact on potential language programs. There are four areas of investigation regarding attitudes toward and use of other languages.

Domains in which Irula is consistently used

Given several questions asking which language is used in particular situations, subjects often responded that only Irula is used in some situations. When Irula is reported consistently, particularly in the home and family domain and in other community interactions, such reports serve as evidence of language maintenance.

Domains in which other languages are reported to be used

Since other languages are also used by many Irula, the situations in which these languages are chosen indicate the types of multilingualism in various Irula villages. If other languages are frequently chosen in situations where the interactants are both Irula, there may be a threat to the vitality of the Irula language. Conversely, if other languages are only chosen when situations involve non-Irula, such interactions indicate a more stable bilingual or multilingual situation.

Attitudes regarding language use for education and literature

Interview subjects were asked whether they have previously seen any printed materials in Irula. They were also asked whether they would be interested in materials such as books or stories in their own language. Their attitudes regarding appropriate choice of language for use in schools are also investigated through questionnaires.

Attitudes and beliefs regarding the maintenance of Irula

Finally, the area of Irula vitality was investigated directly by asking questions regarding beliefs about the future of the Irula language. Subjects were also asked if they know of any Irula who cannot speak the Irula language.

1.5.5 Levels of proficiency in Tamil among the Irula

Since Tamil is the dominant language of the state and often serves as the lingua franca between language groups in the Nilgiris region, the role of Tamil deserves further attention. In particular, we are interested in the levels of proficiency in Tamil displayed by different sub-groups within each Irula village. In this study, Tamil proficiency is measured by a sentence repetition test (SRT); these tested results are for only one of the Irula villages—Nellithurai in the Vette Kada dialect group. Other information on proficiency is gleaned from interviews in which subjects were asked to evaluate their own proficiency in Tamil in comparison with the ease and fluency with which they speak their native Irula.

Reported proficiency in Tamil according to questionnaires

Results on reported Tamil proficiency are summarized and discussed as indicators of relative levels of Tamil in the three villages where data were collected. These results are compared to the indicators from the tested results on the Tamil SRT.

Tested levels of Tamil proficiency on Tamil SRT in Nellithurai

Test scores on the Tamil SRT were statistically analyzed according to the gender, education level, and age group of each subject. Based on what is known about the community profile of the Nellithurai village versus other Irula villages, inferences can be drawn about probable levels of Tamil proficiency in other areas. These results are examined to evaluate the proportion of the Irula population which may be expected to have high enough proficiency in Tamil to use Tamil language written materials.

1.6 Summary of findings

1.6.1 Identification of Irula dialect areas

Findings regarding lexical similarity between three Irula dialect groups

The basic grouping of Irula into three dialect areas (Mele Nadu, Vette Kada, and Northern Irula) as described in section 1.3 is supported by the wordlist results obtained in this study. Within each of the three dialect groups, there are moderately high levels of lexical similarity. However, when the speech of one dialect group is compared with that of another, the lexical similarity drops drastically. With such low levels of similar words used between Irula dialect groups, we would expect to find problems of intelligibility between speakers of different dialects.

Findings regarding lexical similarity with related and neighboring languages

Significant levels of similarity were shown between Vette Kada Irula varieties and Coimbatore Tamil. Kannada and related “Kannadoid” varieties (Jennu Kurumba, Alu Kurumba, and Badaga) showed unusually high levels of lexical similarity with the Bookapuram Irula list. These results indicate that the two Vette Kada Irula lists, especially the Nellithurai list, show unusual convergence with Tamil and are thus atypical forms of Irula. In addition, the Bookapuram list contrasts even with other lists in the Northern Irula dialect group, showing an unusually high number of words also used in Kannada, Badaga, Jennu Kurumba, and Alu Kurumba.

1.6.2 Intelligibility between Irula dialects

Intelligibility findings through recorded text tests

The recorded text test results indicate that the Nellithurai story was understood the best overall in the two non-hometown test points. However, the Kolikarai story was also quite well understood in Anaikatty. The Anaikatty story was not well understood outside its hometown area. These results are somewhat surprising in the context of the wordlist data. On the basis of lexical similarity, lower levels of intelligibility would be expected, particularly for the Nellithurai dialect. The good intelligibility indicated by the Nellithurai RTT results seems to be a product of the higher number of Tamil words included in the Nellithurai text, and thus reflects widespread acquired intelligibility of Tamil throughout the region. If the Nellithurai story were tested in more remote Mele Nadu and Northern Irula areas where there are fewer people who speak Tamil well, it is likely that their understanding of the story would be lower.

Findings regarding perceived comprehension of texts

Most subjects said that they were able to understand the stories from both of the other dialect areas well or quite well. Except in a few cases, these perceptions of comprehension agree with the results of the RTT scores. Some Nellithurai and Anaikatty subjects, who reported that they understood the Kolikarai story better than their RTT scores indicated, may not have answered the questions as well as expected due to reasons other than poor intelligibility.

1.6.3 Dialect attitudes and contact patterns between different Irula communities

Dialect attitudes and contact patterns tentatively point to Mele Nadu Irula as the preferred form for development as a medium for translation and literacy materials.

Findings regarding perceived dialect similarity and difference

Questionnaire subjects were asked about areas where the Irula language is similar or different from their variety of Irula. These results generally support the dialect patterns shown by lexical similarity and intelligibility assessment.

Findings regarding communication and contact patterns between dialect areas

Analysis of questionnaire responses regarding travel, communication, and marriage patterns between Irula living in the three dialect areas indicates that there are relatively few contacts between the three regions. However, most of the Northern Irula and Vette Kada Irula subjects questioned had some contact with the Mele Nadu Irula areas. There were no reported contacts between the Northern Irula and the Vette Kada Irula.

Findings regarding perceptions of dialect purity or mixing

Questionnaire and interview results seem to indicate that most subjects perceived their own variety of Irula as pure. However, the Nellithurai story was perceived as the most mixed with Tamil, which is consistent with the word count in the story mentioned above. Some Kolikarai subjects stated that no form of Irula is pure, but that all Irula is mixed with such languages as Tamil, Kannada, Badaga, and varieties called Kurumba.

Findings regarding positive or negative attitudes towards other dialects

Attitude question results seem to indicate that the Nellithurai speech is not viewed positively by some Mele Nadu Irula subjects. Neither the Northern Irula speakers nor the Vette Kada Irula speakers reported any negative attitudes toward Mele Nadu Irula.

1.6.4 Language attitudes and use: Irula vs. Tamil, Kannada, Badaga

Results indicate that Irula is a very vital language and is maintained consistently within the Irula community. Strong social networks within the Irula community separating Irula from other ethnic groups in the areas support the maintenance of the Irula language for many years to come. There was no evidence of negative attitudes toward the Irula language.

Findings regarding domains in which Irula is consistently used

Irula is reported to be used by all Irula subjects in their homes and with their children. Except in one unusual case, no other language was reported to be used in the home. Irula is consistently used within the villages and with Irula village elders or shopkeepers. Most subjects reported praying or doing puja in the Irula language.

Findings regarding domains in which other languages are reported to be used

Tamil (or Kannada in the Northern Irula area) is reported to be used for purposes outside the village (e.g., for marketing in neighboring towns). Thus it appears that Tamil is not intruding into the lives of Irula people except in domains in which they must contact non-Irulas.

Attitude findings regarding language use for education and literature

All Irulas expressed interest in the possibility of books being printed in Irula. However, when subjects were asked whether they would like Irula-speaking teachers to use Irula in school to help their children learn more easily, many subjects responded negatively. They expressed a preference for Tamil medium in education, saying that Tamil was necessary for their children to get ahead in the world.

