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In their work entitled Orthographies of Nigerian Languages, Okwudishu and Salami (2000) claim that with the possible exception of Ibie and Uweppawano (Wano) all dialects of Etsako share a high level of mutual intelligibility. Our investigations, however, suggest that they are only partly correct as they failed to point out that there are actually two Ibies: North Ibie and South Ibie and that Wano is only potentially mutually intelligible with South Ibie. We found out that there is little or no mutual intelligibility between Wano and North Ibie. Relying on lexico-statistic method, the present paper provides evidence to support this last claim and to argue that in fact contrary to Okwudishu and Salami’s claim, mutual intelligibility among the other dialects of Etsako is a matter of degree, depending on distance between one and the other as well as other external influences.
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