Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1961, Page 96

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IIREINN BENEDIKTSSON
[saqði] etc., and [har^Yr] for [harðyr] etc., although no exact
figures are available for these cases. In all these instances, the restric-
ted feature is undoubtedly on the defensive.
2) The most natural way of ascertaining the tendency of develop-
ment would he to compare the speech of the oldest generation with
that of the youngest. Unfortunately, as we saw, Guðfinnsson’s investi-
gations dealt almost exclusively with the youngest generation, but the
comparison of the results of Einarsson, who mainly examined middle-
aged speakers,60 with those obtained by Guðfinnsson may furnish
some evidence. Thus, according to Einarsson,61 in the Eastern hinter-
land (Fljótsdalshérað) about 71% had pure harðmœli in 1930. But
eleven years later, and in the youngest generation, according to Guð-
finnsson, the high figure of 70% for harðmœli applied only to the
three northernmost communities of this area (Jökuldals-, Hlíðar-
and Tunguhreppur) ,62 Thus, during the thirties, linmœli has gained
ground from the middle-aged generation to the youngest.
The same probably holds true, in this area, for kv- for hv-, al-
though the figures are not comparable to the same extent as for lin-
mœli vs. harðmœli.63 Besides, at the boundaries of the kv-area in the
80 “Icelandic Dialect Studias ...,” p. 539.
81 Ibid., p. 541.
62 Breytingar, p. 17; Mállýzkur, pp. 191—194.
63 Einarsson found almost pure Av-pronunciation “in the northern parls of
Hérað (Uthérað) and Firðir.” In this district he found about 25 persons (he
does not say out of how many) using kv-, who, however, “upon investigation
turned out to be either ‘immigrants’ from the North or having parents from the
North or from Reykjavík.” “To me this hardly amounts to ‘mixed speech’; I
would prefer to call it traces” (“Icelandic Dialect Studies ...,” pp. 559f.). But,
for the county of Suður-Múlasýsla as a whole, Guðfinnsson found 60% pure hv-
pronunciation (Breytingar, p. 21), and for the northern part of the county
(north of Skriðdalur and FáskrúSsjjörður) he gives the figure of 37% pure hv-
pronunciation. In the two southernmost communities of the northern part, Valla-
hreppur and Reyðarjjörður, as much as 67% and 46% resp. were mixed speak-
ers. In the county of Norður-Múlasýsla (except the northernmost community,
Skeggjastaðahreppur, which has pure kr-pronunciation) pure Av-pronunciation