Volume 17, Issue 1

The methodological aspects that characterize any dialectal survey were defined in Jules Gilliéron's Atlas Linguistique de la France (Champion, 1902–1910) and they were the starting point for later dialectal works. From then on, the number of informants interviewed, the qualities of the researcher or the typology of the questionnaire are characteristics that determine the design and the realization of any atlas. This paper examines different methodological aspects related to the dialectal survey and proposes a method that gives account of the progressive variation observed in the speakers of a cohesive dialectal territory.

This paper discusses the gender changes that can take place in neuter nouns in Slovene dialects on the basis of number (singular, plural and dual). Using linguistic geography methods and material collected for the ongoing ‘Slovene Linguistic Atlas’ (SLA), the forms of a selected neuter noun are presented on three linguistic maps, which show the geographical spread of the gender changes. The paper also draws a comparison with earlier syntheses of these phenomena in Slovene.

This article attempts to give some features of prosodic elements and vowel phonemes of the Northern Aukštaitian (East-Aukštaitian) dialect of Panevėžys of Lithuania. It is based on widely published material of the Northern Aukštaitian dialect of Panevėžys studies. The purpose of this article is to show, on the one hand, that phonetic phenomena exist in this dialect, and, on the other hand, how these phenomena can be interpreted from a phonological point of view.

A language is one of the most important indexes of ethnical awareness of Latvian Lithuanians. Societal functions of the Lithuanian language as the one of the ethnical minority in Latvia are narrowed – this language serves only for everyday communication because a possibility to use one's mother tongue in a different language environment is linked more with individual or family needs and those of a small circle of friends (more rarely, for the needs of community activities, in case if Lithuanians of a certain locality join associations). Thus, among Latvian Lithuanians, a spoken language is more common. The linguistic peculiarities of Lithuanians living in Latvia have been mostly investigated on the lexis level until now. However, a great variety of prepositional constructions is noticeable as well in the mother tongue of Lithuanians. According to their expression, the three-fold usage can be singled out: as in the Lithuanian literary language; as in a spoken language or dialects; and as in the language impacted by the Latvian language (or undergoing its additional impact). Such changes of the native Lithuanian language have occurred in the environment of the foreign language due to different reasons. The Latvian language has made and still makes a great influence; also, some constructions peculiar to the spoken Lithuanian language are present, too.

The western Mediterranean constitutes a traditional zone of meeting of several types of languages and of dialectal profusion. The system can be easily interpreted by means of a diglossic organization between dominated poles (minority languages) and dominant poles (vehicular languages, States languages), clearly recognizable. In an historic phase where the centralist economic pressures are very strong (globalization), it is interesting to question the whole system of these languages and linguistic landscapes, notably the romance landscapes. We can then begin to understand that are appearing particular modalities of management of these different sorts of languages corresponding to three models (France, Spain and Italy). Each of these models gives us an outline of what could become the western Mediterranean in a near future.

In this paper two simplification techniques are used in order to represent geographical distribution patterns of standard Japanese. The first technique is a representation of two-dimensional geographical distribution patterns in one dimension. The second is the plotting of geographical locations making use of railway distances from cultural centres. By simplifying the two-dimensional geographical distribution into one by railway distance, another dimension on a sheet of paper can show one other characteristic of standard Japanese forms. In order to see the patterns of distribution of Japanese standard forms, numerical data based on the Linguistic Atlas of Japan are utilized. Gravity centres of railway distance are calculated for each standard Japanese form, and correspondence with the degree of nationwide usage and the year of first attestation in historical documents is considered. Two-dimensional graphs (scattergrams) of the three factors are considered.