Findings regarding attitudes and beliefs about the maintenance of Irula

All Irulas expressed the belief that Irula is not being replaced by Tamil, and that Irula will not die. These beliefs are strongly supported by the consistent maintenance of Irula in the home and with children. No Irula children were reported as not being able to speak Irula except those few children who were from mixed marriages. Because mixed marriages between Irulas and other groups are very rare, the impact of intermarriage on language maintenance of Irula is negligible.

1.6.5 Levels of proficiency in Tamil among the Irula

Reported proficiency in Tamil according to questionnaire findings

Most Irulas reported that they speak Tamil well, although some subjects in each of the villages reported their proficiency as not very high. It is likely that subjects in more remote Irula villages would report less proficiency in Tamil.

Tamil SRT test results indicating levels of Tamil proficiency in Nellithurai

The Tamil SRT was used only in the Vette Kada Irula village of Nellithurai. The assumption in interpreting the results for Nellithurai, in comparison to the expected proficiency in other Irula areas, was that Nellithurai Irulas would exhibit the highest levels of proficiency in Tamil that could be expected in any Irula village because of their relative closeness to the Tamil-speaking cities of Mettapalayam and Coimbatore and because their variety of Irula contains the highest proportion of Tamil words. The Tamil SRT results were relatively high, as expected. Almost half of the Nellithurai subjects performed at a level which indicates very good, general proficiency in Tamil, though this level is lower than the level of a native speaker. Only three of the forty-three subjects performed at the highest level on the SRT. The remainder, about half the sample, performed at levels which indicate marginal or lower proficiency in Tamil, probably inadequate for understanding complex materials. From these results we can infer that approximately half the Irulas in Nellithurai would have difficulty understanding complex materials in Tamil. This implies that much more than half of the Irula living in more remote villages would have difficulty using Tamil language materials.

2 Dialects of Irula

2.1 Lexical similarity

2.1.1 Procedures

Before the SIL team arrived, a 187-item wordlist was elicited by Sylvia Ernest from mother-tongue speakers of Irula speech varieties spoken at eleven villages in the Nilgiris and the surrounding region, as listed in table 1. These wordlists were transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet. Appendix A describes the lexical similarity study procedures, and the wordlists appear in Appendix B. A 187-item wordlist in Coimbatore Tamil was also elicited by Sylvia Ernest. Six wordlists of varying lengths were also culled from a previous survey of Kurumba dialects (Blair 2012) for comparison of Irula varieties with neighboring languages studied in that survey.

Table 1. Irula wordlist collection sites

Dialect group District Taluk Village Mele Nadu Nilgiri Kotagiri Kunjapanai Kolikarai Chemmanarai Kilkupkad Mettukal Northern Nilgiri Ootacamund Chokkanalli Mavanalla Anaikatty Bookapuram Vette Kada Coimbatore Mettupalayam Thaliyur Nellithurai

Experience shows that double-checking of wordlists tends to increase lexical similarity percentages. However, double-checking was not accomplished in this study.

2.1.2 Irula dialect areas

The matrix in table 2 presents the results of comparisons among the eighteen wordlists under consideration, expressed as a percentage of lexical similarity. As much as possible in this chart, those varieties that are more similar are placed next to one another, with spaces inserted to draw attention to dialect groupings.

Table 2. Lexical similarity percentages matrix Kunjapanai 80 Kolikarai 78 80 Chemmanarai Mele Nadu Irula 79 84 82 Kilkupkad 81 84 84 86 Mettukkal ──────────────────── 68 73 67 68 69 Chokkanalli 65 70 64 64 66 82 Mavanalla Northern Irula 64 66 63 62 63 78 77 Anaikatty

37 38 39 37 38 48 48 47 Bookapuram ──────────────────────────── 65 64 65 66 66 57 54 54 33 Thaliyur Vette Kada Irula 60 59 57 58 60 53 51 54 36 75 Nellithurai ─────────────────────────────────────── 50 47 48 48 50 46 44 45 30 59 69 Coimbatore Tamil 37 33 35 34 34 31 35 34 53 28 33 30 Kannada 36 34 36 34 35 33 33 31 44 32 32 31 50 Badaga Other Languages 38 38 40 39 39 35 37 36 45 32 32 28 53 64 Alu Kurumba 31 29 29 29 28 23 26 23 27 28 28 24 38 38 38 Betta Kurumba 37 36 34 36 34 35 37 38 60 28 33 29 63 58 60 40 Jennu Kurumb

Several observations may be made about these displays of lexical similarity percentages. The comparison of wordlists reveals much variation. The general pattern supports the Irula dialect groupings for the Nilgiris region described in the literature (summarized in section 1.3), with the notable exception of Bookapuram. Although grouped under Northern Irula by other scholars, the Bookapuram speech variety has been excluded from these summaries (both here and in section 2.1.3) because, based on these wordlists, it appears to represent an extremely divergent form of Irula. It is only 33 to 48 percent similar to the other Irula forms, apparently because of a greater tendency to include loan words from Kannada. Within each of the three dialect groups, there is about a 75 to 86 percent similarity. However, when the speech of one dialect group is compared with that of another, the lexical similarity drops drastically. Thus, between Mele Nadu Irula villages and Vette Kada Irula villages, there is a 57 to 66 percent similarity. Between Mele Nadu Irula villages and Northern Irula villages, there is a 62 to 73 percent similarity. And between Vette Kada Irula villages and Northern Irula villages, there is only a 51 to 57 percent similarity.

2.1.3 Lexical similarity with related and neighboring languages

In order to evaluate the levels of similarity between these Irula dialects and related and neighboring languages, the eleven Irula wordlists were compared with wordlists for Coimbatore Tamil, Kannada, Badaga, and three varieties of Kurumba. In comparison with Coimbatore Tamil, Mele Nadu Irula shows 47 to 50 percent similarity and Northern Irula shows 44 to 46 percent similarity. (Bookapuram has again been excluded from the Northern Irula group because of its divergence: it showed only a 30 percent similarity with Coimbatore Tamil.) In contrast, the two Vette Kada Irula lists show a high percentage of words similar to Coimbatore Tamil: 59 percent and 69 percent. Note that these counts indicate that these forms of Vette Kada Irula are just as similar or even more similar to Coimbatore Tamil than they are to the other Irula dialects. The only wordlist to show a significant level of shared words with Kannada was Bookapuram in the Northern Irula group: 53 percent. All other Irula locations showed only 28 to 37 percent similarity with Kannada. Bookapuram also showed the highest similarities with Badaga (44 percent; all other Irula varieties 31 to 36 percent) and with two of the three Kurumba varieties (45 percent with Alu Kurumba and 60 percent with Jennu Kurumba; all other Irula varieties 28 to 40 percent with these Kurumba

forms). All Irula varieties, Bookapuram included, showed low similarities with Betta Kurumba: 23 to 31 percent. If the Bookapuram wordlist accurately represents the variety used by Irula living in that village, it is clearly the most mixed variety included in this study. Since Bookapuram is located at the northwestern extreme of the Nilgiri Irula region, such a convergence with Kannada and related “Kannadoid” varieties is not surprising (cf. Zvelebil 1981:498).

