SYNOPSIS Ideally, a linguistic classification should indicate relationships within a single linguistic unit (e.g. family). Hitherto no one has shown the inter‐relationships of the idioms comprising the “Gbaya‐Ngbaka Mandjia Group”. These might be determined by comparing word‐lists, by studying mutually intelligibility, or by describing the distributions of certain linguistic features. But since we have to do with a continuously varying language, the Gbaya idioms might more profitably be investigated by statistical methods to determine their quantitative differences. Evidence is given to show how certain features are distributed among some of the Gbaya idioms. The principal example is that of the developments of r in a certain number of words. Although this study does not lead to any definitive groupings, it does disclose a few tantalizing clues.
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William J. Samarin (1959) studied this question.