Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1961, Page 76

74
HREINN BENEDIKTSSON
definition of the concept of ‘dialect’. For, nobody denies that there
are in Iceland language differences, more or less prominent, which
are distributed geographically, and are, therefore, probably best ac-
counted for by the methods of linguistic geography.
Such differences, especially in vocabulary, have been noted for a
Iong time by Icelandic observers, both specialists and laymen. As
early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, Árni Magnússon,
the well-known manuscript collector, made notes of such differences
and even used terms of localization such as sunnlendska, nordlendsha
(‘southern, northern speech’).7 Later, similar observations, still
mainly about questions of vocabulary, were made, e. g., by Björn M.
Ólsen, the philologist, and Þorvaldur Thoroddsen, the geologist, in
the late nineteenth century.8
The differences in vocabulary are of two kinds. On the one hand,
different words are used in different parts of the country for the same
concept, e. g. ‘the tomcat’, which is called högni in the North, steggur
in the West, and jress in the South and East. This means that a num-
ber of words have a geographically limited distribution; they are
known only in some parts of the country. In general, each word occurs
in one continuous area. But in some cases we find the same word in
two, non-contiguous, even distant, areas, viz., especially, in the West
(and/or the North-West) on the one hand and the East on the other.
Examples are rusull ‘negligent’, spek(j)a ‘to speak’, rýna ‘a queer,
silly-Iooking person’. In modern times, rusull is known in the East
only, but the compound rösulvirkur9 exists both in the West and the
East. Spek(j)a is known in the East, and it is recorded in Björn Hall-
dórsson’s Dictionary (from the West).10 Both lliese words occur in
7 See Árni Magnússons levned og skrijter, udg. af Kommissionen for det
Arnamagnæanske Legat, Vol. II (Copenhagen 1930), pp. 237-—254.
8 See S. Blöndal, Islandsk-dansk Ordbog (Reykjavík 1920—24), p. viii; B.
M. Ólsen, “Zur neuislandischen Grammatik,” Germania XXVII (1882), pp. 257
—287; Þ. Thoroddsen, Ferðabók, Vol. III (Reykjavík 1914), p. 299.
0 The ö instead of u is a result of jlámœli (see p. 84 below).
10 Lexicon islandico-latino-danicum Biörnonis Haldorsonii (Copenhagen
1814), II, p. 317.