Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2003, Qupperneq 121

Um tvíhljóðanir og einhljóðanir í íslensku ogfæreysku ... 119
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SUMMARY
‘On Diphthongization and Monophthongization in Icelandic and Faroese and the
Future Prospects of the Icelandic Vowel System’
Keywords: diphthongization, monophthongization, Icelandic, Faroese, language
change, Icelandic vowel system, Faroese vowel system
The paper discusses diphthongization and monophthongization in Icelandic and
Faroese and likely development of the Icelandic vowel system. It is pointed out that
niost Old Norse long vowels have developed into diphthongs in Icelandic and
Faroese, although the developments have not been identical in the two languages.
Thus the word bátur ‘boat’ has the diphthong [au:] in Icelandic and [oa:] in Faroese,
and in the word tómur ‘empty’ we have the diphthong [ou:] in Icelandic but [œu:] in
some Faroese dialects ([ou:] in others). In Modem Icelandic there is also a tendency
towards diphthongization of long monophthongs in words like gömul [Yœ:] ‘old’ and
net [ee:] ‘net’, although this is perhaps not considered “proper pronunciation”. In
Faroese, on the other hand, diphthongization of that kind is generally accepted and
considered a part of the vowel system, e.g. in words like spakur [ea:] ‘calm’. —
Conversely, we have monophthongization of short diphthongs in Icelandic words like
grœnt ([ai] > [a]) ‘green’ and haust ([œi] > [œ]), which is probably considered slop-
Py pronunciation in Icelandic, whereas comparable monophthongization is generally
accepted and not dependent on style or register in Faroese, e.g. in pairs like
deyður-deytt ([ei:] vs. [e]) ‘dead’ (m. vs. n.) and tómur-tómt ([ou:] or [œu:] vs. [œ]).
The author predicts long monophthongs and short diphthongs may very well
undergo a similar development in Icelandic in the future as they already have in
Faroese (i.e., (further) diphthongization of long monophthongs and monophthongiza-
tion of short diphthongs). The result would be a system where some vowels would