Studia Islandica - 01.06.1964, Blaðsíða 206

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in Húsavík, where 50% of the informants used this pronun-
ciation exclusively and another 40% partly. It is also fairly
common ín the northern section of the eastern shore of
Skagafjörður. In the inland district of western Skagafjörð-
ur there are traces of it, but farther west it is not found to
speak of. Its eastern boundary is in Norður-Þingeyjarsýsla.
The unsimplified cluster [ijfr] also occurs before a follow-
ing [n], e.g. in tungna [t"uijgna], especially in the Central
North. This variant is apparently rarer than the one dis-
cussed above but has been less fully investigated.
4. The original cluster [rl] in uncompounded words, such
as varla, karl, has had a threefold development in Modern
Icelandic. The old pronunciation [varla, kharl] has retreated
before the pronunciation [vardla, khardl ], which is now the
commonest one in most parts of the country. In the third
stage of the development [r] disappears, and some speakers
accordingly say [vaclla, kha<jl]. This pronunciation is much
commoner in some words than in others.
The cluster [rn], as in barnið, has undergone much the
same development, yielding three variant pronunciations:
[barnrð], [Ijardmð], and [ljaqlmð].
The home of the rl/rn-pronunciation (as the old pronun-
ciation without the epenthetic [d] is called) is in the South-
East, especially in Austur-Skaftafellssýsla. There 41% of
the speakers used this pronunciation exclusively and 96%
exclusively or partly. It is also found to a certain extent in
Suður-Múlasýsla, but mostly mixed with the other variants.
In Vestur-Skaftafellssýsla, and even as far west as the
eastermost districts of Rangárvallasýsla, it occurs sporadi-
cally in individual words, mostly very rare ones.
5. In some parts of the country the vowels [i:] and [e:]
have undergone a lowering and raising, respectively, result-
ing in vowels intermediate in height ([j:] or [e:]), which
sometimes concide in an intermediate dipthong (schweben-