2.2 Intelligibility between Irula dialects

2.2.1 Identification of test points for RTTs and sampling

Three sites were chosen for recorded text tests (RTTs), one in each of the dialect areas, in order to evaluate the intelligibility of Irula dialects: (1) Kolikarai, Mele Nadu Irula; (2) Nellithurai, Vette Kada Irula; and (3) Anaikatty, Northern Irula. In addition to the normal comprehension questions asked after each RTT, test subjects were also asked questions regarding the similarity or difference between the RTT stories and their own speech, and how well they understood these stories. A description of RTT procedures is given in Appendix C. The transcribed Irula texts used for the RTTs are shown in Appendix D. An attempt was made to get as representative a sample as possible for the RTTs used in the Irula survey. In each village both men and women were tested, and educated and uneducated subjects were included. There were subjects of different ages ranging from 14 to 70. In each village, Irulas who were originally from other areas, or who had lived in other dialect regions for a period, were excluded from the sample. In addition, subjects who performed at levels less than 80 percent on their hometown test were excluded from further testing, as is explained in Appendix C. In each village it was difficult to find subjects willing to participate in RTT testing. Hometown testing and subsequent RTT testing of non-native dialect stories required two visits each to Nellithurai and Kolikarai. To the frustration of the researchers who were having difficulty finding subjects willing to take the RTTs, in both of these villages some subjects were excluded from further testing because of their inability to achieve 80 percent on their hometown test. In Anaikatty the testing was accomplished during a three-day stay in the village. The resulting samples for each RTT were the best that could be gained under the circumstances. Some subjects had to be excluded from the study because they reported unusually high amounts of contact with Irulas from other dialect regions. It is estimated that the ten subjects tested on RTTs at each site represent approximately 10 percent of the adult population of each village who would not be excluded from the study for this reason. All subjects passing their hometown tests were included in the reported results, although only some of the subjects originally tested could be contacted for subsequent RTT testing on the second visit. This meant that new subjects contacted on the second visit had to take their hometown test plus two non- native RTTs. Thus the number of hometown subjects for Kolikarai and Nellithurai is higher than the number of RTT subjects in those locations.

2.2.2 Results of recorded text testing

The mean RTT scores (m), standard deviations (s), and number of subjects for each test (n) are recorded in table 3.2

2Because of an error in recording the test tape for the Kolikarai story in Anaikatty, only nine of the ten comprehension questions were used for testing. Thus each incorrect response had an 11.1 percent effect on a subject's final score, rather than the 10 percent effect resulting from tests with ten questions.

Table 3. Irula recorded text test results

Test points: Kolikarai subjects Nellithurai subjects Anaikatty subjects Reference points:

Hometown Kolikarai story m= 93 m = 73 m = 83 s = 8.0 s = 18.3 s = 12.5 n = 15 n = 10 n = 10 Hometown m = 88 m = 90 m = 89 Nellithurai story s = 12.3 s = 7.5 s = 4.6 n = 10 n = 14 n = 10 Hometown m = 66 m = 62 m = 93 Anaikatty story s = 14.7 s = 15.5 s = 7.2 n = 10 n = 10 n = 10

These results indicate that the Nellithurai story was understood the best overall in the two non- hometown test points. Mean scores of 88 percent with a moderate standard deviation of 12.3 and 89 percent with a low standard deviation of 4.6 seem to show that the Irula spoken in Nellithurai is intelligible to Irulas in Kolikarai and Anaikatty. The Kolikarai story was also quite well understood in Anaikatty, as indicated by the RTT mean of 83 percent and the moderate standard deviation of 12.5. The Kolikarai story obtained a lower mean score of 73 percent in Nellithurai with a rather high standard deviation of 18.3. It appears that some of the Nellithurai subjects understood the Kolikarai story well, while others did not display adequate understanding on the basis of their RTT responses. The Anaikatty story was not very well understood outside its hometown area, with means of 66 percent and 62 percent and relatively high standard deviations.

2.2.3 Perceived comprehension of texts vs. RTT scores

Although the RTT scores for some subjects indicate that they were not able to answer the comprehension questions adequately, most subjects said that they were able to understand the stories from other dialect areas well or quite well. These perceptions of comprehension agree with the results of the RTT scores except in two cases. Although the mean score for Anaikatty subjects on the Nellithurai story was high, two subjects reported that they did not understand the story well. In contrast, these same subjects all indicated that they understood the Kolikarai story well, even though the Kolikarai RTT mean in Anaikatty was lower than that for Nellithurai. The second difference between subjects’ perceived comprehension and their RTT performance was on the Kolikarai story tested in Nellithurai: eight subjects reported that they understood the story well and two reported quite well. This result may indicate that some Nellithurai subjects understood the story better than their RTT scores indicated, but did not answer the questions as well as expected due to reasons other than poor intelligibility (fatigue, distraction). Seven of the ten RTT subjects in Nellithurai had received no education, the lowest number of educated subjects at any test site. The poorer than expected scores of these uneducated subjects may be partially due to their lack of experience in such testing situations and not simply a result of lower intelligibility between dialects.

2.2.4 Mixing of Tamil as an aid to comprehension of RTT texts

Although the Nellithurai story seemed to be the best understood according to the RTT results, the reason for this may be due in part to the high number of Tamil words in the story. Tamil is spoken as a second language by most Irula people, even though their Tamil proficiency may be only in the mid-range or below. The Nellithurai wordlist shows the highest similarity with Tamil words: 69 percent of the words

are similar to Coimbatore Tamil. It seems that Irula subjects’ familiarity with Tamil may have boosted their comprehension of the Nellithurai RTT. To test this hypothesis a count was made for each RTT story of the number of words either identical to or very closely related to Tamil words. In the Nellithurai Irula story 55 percent of the words used are also Tamil words, and 78 percent of the words are either the same as Tamil or very closely related to Tamil. Neither of the other two stories showed such a high percentage of Tamil words. In the Kolikarai story, 38 percent of the words used are also Tamil words, and 63 percent of the words are either the same as Tamil or very closely related to Tamil. In the Anaikatty story, 25 percent of the words used are also Tamil words, and only 43 percent of the words are either the same as Tamil or very closely related to Tamil. Also, 12 percent of the words in the Anaikatty story are from Kannada, counting only those words that are not also shared by Tamil or similar to Tamil. As a second measure of the effect of similarity with Tamil on Irula RTT results, the Irula RTTs were administered to ten native Tamil speakers. These tests were intended to evaluate whether Tamil speakers had an easier time answering the comprehension questions for the texts with higher percentages of Tamil words.3 The results indicate rather poor comprehension of all three varieties of Irula among the Tamil subjects tested; however the Nellithurai RTT and the Kolikarai RTT obtained higher mean scores than the Anaikatty RTT. The results are given in table 4.

Table 4. Results from native Tamil-speaking subjects on Irula RTTs

Kolikarai Nellithurai Anaikatty story story story m = 59% m = 56% m = 51% s = 15.2 s = 16.1 s = 14.8 n = 10 n = 10 n = 10

It seems that the number of Tamil words in the Irula texts does enable speakers of Tamil to understand some Irula and correctly answer some of the questions. There is no significant difference between the scores received on the Nellithurai and the Kolikarai stories by these Tamil-speaking subjects, and the score for the Anaikatty story is only a few points below these. However Tamil proficiency alone does not override the general lack of intelligibility of the Irula texts for these native Tamil subjects. In contrast to the results from these subjects, for the Irula-speaking subjects who also know Tamil, their Tamil knowledge seems to boost their understanding of the more Tamil-like texts beyond what could be expected based solely on inherent intelligibility between Irula dialects. Thus, we can infer that, for the Irula subjects tested, the intelligibility of the Nellithurai RTT story in particular was affected by the learned proficiency in Tamil. If the Nellithurai story were tested in more remote Mele Nadu and Northern Irula areas where there are fewer people who speak Tamil well, it is likely that their understanding of the story would be lower.

