Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Blaðsíða 26

34 Dialect Research in Orkney and Shetland after Jakobsen
It is, perhaps, characteristic of modern scientific method
that the herculean, individual tasks of the past are now
divided and sub*divided with clear demarcations.1) In lin=
guistics, any mixing of approach — description, history,
comparative study — is properly criticized.2) Jakobsen’s main
concern, of course, was with lexis. But he was much more
than simply a lexicographer, and it can be argued, a for=
tiori, that lexicography itself has a built*in prejudice in
favour of extra=linguistic matters.3) Furthermore, it is poss*
ible to find in his work not only the conventional phonoí
logical statements of his time, but also (were they displayed
more adequately) the significant distributions of linguistic
geogragphy. Again, it was possible for one of the best known
contemporary books4) on interference phenomena, in an
extensive exemplification of languages which have been
influenced, to cite Jakobsen’s »Det Norrøne sprog pá Shet*
land« as its only entry under »Norse«.
Nevertheless, his approach if albembracing was also
antiquarian. How conscious he was of his duty first of all
to collect the rapidly diminishing number of Norse words
in the dialects, can be remarked in all his published works
on Orkney and Shetlend, but chiefly perhaps in the Dic*
tionary5) Chapter III, in his assessment and categorisation
of these words, and Capter II where he deals especially
with his field techniques — »evening visits ■ in order to
become acquainted with the older words and expressions
>) cf Hans Reichenbach »The Rise of Scientific Philosophy«, p. 117 —
»Scientific work is group work«.
2) See e. g. Fries and Pike »Coexistent Phonemic Systems« Language
25, p. 29 cf. Professor Strevens’s review of P. L. Henry »An Anglo-
Irish Dialect of North Roscommon« Archivum Linguisticum vol. 10, p. 63.
3) Yakov Malkiel »Pattern of Progress in Romance Linguistics« Ro=
mance Philology Vol. V (1951) p. 290.
4) Uriel Weinreich »Languages in Contact«.
5) »An Etymological Dictionary of the Norse Language in Shetland«
i. e. The English edition of the »Etymologisk ordbog over det Norrøne
Sprog pá Shetland«.