Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1961, Page 97

ICELANDIC DIALECTOLOGY: METHODS AND RESULTS
93
West and the North-East, Guðfinnsson, without, however, giving any
figures, says that he found more /if-speakers among “the grown-ups
and especially the older people” than among children.64 Thus, hv-
pronunciation is losing ground against the /cw-pronunciation. In the
same way, in Fljótsdalshérað, where the northern voiced pronuncia-
tion of 8, l, m, n before p, t, lc was predominant in his time, Einars-
son showed that, among those that had the southern unvoiced pro-
nunciation, mixed speech was prevalent in the middle-aged and older
generations, whereas the younger generations had pure southern
speech.65
3) The cases where we find a sudden increase, because of migra-
tion, in direct contact between two opposed areas are instructive.
Southern voiceless 8, l, m, n before p, t, k in the East is a case in
point. Einarsson examined this feature in a few ‘immigrant’ families
in Fljótsdalsliérað (where, as stated above, the northern pronuncia-
tion was predominant). Most interesting are two ‘immigrant’ pastors’
families of mixed composition; in one, the husband was ‘southern’,
but the wife ‘northern’; in the other, the husband was ‘northern’, the
wife ‘southern’. In both cases it is the southern feature (voiceless
pronunciation) which has gained the upper hand among the descen-
dants (in the second and third generations). Further, of the 48% (or
63 individuals) in this area who had pure or mixed southern pro-
nunciation, about one-third were ‘immigrants’ in the first generation,
who, as a rule, had maintained their southern pronunciation un-
mixed. Of the remaining two-thirds (or 42 individuals) about 24%
(10 individuals) were descendants of immigrants or of mixed fami-
lies—including the two parsons’ families—and of these only about
30% had mixed speech. The remaining 32 individuals with southern
pronunciation were ‘pure natives’, and as we saw, among these, the
was only 27%. In the northernmost community of this area, Vopnafjörður, 42%
were pure Zcu-speakers, 46% mixed, and only 12% pure /m-speakers. (See “An
Icelandic Dialect Feature ..pp. 358f.).
04 Ibid., pp. 356 and 358.
ur’ “Icelandic Dialect Studies ...,” p. 548.