2.2.5 Conclusions regarding dialects of Nilgiri Irula

On the basis of RTT results and interview data, it seems that the Northern Irula dialect is not widely understood outside of its region. However, Northern Irula subjects performed adequately on RTTs from both other dialect groups, indicating generally good intelligibility of both Mele Nadu and Vette Kada Irula.

3No hometown test in Tamil was given to the test subjects. However, all the subjects were highly educated and familiar with test-taking; three of the Tamil speakers tested had previous experience with developing RTTs in other varieties. Thus the Tamil speakers clearly understood the RTT procedures and their responses can be taken as indicators of how well they understood the various Irula stories.

The Vette Kada Irula RTT was well understood in both the Northern Irula and the Mele Nadu Irula areas. However, further investigation indicates that the high scores may be due in part to the greater similarity with Tamil of the story text. Thus, acquired proficiency in Tamil, rather than relatively higher inherent intelligibility of Vette Kada Irula with the other Irula varieties, seems to explain the RTT results. The Mele Nadu Irula text was well understood in the Northern Irula test point. RTT scores on this text at the Vette Kada Irula test point were somewhat lower; however, RTT subjects claimed to understand the story well. In any case, there may be somewhat less intelligibility of Mele Nadu Irula among Vette Kada Irula speakers than has been posited by previous researchers (e.g., Zvelebil 1981:504).

3 Language use, attitudes, and vitality

3.1 Procedures

A study of language use patterns attempts to describe which speech varieties members of a community use in different social situations. These situations, called domains, are contexts in which the use of one language variety is considered more appropriate than another (Fasold 1984:183). A study of language attitudes attempts to describe people's attitudes towards the different speech varieties that are known to them, and about the choices people should make with regard to language use. Language vitality refers to the prospects for a language to continue to be spoken by mother tongue speakers and passed on to succeeding generations in the foreseeable future. The method for studying language use, attitudes, and vitality among the Irulas of the Nilgiris and surrounding region was the use of two orally administered questionnaires. One was a post-recorded text test questionnaire, administered in Tamil by Sylvia Ernest to all RTT subjects. The other was a language use and attitudes questionnaire administered via a Tamil interpreter by Clare O’Leary. This questionnaire was answered by the RTT subjects as well as by a few Irulas who were not RTT participants. As with the RTTs, Kolikarai represented the Mele Nadu Irulas, Anaikatty represented the Northern Irulas, and Nellithurai represented the Vette Kada Irulas. A total of thirty subjects (ten subjects in each dialect area) answered the post-RTT questionnaire, while a total of thirty-four subjects (eleven Mele Nadu Irulas, twelve Northern Irulas, and eleven Vette Kada Irulas) responded to the language use and attitudes questionnaire. These numbers of subjects represent approximately 10 percent of the adult populations of the villages surveyed. In the case of four Mele Nadu Irula respondents, several other Irulas who were watching the interviews also expressed their opinions as the respondents attempted to answer the questions.

3.2 Dialect attitudes and contact patterns between different Irula communities

3.2.1 Perceived dialect similarity and difference

Questionnaire subjects were asked about areas where the Irula language is similar or different from their own variety of Irula. Respondents usually mentioned the names of several villages, but sometimes referred simply to “this area” or “the hills.” Respondents consistently named villages within their own dialect areas as sharing the same speech variety. Two Northern Irulas said that the Bookapuram variety (often grouped under Northern Irula, as mentioned in section 2.1.2) was a little different, but still easy to understand. Mele Nadu Irulas who mentioned Northern Irula and Vette Kada Irula locations perceived those varieties to be either a little different or else very different, i.e., difficult to understand. Most Northern Irulas said that varieties spoken at Mele Nadu sites were a little different; only two respondents mentioned Vette Kada varieties, classifying them as very different. Vette Kada Irulas who mentioned Mele Nadu varieties were roughly divided half and half as to those varieties being a little different or very different; none mentioned the villages in the Northern Irula area.

3.2.2 Communication and contact patterns between dialect areas

Questionnaire responses regarding travel, communication, and marriage patterns between Irulas living in the three dialect areas indicate that there are relatively few contacts between the three regions. However, most of the Northern Irula and Vette Kada Irula respondents had some contact with the Mele Nadu Irula areas. There were no reported contacts between the Northern Irulas and the Vette Kada Irulas.

3.2.3 Perceptions of dialect purity or mixing

Perceptions of dialect purity or mixing were elicited directly and indirectly. Direct questioning (“Where is the purest Irula spoken?”) indicated that most subjects perceived their own variety as pure. An interesting exception was the Mele Nadu Irulas: only three respondents said that their variety is the purest, while two said all varieties are pure and five said all varieties are mixed. One also commented that “uneducated people in all villages speak pure Irula.” Indirect questioning (through the post-RTT question, “Is the Irula spoken in the story good Irula?”) revealed that the Kolikarai story (Mele Nadu Irula) was perceived as pure by thirteen out of the twenty subjects from the other dialect areas. In contrast, the Anaikatty story (Northern Irula) and the Nellithurai story (Vette Kada Irula) were both perceived as mixed with other languages by sixteen out of the twenty subjects from the other dialect areas. The Nellithurai story was perceived as the most mixed with Tamil, which is consistent with the word count in the story discussed in section 2.2.4.

3.2.4 Positive or negative attitudes towards other dialects

Positive or negative attitudes towards other dialects were assessed via marriage attitudes, elicited in the post-RTT question, “Would you allow your son or daughter to marry someone who spoke like that? Why?” Results indicate that some Mele Nadu Irula subjects do not view the Northern and Vette Kada Irula dialects positively. Two Kolikarai Mele Nadu respondents said that the Anaikatty Northern Irula story was “low caste” speech, while three respondents described the Nellithurai Vette Kada story this way. These results agree with Perialwar’s report (1991:42) that the Mele Nadu Irula speakers consider their own variety of Irula as superior and look down on the Vette Kada Irulas. Neither the Northern Irula speakers nor the Vette Kada Irula speakers reported any negative attitudes towards Mele Nadu Irula.

3.3 Language attitudes and use: Irula vs. Tamil, Kannada, Badaga

3.3.1 Domains in which Irula is consistently used

Irula is the mother tongue of all thirty-four subjects who answered the language use and attitudes questionnaire. All respondents also reported that they speak at least one other language in addition to Irula. The questionnaire results regarding language use patterns are summarized in table 5.

Table 5. Language use patterns

Language used Domain of use: Irula Tamil/Kannada/Badaga Both In the home? 33 0 1 With family? 32 0 2 With children?a 30 0 1 At the market? 0 28 6 To pray/do puja? 19 8 7 To sing songs? 7 10 17 With village elders? 31 0 3 aThree subjects replied that they have no children.

Irula is consistently reported to be used by all Irula subjects in their homes, with their families, and with their children. No other language was reported to be used in these domains except by one Vette Kada woman who said she uses “mostly Irula” with her family, and one teenage Vette Kada girl who said that she speaks Tamil with her younger brothers who are living at a hostel and studying in Tamil medium schools. Irula is also consistently used within the villages and with village elders. A little over half of the subjects (56 percent) reported using only Irula to pray or do puja; another 20 percent reported that they use both Irula and Tamil. The only subjects reporting consistent use of a language other than Irula for prayer or puja were eight subjects from Nellithurai, a village very close to a large Hindu shrine which attracts Tamil-speaking Hindus from throughout Tamil Nadu. Most subjects said that they sing songs in the languages in which they were composed.

