Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1961, Side 93

ICELANDIC DIALECTOLOGY: METHODS AND RESULTS 89
In the East, the boundary between the two trade-districts, the
Djúpivogur and the Reyðarfjörður districts, was at Gvendarnes (be-
tween Stöðvarjjörður and Fáskrúðsfjörður), and the whole of Fljóts-
dalshérað belonged to the district of Reyðarjjörður. This, accord-
ing to Einarsson, coincides with the present dialect boundary of the
South-East. Einarsson concludes:
It is self-evident that the better the ineans of comraunications were
hetween the port and the district allotted to it, and the more difficult
communications were with harbors outside of the district, the less would
be the temptation for people to carry on smuggling and other intercourse
over the district boundaries. In Snæfellsnes the districts were small, hut
traffic on a comparatively large scale, and this was a continual hotbed
of smuggling in spite of all the efforts of the merchants. But Aðils [the
chief authority on the subjectl does not mention one case of smuggling
hetween the districts of Djúpavogur and Reyðarfjörður. The geographi-
cal position described above is explanation enough. It was in fact easier
for most people from Breiðdalur and Stöðvarfjörður to go to Djúpavog-
ur, and conversely, it was easier for people of Skriðdalur and Fá-
skrúðsfjörður to go to Reyðarfjörður. Thus by combined efforts of law
and nature an effective barrier seems to have been made. —
It is true, according to Guðfinnsson,45 that there are traces of the
older features north of the trade-district boundary. Nevertheless, Ein-
arsson’s suggestion that this boundary played at least an important
róle in the linguistic development is convincing.
Einarsson also connects another isophone wdth the same trade-
district boundary, viz. that of voiced vs. voiceless ð, l, m, n before p,
t, k. At present the limits are farther to the north, but Einarsson has
convincingly argued, as we shall see later, that the extension of the
voiceless pronunciation north of this boundary is of recent date.46
Anyhow, this case is different, since, in contradistinction to the other
two, we here have to do with a southern innovation spreading to the
north.47
45 Breytingar, pp. 24 and 29.
48 “Icelandic Dialect Studies ...,” pp. 545—553.
47 Einarsson adds a fourth, lexical, feature determined by this boundary, viz.
the use of austur ‘east’ and suður ‘south’ as opposites (ibid., pp. 554—556). See