Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Page 102
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Toward the phonetic description of Faroese vowels
direction of the more open vowels, but the glide is so
slight that it is barely noticeable (notice that the frequency
scale used is not linear). In other parts of my material
they also occur without any trace of diphthongization.
As for the short vowels, it is surprising that [V] is so far
removed from [ø:] and [æ] (cp. Jakobsen’s rendering of
[V] as [ø]). This may vary, however. Fig. 3 shows the short
vowels spoken by another person (with a fairly similar
pronunciation). The rounded front vowels [Y, æ] are here
well on line vertically, and this person’s [ø:] (which is not
seen in the chart) moves along the line between these two
vowel qualities, although it is always somewhat more open
than [Y]. — The square form of this vowel chart is due to
a certain centralization of the vowels. The dots do not in
this case represent single occurrences of vowels in ideal
environments but average values of vowels taken from
different words. Because of the asssimilations with following
(or preceding) consonants, the vowels appear as slightly
less different from each other. It is obvious that a represen=
tation of selected occurrences as in Fig. 2 is in a sense
more informative.
In comparing long and short vowels it may be worth
while to consider the latitude of variation of both. Fig. 4
shows the unrounded front vowels spoken by the same
person as in Fig. 3 (the rounded series are not included
because the material is here deficient on some points). Every
vowel is represented by a number of occurrences in diffe*
.rent words. The examples of each vowel are surrounded by
a closed line. The short vowels are indicated by dots, the
long ones by small circles representing the initial quality
of each vowel (which is probably of most interest for the
comparison, because it represents the most distinct articu*
lation of the vowel). The vowels [i:, i, e:, £, sa, a] are
measured in the words: rytur, sið, situr, vit, vitja; ikki,
liggi, liggur, stykki, styttri; betra, esja, fedrar, seg, vera;
elda, elta, eskja, gleddi, merkur, nevna, verra; maðurin,
skjalið, slag, sæð, tað; alla,altíð, annað, kall, lagdir, valda, vatn.