3.3.2 Domains in which other languages are reported to be used

Tamil (or Kannada/Badaga in the Northern Irula dialect area) is reported to be used for purposes outside the village (e.g., for marketing). Thus it appears that Tamil is not intruding into the lives of the Irula people except in domains in which they must contact non-Irulas.

3.3.3 Attitudes regarding language use for education and literature

All Irula respondents expressed interest in the possibility of books being printed in the Irula language; some of the responses were very positive, expressing a great desire for such books. However, when subjects were asked whether they would like Irula-speaking teachers to use Irula in school to help their children learn more easily, most subjects responded negatively (twenty-two of the thirty-four, or 65 percent). They expressed a preference for Tamil medium in education, saying that Tamil was necessary for their children to get ahead in the world. Some of those who felt that Tamil should be the only language used in school stated that their children already knew Irula and that they seemed to be learning well in the Tamil medium system. The remaining twelve subjects felt that Irula-speaking teachers might help the children to learn more easily, but all noted that Tamil proficiency is important for their children.

3.3.4 Attitudes and beliefs regarding the maintenance of Irula

Table 6 summarizes responses of Irula subjects to questions related to the vitality of the Irula language.

Table 6. Language vitality questions

Yes No Do you think that Irulas will stop using Irula 3 31 someday and use only Tamil or Kannada? Are there some Irulas who use only 11 23 Tamil/Kannada? Are there any children in this village who 4 30 cannot speak Irula?

Tamil Irulaa Do your children speak Tamil or Irula more 1 28 often? aFive subjects replied either that they have no children or have only babies.

A majority (thirty-one out of thirty-four) of the Irula subjects expressed the belief that the Irula language is not being replaced by Tamil, and that the Irula language will not die. These beliefs are strongly supported by the consistent maintenance of Irula in the home and with children. Children were overwhelmingly reported to use Irula more often than Tamil, and no Irula children were reported as not being able to speak Irula except those few who are from mixed marriages. Because mixed marriages between Irulas and other groups are very rare, the impact of intermarriage on language maintenance of Irula is negligible. Eleven respondents said they knew of a few Irulas who had stopped speaking Irula, primarily as a result of moving away from Irula villages, either to work in a city or marry an outsider; six of these eleven were from Nellithurai, the least remote of the Irula villages studied.

4 Levels of second language proficiency among the Irula

Bilingualism is ability in a second language that results from learning that language either formally (as in school) or informally (as in the bazaar). A Tamil sentence repetition test (SRT) was used in this survey to evaluate bilingual ability in Tamil. Reported proficiency in other languages was elicited as part of the language use and attitudes questionnaire.

4.1 Reported proficiency in Tamil/Kannada/Badaga according to questionnaires

The results of Irula subjects’ self-reported proficiency in other languages are summarized in table 7a and 7b.

Table 7a. Other languages spoken

Question: What languages do you speak? Tamil Kannada Badaga Malayalam Nellithurai 11 6 0 0 Kolikarai 11 1 6 0 Anaikatty 12 8 5 1 Totals 34 15 11 1

Table 7b. Reported proficiency in other languages Question: Do you speak Tamil/Kannada as easily/well as you speak Irula? Tamil Kannadaa Badaga Malayalam Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Nellithurai 7 4 2 3 0 0 0 0 Kolikarai 11 0 0 1 0 6 0 0 Anaikatty 8 4 6 2 4 1 1 0 Totals 26 8 8 6 4 7 1 0 aOne subject from Nellithurai did not answer yes or no regarding Kannada ability.

As seen in table 7a, 100 percent of the respondents reported second-language ability in Tamil. Kannada proficiency was reported by 44 percent of the subjects (all but one of whom live in Anaikatty and Nellithurai), while Badaga proficiency was reported by 32 percent of the subjects (all of whom live in Kolikarai and Anaikatty). Table 7b shows that a majority (76 percent) of the respondents said that they speak Tamil as well or as easily as they speak Irula. All Kolikarai subjects reported this level of proficiency, while approximately 65 percent of the Anaikatty and Nellithurai subjects did so. The reports of such high proficiency in Tamil among Kolikarai subjects probably do not accurately reflect the true nature of Tamil bilingualism among Mele Nadu Irula villages, since Kolikarai is less remote than most villages. In addition, nine of the eleven respondents in Kolikarai were educated, and six of these nine had seven or more years of schooling. If more remote villages with less need for Tamil and less opportunity for Tamil medium education were included in the research, lower reported and tested levels of Tamil proficiency would be expected. Among subjects reporting ability in languages other than Tamil, roughly half said their proficiency in those languages was as good as their proficiency in Irula.

4.2 Tested levels of Tamil proficiency on the Tamil SRT in Nellithurai

4.2.1 Sampling for the Tamil SRT in Nellithurai

Procedures followed in the development of the Tamil sentence repetition test are described in Appendix E. The Tamil SRT was used only in the Irula village of Nellithurai. The assumption in interpreting the results for Nellithurai, in comparison to the expected proficiency in other Irula areas, is that Nellithurai Irulas would exhibit the highest levels of proficiency in Tamil that could be expected in any Irula village because of the relative closeness of Nellithurai Irulas to the Tamil-speaking cities of Mettapalayam and Coimbatore and because their variety of Irula contains a high proportion of Tamil words. The distribution of subjects by age groups, education groups, and gender is displayed in table 8. The forty-three subjects tested in Nellithurai village represent approximately 36 percent of the village population, excluding children too young for testing. During the data collection, researchers felt that virtually all Nellithurai residents present in the village that day were asked to participate in testing. A small financial compensation was given to all subjects who took the Tamil SRT in order to ensure as representative a sample as possible. Some Nellithurai Irulas refused to participate in testing, claiming to be too busy or displaying general unwillingness to cooperate in research. One subject did not complete the test due to drunkenness; the performance of another subject was eliminated from analysis because the researchers noted her unusual lack of cooperation in the testing procedure. There are a few residents of Nellithurai from other language backgrounds, and these were not included as subjects on the Tamil SRT. Most Irula residents of Nellithurai not absent from the village during the day of testing participated in the Tamil SRT. Thus the results can be assumed to be as representative as possible of the levels of Tamil proficiency among Irula in Nellithurai village.

Table 8. Distribution of Nellithurai Tamil SRT samples by age groups, education groups, and gender Rows: three education groups Columns: five age groups Education groups:a Age groups: 12–19 20–29 30–39 40–49 50–70 All Uneducated Total n 6 6 8 5 5 30 M 2 0 4 3 4 13 F 4 6 4 2 1 17 1–5 years education Total n 1 0 1 2 2 6 M 1 0 1 1 2 5 F 0 0 0 1 0 1 6–10 years education Total n 1 4 0 0 0 5 M 1 4 0 0 0 5 F 0 0 0 0 0 0 All n 8 10 9 7 7 41 M 4 4 5 4 6 23 F 4 6 4 3 1 18 aTwo subjects have missing education data: one 50 year old male and one female (age unknown).

It is probable that there are more young men and perhaps some young women from Nellithurai with more education than is represented in the sample. Their absence from the village, probably for employment or educational reasons, is the most likely explanation for their exclusion from the sample. The expected effect of including such subjects in the sample would most likely be a slight increase in the Tamil proficiency levels obtained.

