languages and area spoken for chitipa - Centre for Language Studies

was harvest time. This resulted in researchers taking too long to finish the targeted
number of questionnaires per village. This in turn affected other areas visited later in the
day.
1.7.2 Bad condition of roads
Mobility of vehicles from one place to another was also slowed down by the bad state of
roads. Some places could not even be accessed by road and there were instances where
field vehicles even broke down due to the poor condition of the roads and this slowed
down the progress of the research.
1.7.3 Geographical Positioning System (GPS) equipment
Some of the equipment developed faults while in the field and they could not be repaired
in good time since the researchers were in remote rural areas and it was difficult to get
people from the survey offices to assist in repairing the equipment. This meant that
correct coordinates for some villages could not be obtained in good time.
1.7.4 Lack of reliable village populations
The task of recording coordinates for the language atlas also required recording the
number of households and the total population of the villages visited. However, as
already pointed above, in almost all the villages visited, village heads did not keep a head
count of all the people in the village. They only recorded married people and youths and
unmarried people were not counted. The research team however insisted that they give an
estimate of their village population.
In addition, the GPS’s readings were required to be taken from the centre of the village.
But in some cases, this was not possible as the centre of the village was either in thick
bushes, in the middle of a river, or hills. This therefore might have a bearing on the
accuracy of some of the locations.
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