Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1992, Page 123

Phonological Variation in 20th Century Icelandic
121
pronunciation might go against the generalization described here, since
there the “confused” pronunciation may seem to have involved a merger
°f phonemes, i.e. /i+e/ on the one hand and /u+ö/ on the other (mainly
caused by the lowering of (long) /i,u/). Although we do not know what
was the exact quality of the non-high ffont vowels in all varieties of
the “confused” pronunciation, it is well documented that children that
sPoke this dialect had a hard time leaming when to use the orthographic
symbols for the vowels in question, namely “i, u, e, ö”, which suggests
that the vowels at least came close to merging. Hence it would seem
that accommodation from the “confused” to the “correct” variety would
have been difficult, but still the “confiised” variety is clearly on its way
out. What this shows is that structural considerations like the ones we
have discussed in this section are not the only thing that plays a role in
{he spreading of dialectal features. They may be overridden by other
factors. The negative reaction against the “confused” pronunciation
was indeed very strong, say between 1930 and 1950. The “confused”
pronunciation was by many puristic linguists looked on almost like a
disease and considered to be a real threat to the development of the lan-
§uage. As mentioned above, it was heavily stigmatized and the social
Pressure must have been quite strong. It is well documented that the
adoption of the correct pronunciation was no small task for those who
Were trying to modify their pronunciation in the 1940s and 1950s or
being taught in the schools to do so. Such a situation can frequently lead
t0 hypercorrection. Thus it is quite possible that observed pronuncia-
hons like [bi:ð] for beð ‘flowerbed’ or [sYiyyr] for sögur ‘stories’ were
frequently instances of such hypercorrection in the speech of those
who knew that they tended to lower their /i,u/ in words like biÖ ‘wait’
^nd sugur ‘suckers (as in blood-suckers, etc.)’, although “genuine” or
sPontaneous” raising of /e,ö/ is usually assumed to have existed too
(cf. Guðfinnsson 1964:81-82).
•^•4 Final remarks on the origin and spreading of innovations
So far we have said very little about the reasons for the origin of the
dialectal differences or sound changes under discussion here and we