4.2.2 Tamil SRT results

The Tamil SRT scores were relatively high, as expected. (Detailed analysis of Tamil SRT data is given in Appendix F.) Almost half of the forty-three Nellithurai subjects performed at level 3+ or above; slightly more than half performed below that level. Level 3+ indicates very good, general proficiency in Tamil, though this level is lower than the level of a native speaker. Only three of the forty-three subjects performed at the highest level on the SRT, level 4 or above. Many subjects without education performed at level 3+; however, only one uneducated subject performed at the highest level of 4 or above. Table 9 shows the distribution of predicted Reported Proficiency Evaluation (RPE) levels in Tamil for Nellithurai subjects based on the Tamil SRT.

Table 9. Predicted RPE levels in Tamil for Nellithurai subjects based on the Tamil SRT

Predicted RPE Level Number of subjects Percent Total = 43 1 or below Up to Minimal, limited proficiency 0 – 1+ Limited, basic proficiency 0 – 2 Adequate, basic proficiency 1 2.3% 2+ Good, basic proficiency 6 14.0% 3 Good, general proficiency 16 37.2% 3+ Very good, general proficiency 17 39.5% 4 or above Excellent proficiency to approaching 3 7.0% native speaker proficiency

An analysis of Tamil SRT results according to the independent variables of education, age, and gender (given in Appendix F) reveals that education shows the only significant effect on SRT scores. SRT scores from the group of subjects with six or more years of education were significantly higher than those from either the lesser educated group or from the subjects without education.

4.2.3 Conclusions based on the Tamil SRT results

Since a significant proportion of the total population of Nellithurai village was tested on the Tamil SRT, the results are very likely a close reflection of the true levels of proficiency in Tamil there. These results indicated that almost half of the Irulas in this village display very good, general proficiency or better. It is generally believed that second language proficiency levels of 3+ or 4 are necessary for persons to adequately understand and use complex written materials in a language other than their mother tongue. It may be possible for some persons with as low as level 3 proficiency to utilize such second language materials fairly well (Kindell 1991:28). On this basis, we can estimate that as many as half of the Irulas in Nellithurai might understand materials written in commonly used forms of standard Tamil. Conversely, half or more of this population probably would not understand such materials. However, the Nellithurai village does not accurately represent the whole Nilgiri Irula community in terms of the expected levels of Tamil proficiency. Because Nellithurai is very close to the major cities of Mettapallayam and Coimbatore, and because most Nellithurai villagers work as laborers for and among Tamil speakers, their proficiency levels in Tamil would be the highest expected of any Irula village in the area included in this study. In general, the Vette Kada Irula villages are closer to Tamil dominant areas. Zvelebil (1981:502) states that the Vette Kada Irulas are “nearer to ‘civilization,’ and hence most of them are, socioeconomically, in a further stage of tribal disintegration, and more ‘civilized’ than their cotribals of the Mele Nadu community.” Thus the expected levels of Tamil proficiency among the Vette Kada Irula as a whole may be closer to those displayed in Nellithurai village, but it is likely that lower levels of Tamil proficiency would be found in the Vette Kada Irula villages more remote than Nellithurai. Although Tamil proficiency was not tested in Kolikarai village in the Mele Nadu area, that village too may exhibit higher than average levels of Tamil proficiency. In the case of Kolikarai, this expectation is based on the relative proximity of the village to the main road and to the better opportunities for schooling nearby. Of the three villages studied, Anaikatty would be expected to display the lowest levels of Tamil proficiency. There are many small Irula villages scattered in more remote locations, particularly in the Mele Nadu dialect region. It is unlikely that many of the Irula living in these villages would have achieved such high levels of proficiency in Tamil as were displayed in Nellithurai. Thus, we can conclude that Tamil language materials would be difficult or impossible for most Nilgiri Irula to understand well. This difficulty would be most pronounced in the more remote Irula villages, most of which would be in the Mele Nadu dialect region.

5 Recommendations for an Irula language program

5.1 Recommendations for further research

The four additional dialect areas mentioned in section 1.4 but not covered in this survey need to be visited, and data should be gathered regarding the dialects of Irula spoken in these locations. In particular, the Urali Irula need to be investigated since other scholars have maintained that their variety of Irula may be mutually intelligible with Mele Nadu Irula; to date, no research has been done to investigate the intelligibility of Urali Irula. The large communities of Irula people in the regions outside of the Nilgiris need to be visited, and wordlists need to be collected in order to confirm whether or not they speak a variety related to Nilgiri Irula. If they do speak a variety of the Irula language, recorded text testing should be done to evaluate their intelligibility with the three Nilgiri area Irula dialects. In addition, the Attapaddy Irula and the Karnataka Irula communities should be visited and wordlists and texts collected from the Irula speakers there.

5.2 Recommendations for language development

Considering all the data regarding intelligibility, attitudes, and contact patterns, Mele Nadu Irula may be the preferred dialect for language development purposes. The Mele Nadu dialect was quite well understood in Anaikatty, the Northern Irula location. In Nellithurai, the RTT results were lower than expected, and these subjects may have some difficulty understanding materials translated into Mele Nadu Irula. However, the Nellithurai subjects believed that they understood the Mele Nadu Irula variety well, and expressed generally positive attitudes toward it. Although the Nellithurai Vette Kada Irula story was well understood, this variety is very close to Tamil, and is not perceived as pure Irula by members of other Irula dialect groups. If Irula people are to accept language materials as speaking to their hearts in their own language, a form of Irula that is less mixed with Tamil should be chosen. However, to bridge the differences between Mele Nadu and Vette Kada Irula dialects as much as possible, in order to reach the widest possible circle of Irula people, vernacular materials should be produced in cooperation with members of both dialect groups. Thus, using Irula language helpers from both Mele Nadu and Vette Kada communities would be preferred. If the dialect differences cannot be bridged and the Vette Kada Irula speakers have difficulty understanding materials based on the Mele Nadu Irula dialect, a dialect adaptation for Vette Kada Irula may become necessary. Although some Irulas have high proficiency in Tamil, the majority are not expected to have sufficient ability in Tamil to understand complex written materials in that language. It is estimated that over half the Irula speakers in the Nilgiri region would have much difficulty understanding Tamil literature. Irula language materials would be more effective for them.

Appendix A: Lexical similarity study procedures and additional matrices

Comparing wordlists between two sites is one method of measuring the similarity of those two speech varieties. This systematic study of vocabularies is a lexical similarity study. Communities with speech varieties that have more words in common (higher lexical similarity) generally understand each other better than those communities that have fewer words in common (lower lexical similarity). Analysis of wordlists in this study was done by grouping phonologically similar words together for each English gloss and then calculating the percentage of similar words between any two wordlists using Wimbish’s WordSurv program (1989). Similarity groupings were made based on the procedures outlined in Blair 1990:31–32. Some groupings were further modified based on procedures described by Marshall (unpublished manuscript). Lexical similarity below 60 percent typically corresponds with inadequate intelligibility between the compared varieties (reflective of distinct languages). Lexical similarity above 90 percent typically corresponds with high intelligibility between the compared varieties (reflective of closely related dialects). Dialect intelligibility testing is not usually required for either situation. Lexical similarity between 60 and 90 percent warrants fuller investigation by means of dialect intelligibility testing to determine the nature of the relationship between the two speech varieties (Blair 1990:23).

