Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.06.1970, Page 171

The dilemmas of dialectology, as described above, may be
summarized as follows:
Dialectology has always had difficulty in maintaining itself
as an autonomous discipline with its own theory. When it
tries to liberate itself from the pressure of the dominating
linguistic theory it risks falling into an interdisciplinary de-
pendence on linguistics, on the one hand, and some other
discipline(s), such as geography, ethnology, and/or sociology,
on the other; cf. the quotation from Saltarelli above.
In Sweden, dialectology for a long time functioned as the
charwoman of history of language. To be sure, substantial
contributions to linguistic geography were made by Natan
Lindqvist, D. O. Zetterholm, and others, but we missed the
opportunity to realize a large Swedish dialect atlas of the
continental type. Atlas över svensk folkkultur, sprákliga delen,
which has been in progress for about thirty years but is still
unpublished, seems not to fill this gap. In the area of lexico-
graphy, Swedish dialectology holds a better position as com-
pared with research abroad. Ordbok över folkmálen i övre Dalarna
(Dictionary of Dialects of Upper Dalecarlia) by Lars Levander
and Stig Björklund (1961—) and Lulelapsk ordbok (Lulelappisches
Wörterbuch) by Harald Grundström (1946-54) are both out-
standing works, worthy of international recognition. Further-
more, there is reason to expect that the forthcoming general
Swedish dialect dictionary, Ordbok över Sveriges dialekter, will
become a standard work of high value. However, in Sweden,
the part of dialectology which has been fairly independent
of history of language and philology is instead firmly oriented
towards folklore and ethnology (Wörter und Sachen).
In addition, Swedish dialectology has been coloured by the
national romanticism which was dominant in Sweden during
the earlier decades of the twentieth century. Since ideologies
and values are now changing, a biased attachment to ‘genuine’
and archaic phenomena may become a severe drawback for
Swedish dialectology.
During the sixties, dialectology in different parts of the