Harmonizing Wana and Wangibi Dialects for the Standardization of Eggon Language

in a multilingual community is accepted and codified. When a chosen dialect amongst others is reduced to writing, having a set of rules guiding the orthography, it is said to be a standard language. Standardization occurs as a result of a direct and deliberate intervention by a society. The standard language becomes a symbol of nationhood or is designated for official and social use in the community. This research discovered that Eggon, the language under review has about 14 dialects spoken across the Eggon communities and none of these dialects has been chosen as a standard dialect. The paper tries to identify the problems hindering the standardization .of Eggon and also tries to ascertain what steps need to be taken to develop a standard form of Eggon. A descriptive research method approach is used in this study and data was collected through interaction with informants that are competent in the language. The study reveals that a major factor hindering the standardization of Eggon is the challenge of which dialect to be used for the standardization. Findings indicate that the orthographic contrast between the two (2) dialects which are Wana and Wangibi is very minimal; therefore, efforts should be made to integrate the two (2) dialects to form a standard orthography of Eggon language, in accordance with the orthographies proposed in this work. This work tries to harmonize both mutually intelligible and widely spoken dialects and suggest that the harmonized version be accepted as a standard language that can be spoken across Eggon communities.