24 Appendix B: Irula wordlists

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Appendix C: Recorded text test (RTT) procedures4

The extent to which speakers of related dialectal varieties understand one another can be studied by means of tape recorded texts. Such studies investigate whether speakers of one variety understand a narrative text in another variety and are able to answer questions about the content of that text. The accuracy with which subjects answer these questions is taken as an index of their comprehension of that speech form. From the percentage of correct answers, the amount of intelligibility between speech forms is inferred. The recorded text testing used in this survey is based on the procedures described in Casad 1974 and Blair 1990. Short, personal-experience narratives are deemed to be most suitable for recorded text testing in that the content must be relatively unpredictable and the speech form should be natural. Folklore or other material thought to be widely known is avoided. A three- to five-minute story is recorded from a speaker of the regional vernacular, then checked with a group of speakers from the same region to ensure that the spoken forms are truly representative of that area. The story is then transcribed and a set of comprehension questions is constructed based on various semantic domains covered in the text. Normally, a set of fifteen or more questions is initially prepared. Some of the questions will prove unsuitable—perhaps because the answer is not in focus in the text or because the question is confusing to native speakers of the test variety. Unsuitable questions are deleted from the preliminary set, leaving a minimum of ten final questions for each RTT. To ensure that measures of comprehension are based on the subjects’ understanding of the text itself and not on a misunderstanding of the test questions, these questions are always recorded in the regional variety of the test subjects. This requires an appropriate dialect version of the questions for each RTT for each test location. In this study, test subjects heard the complete story text once, after which the story was repeated with test questions and the opportunities for responses interspersed with necessary pauses in the recorded text. Appropriate and correct responses are directly extractable from the segment of speech immediately preceding the question, such that memory limitations exert a negligible effect and indirect inferences based on the content is not required. Thus the RTT aims to be a close reflection of a subject’s comprehension of the language itself, not of his or her memory, intelligence, or reasoning. The average or mean of the scores obtained by subjects from one test location is taken as a numerical indicator of the intelligibility between speakers of the dialects represented. In order to ensure that the RTT is a fair test of the intelligibility of the test variety to speakers from the regions tested, the text is first tested with subjects from the region where the text was recorded. This initial testing is referred to as the hometown test. The hometown test serves to introduce subjects to the testing procedure in a context where intelligibility of the dialect is assumed to be complete since it is the native variety of test subjects. In addition, hometown testing ensures that native speakers of the text dialect could accurately answer the comprehension questions used to assess understanding of the text in non-native dialect areas. Once a text has been hometown tested with a minimum of ten subjects who have been able to correctly answer the selected comprehension questions, the test is considered validated. It is possible that a subject may be unable to answer the test questions correctly simply because he does not understand what is expected of him. This is especially true with uneducated subjects or those unacquainted with test-taking. Therefore, a very short pre-test story with four questions is recorded in the local variety before beginning the actual testing. The purpose of this pre-test is to teach the subject what is expected according to the RTT procedures. If the subject is able to answer the pre-test questions, it is assumed that he or she would serve as a suitable subject. Each subject then participates in the hometown test in his or her native variety before participating in RTTs in non-native varieties.

4The descriptions of recorded text test and sentence repetition test procedures are adapted from those found in Appendix A of O’Leary (ed. 1992). It is used with permission from the author.

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Occasionally, even after the pre-test, a subject fails to perform adequately on an already validated hometown test. Performances of such subjects are eliminated from the final evaluation, the assumption being that uncontrollable factors unrelated to the intelligibility of speech forms are skewing such test results. In this study, subjects performing at levels of less than 80 percent on their hometown test were eliminated from further testing. When speakers of one linguistic variety have had no previous contact with that represented by the recorded text, the test scores of ten subjects from the test point tend to be more similar—especially when the scores are in the higher ranges. Such consistent scores are often interpreted to be closer reflections of the inherent intelligibility between speech forms. Increasing the number of subjects should not significantly increase the range of variation of the scores. However, when some subjects have had significant previous contact with the speech form recorded on the RTT, while others have not, the scores usually vary considerably, reflecting the degree of learning that has gone on through contact. For this reason it is important to include a measure of dispersion which reflects the extent to which the range of scores varies from the mean—the standard deviation. On an RTT with 100 possible points (that is 100 percent), standard deviations of 15 or more are considered high. If the standard deviation is relatively low, say 10 or below, and the mean score for subjects from the selected test point is high, the implication is that the community as a whole probably understands the test variety rather well simply because the variety in the RTT is inherently intelligible. If the standard deviation is low and the mean RTT score is also low, the implication is that the community as a whole understands the test variety rather poorly and that regular contact has not facilitated learning of the test variety to any significant extent. If the standard deviation is high, regardless of the mean score, one implication is that some subjects have learned to comprehend the test variety better than others.5 In this last case, inherent intelligibility between the related varieties seems to be mixed with acquired comprehension which results from learning through contact. Questionnaires administered at the time of testing can help researchers discover which factors are significant in promoting such contact. Travel to or extended stays in other dialect regions, intermarriage between dialect groups, or contact with schoolmates from other dialect regions are examples of the types of contact that can occur. In contrast to experimentally controlled testing in a laboratory or classroom situation, the results of field administered methods such as the RTT cannot be completely isolated from potential biases. Recorded texts and test questions will vary in terms of their relative difficulty and complexity or in terms of the clarity of the recording. Comparisons of RTT results from different texts need to be made cautiously. It is therefore recommended that results from RTTs not be interpreted in terms of fixed numerical thresholds, but rather be evaluated in light of other indicators of intelligibility such as lexical similarity, dialect opinions, and reported patterns of contact and communication. In general, however, RTT mean scores of around 80 percent or higher with accompanying low standard deviations are usually taken to indicate that representatives of the test point dialect display adequate understanding of the variety represented by the recording. Conversely, RTT means below 60 percent are interpreted to indicate inadequate intelligibility.

5High standard deviations can result from other causes, such as inconsistencies in the circumstances of test administration and scoring or differences in attentiveness or intelligence of subjects. Researchers involved in recorded text testing need to be aware of the potential for skewed results due to such factors, and control them as much as possible through careful test development and administration.

Appendix D: Transcribed Irula texts used for Recorded Text Tests

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Appendix E: Tamil sentence repetition test (SRT) procedures

A sentence repetition test is based on the premise that people’s ability to repeat sentences in a second language is limited by the level of their mastery of the morphology and syntax of that second language. The greater proficiency they have in that language, the better able they are to repeat sentences of increasing length and complexity. A sentence repetition test is developed separately for each language to be tested. Detailed procedures for developing and calibrating a sentence repetition test are presented in Radloff 1991. The sentences selected are calibrated against an evaluative instrument called the Reported Proficiency Evaluation (RPE), where mother tongue raters are provided with a detailed framework of proficiency descriptions against which to evaluate the proficiency of their second language speaking acquaintances.6 The half-levels of the RPE describe increasing levels of proficiency in a second language, as elaborated in table 10.

Table 10. Brief descriptions of RPE levels

RPE Proficiency Level Brief Description 0+ Very minimal proficiency 1 Minimal, limited proficiency 1+ Limited, basic proficiency 2 Adequate, basic proficiency 2+ Good, basic proficiency 3 Good, general proficiency 3+ Very good, general proficiency 4 Excellent proficiency 4+ Approaching native speaker proficiency

A sentence repetition test provides a rapid assessment of a person’s second language proficiency, suited to the purposes of a bilingualism survey. It is often the goal of a bilingualism survey to obtain a profile of the second language proficiencies in the community under investigation, that is, a picture of what percentage of the population can be projected to be at each of the different levels of proficiency. In order to do this, a large and representative sample of the population must be tested. This speaks to the need for an assessment instrument that is quick and easy to administer. The short administration time, however, is offset by careful attention to the development and calibration of a sentence repetition test. The SRT provides a general assessment, thus, the researcher must be able to place full confidence in the results through strict attention to the quality of each developmental step. A complete step-by-step methodology for developing and calibrating a sentence repetition test is given in Radloff 1991. The development and calibration of a sentence repetition test proceeds through several steps: A preliminary form of the test is developed through the assistance of mother tongue speakers of the test language. A large group of second language speakers of the test language have their proficiency assessed through a second, more descriptive proficiency standard instrument, in this case the Reported Proficiency Evaluation. These people are then administered the preliminary form of the test. Based on their performances, fifteen sentences are selected, which prove to be the most discriminating of performance and also represent increasing complexity and length. These fifteen sentences are calibrated

6RPE levels as assigned by mother tongue raters show an internal consistency, but have not yet been correlated with any other, more widely recognized, scale of second language proficiency. The rationale and methodology for the Reported Proficiency Evaluation is also included in Radloff 1991.

