Studia Islandica - 01.06.1964, Page 207

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der Dipthong). The corresponding rounded vowels [y:] and
[ö:] show a parallel development. Usually these two features
go together in the speech of particular individuals and are
popularly designated as flámæli, i.e. “open speech.”
Examples are:
sigur [si:qYr-sie:qyr]
vegur [ve:qYr-vie:qYr]
duga [<jy :qa - dvö :qa]
lög [lö :q - IyÖ :q].
While this development is most frequent in the case of
long vowels, it can also affect the corresponding short
vowels, though that is rather uncommon.
There are three principal areas of flámœli, which for the
sake of convenience can be identified roughly as the East
(Austfirðir), the South-West (Suðurnes), and Austur-
Húnavatnssýsla and Vestur-Húnavatnssýsla.
The East includes Norður-Múlasýsla and Suður-Múlasýsla
and all of Austur-Skaftafellssýsla as well, except for the
westernmost administrative district, Hofshreppur. The in-
cidence of flámœli varies from place to place within this
area. It is commonest in Suður-Múlasýsla, where it was more
or less prominent in the speech of 74% of the informants.
The South-West includes Gullbringusýsla and Kjósar-
sýsla, Reykjavík and Hafnarfjörður, Akranes and Borgar-
fjarðarsýsla. Here flámœli was most in evidence in Akranes,
where it occurred in the speech of 56% of the informants.
In Reykjavík it was far less common, as was to be expected,
since many of the inhabitants are recent immigrants from
regions where no flámœli exists.
The third area includes only Austur-Húnavatnssýsla and
Vestur-Húnavatnssýsla. Here about 30% of the informants
had the feature in question in their speech, but the incidence
varied greatly from one administrative district (hreppur) to
another; in some, flámæli was not found at all, while in
others it was very common.