Mutual intelligibility between certain Polynesian speech communities

Abstract

This paper looks at groups of speakers of one language that exhibit variations in speech from region to region or between social levels. When these variations serve to reduce intelligibility one may say that two dialects of a language are thereby revealed. As these differences become still more numerous and crucial across time and space, intelligibility is more and more limited until such a small degree of communication takes place that it can be said that for all practical purposes the speakers are using different languages. Mutual intelligibility is examined between groups.