Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1979, Síða 139

125
dating is consonant with the form of insular /which is employed and also
with the abbreviation of iw by n. The appearance of r rotunda after only
o and d in hånd B suggests a date in the latter half of the thirteenth
century, although its use after g and /> in A would seem to indicate a
slightly later date.
The witness which the MS. bears to the vowel phoneme system in
effect at the time of writing is less easy to analyse. Benediktsson asserts:
... hvorugur skrifaranna tveggja, A e6a B, mun hafa gert grein å å
og o, å p og o, né å æ og æ, enda er brotiQ taliø fra si5ari hluta 13.
aldar.8
In brief, he posits the following vowel system:
short
long
i y u
e 6 o
a
i y u
é 6
æ å
Each merger to which Benediktsson refers is clearly evidenced in at
least one of the MS. hånds. A shows the merger of å and g, and C of o
and o, and of æ and æ. Yet there are traces of the distinction also
between each of these pairs of earlier phonemes in various hånds. The
preservation of a graphic distinction between å and p in B must, as
Benediktsson observes, be ascribed to careful copying of an earlier
original. The distinction between g and o is always difficult to chronicle
since occurrences of the original short o are infrequent; still one notes
that although neither A nor B ever uses a specially marked graph for this
vowel, neither ever writes it as au or as the ligature æ as C does. Whether
this justifies one in speaking of a distinction here remains in doubt.
Perhaps, if, as has been argued, the merger took place in the latter part of
the twelfth and early thirteenth century, only the remnants of an earlier
orthographic convention are to be observed here. As regards æ and ce,
neither A nor B can be said to maintain a clear distinction, but each does
employ a special graph for æ: eo in A and ø in B. Since this merger took
place about the middle of the thirteenth century, indecision here may
reflect the faet that the scribes wrote during the period of transition.
"Tvo handritsbrot”, p. 143.