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against the proficiency assessments from the RPE. This fifteen-sentence final form of the test is used in the bilingualism survey, and the resulting test scores are interpreted in terms of equivalent RPE proficiency levels. The Tamil SRT was developed concurrently with the Irula survey by Sylvia Ernest and Clare O’Leary. The ranges of Tamil SRT scores corresponding to RPE levels are presented in table 11.

Table 11. Tamil SRT scores and predicted RPE levels

Tamil SRT Score Predicted RPE Level 0–4 1 and below 5–11 1+ 12–18 2 19–24 2+ 25–26 3 32–38 3+ 39–45 4 and above

Preliminary Tamil SRT scores used for calibration with the RPE levels indicated that the Tamil SRT does not differentiate between RPE levels 0+ and 1, nor between RPE levels 4 and 4+. Therefore, the lowest level results of Tamil SRT testing are interpreted as RPE level 1 and below, and the highest level results are interpreted as RPE level 4 and above.

Appendix F: Tamil SRT results

SRT scores were analyzed for three education groups: those subjects without any schooling, those subjects with one to five years of school, and those subjects with six to ten years of school. The count of subjects within each education group is shown in table 12.

Table 12. Mean Tamil SRT scores for Nellithurai Irula subjects by education groups.

Education groupa Number of subjects (n) Mean Tamil SRT score Standard deviation (sd) Uneducated 30 29.9 5.8 1 to 5 years education 6 29.5 4.8 6 to 10 years education 5 39.0 2.6 Total 41 aTwo subjects have missing education data, as explained in table 8.

The significant results of a one-way analysis of variance on Tamil SRT results by education group are shown in table 13. These data indicate that only the scores from the highest education group are significantly higher than those from the uneducated or lesser educated group. There is no significant difference between the lesser educated group and the uneducated group in terms of the levels of Tamil proficiency measured by the SRT.

Table 13. One-way analysis of variance on total Tamil SRT score according to three education groups

Source DF SS MS F p 3EDGROUP 2 371.8 185.9 6.38 0.004 Error 38 1,107.0 29.1 Total 40 1,478.8 Individual 95 percent CI’s for Level N Mean STDEV mean based on pooled STDEV ––––––+––––––+––––––+–––––– Uneducated 30 28.867 5.770 (––*––) 1–5 years 6 29.500 4.764 (––––*–––––) 6–10 years 5 39.000 2.646 (–––––*––––––) ––––––+––––––+––––––+–––––– Pooled STDEV = 5.397 30.0 36.0 42.0

Gender and age do not appear to significantly affect Tamil proficiency according to the Nellithurai SRT results. The mean Tamil SRT scores for subjects according to gender groups are displayed in table 14. These scores are followed by a chart showing distribution of mean Tamil SRT scores by education and age groups, table 15. Although the scores of the oldest group of subjects display a lower mean on the Tamil SRT, this result is skewed by the fact that only two of the oldest subjects had received any education. The mean SRT score for the oldest group of subjects reveals the highest standard deviation, indicating that these oldest subjects showed the most varied performance on the SRT.

Table 14. Mean Tamil SRT scores for Nellithurai Irula subjects by gender groups.

Gender of subject n Mean Tamil SRT score sd Male 24 31.3 6.4 Female 19 30.5 5.5

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Table 15. Mean Tamil SRT scores for Nellithurai Irula subjects according to three education groups and five age groups

Rows: three education groups Columns: five age groups Education groups:a Age groups: Uneducated 12–19 20–29 30–39 40–49 50–70 All n 6 6 8 5 5 30 mean 29.8 32.3 29.5 33.0 24.4 29.8 sd 6.6 4.5 4.0 3.5 8.0 5.8 1–5 years education n 1 0 1 2 2 6 mean 35.0 – 26.0 30.5 27.5 29.5 sd – – – 7.8 0.71 4.8 6–10 years education n 1 4 0 0 0 5 mean 43.0 38.0 – – – 39.0 sd – 1.6 – – – 2.6 All n 8 10 9 7 7 41 mean 32.1 34.6 29.1 32.3 25.3 30.9 sd 7.3 4.5 3.9 4.4 6.7 6.1 aTwo subjects have missing education data, as explained in table 8.

To isolate the effect of age from the effect of education, an analysis of variance on the Tamil SRT scores of the thirty uneducated subjects only was performed. Results from one-way analysis of variance tests indicating the lack of significance of gender effects and of age effects for uneducated subjects are shown in tables 16 and 17.

Table 16. One-way analysis of variance on total Tamil SRT score according to gender Source DF SS MS F p Sex 1 7.1 7.1 0.20 0.659 Error 41 1,471.7 35.9 Total 42 1,478.8 Individual 95 percent CI’s for mean based on pooled STDEV Level N Mean STDEV ––+–––––+––––––+––––––+––– Male 24 31.292 6.362 (–––––––––*––––––––-) Female 19 30.474 5.481 (-–––––––––*–––––––––––) ––+–––––+––––––+––––––+––– Pooled STDEV = 5.991 28.0 30.0 32.0 34.0

Table 17. One-way analysis of variance on total Tamil SRT score for uneducated subjects only according to five age groups Source DF SS MS F p UNED5AGE 4 236.1 59.0 2.02 0.122 Error 25 729.4 29.2 Total 29 965.5 Individual 95 percent CI’s for mean based on pooled STDEV Age Group N Mean STDEV ––––––+––––––+––––––+–––––– 12–19 6 29.833 6.585 (-–––––*–––––) 20–29 6 32.333 4.457 (––––*––––) 30–39 8 29.500 3.964 (––––*––––) 40–49 5 33.000 3.464 (––––*–––––-) 50–70 5 24.400 7.987 (––––––*––––––-) ––––––+––––––+––––––+–––––– Pooled STDEV = 5.397 24.0 30.0 36.0

Appendix G: Bibliography of additional references on Irula

Natarajan, T. S. 1985. Tribal habitants of Nilgiri District: A profile. Unpublished report. M. Palada, Ooty, Tamil Nadu: Tamil University, Tribal Research Centre. Perialwar, R. 1978. A grammar of the Irula language. Annamalainagar, Tamil Nadu: Annamalai University. Reddy, K. Nirmalananda. 1985. Irulas of Nilgiris: A study on anthropological demography. M. Palada-Ooty, Tamil Nadu: Tamil University, Tribal Research Centre. Reddy, K. Nirmalananda. 1991. Population structure of Irulas of Nilgiris. In K. N. Reddy and D. V. Raghava Rao, eds., Population structures among tribes, 1–38. Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu: Tamil University Press. Shapiro, Michael C. and Harold F. Schiffman. 1981. Language and society in South Asia. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass

63 References

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