Abstract
This paper advocates an approach to interspeaker linguistic variation that aligns with the ‘I-language’ view (Chomsky, 1986). On this view, the object of study in linguistics is mental grammar; language is understood as being internal to the individual, in contrast to the ‘E-language’ approach, where language is external to 
 individual speakers. This paper considers a case study from Maay (a Cushitic language spoken in southern Somalia) in which interspeaker variation in a refugee community defies analysis in E-language terms. An I-language approach allows for a straightforward analysis of the observed variation, specifically in the domains of plural noun formation and vowel length alternations.
Highlights
In this paper I argue for an approach to interspeaker linguistic variation that aligns with the ‘I-language’ view
I will focus on the case of Maay, a Cushitic language spoken in southern Somalia, highlighting some aspects of interspeaker variation that are observed in a community of Maay-speaking refugees
The I-language approach may be especially useful in studying languages in refugee communities like the US Somali Bantus, where social upheaval, mixed language histories, and geographic movement have given rise to significant variability and instability in the language
Summary
In this paper I argue for an approach to interspeaker linguistic variation that aligns with the ‘I-language’ view. On the E-language view, a language is something outside of an individual speaker; it exists in a speech community, in books, and/or in a corpus of spoken or written language. Such a view is implicit in any study that measures the statistical frequency of a pattern in a speech community without keeping data from individual speakers distinct. I will focus on the case of Maay, a Cushitic language spoken in southern Somalia, highlighting some aspects of interspeaker variation that are observed in a community of Maay-speaking refugees. I will show how only the I-language approach enables us to make sense of the extreme variation observed within the speech community, in the domains of plural noun formation and vowel length alternations
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