Volume 24, Issue 1

Latvian and Lithuanian share a large number of related lexical items in their standard varieties, but even more so in their dialects. Even though the traditional regional dialects are relatively well-preserved both in Latvia and Lithuania, nowadays they are disappearing. For this reason, a project called Atlas of the Baltic languages was initiated in 2006, with the aim to study both Baltic languages from a geolinguistic point of view. Altogether, five volumes are planned for the Atlas of the Baltic Languages , presenting the dialectal vocabulary in thematic groups: flora-related vocabulary; fauna-related vocabulary; human physical qualities and kinship terminology; housing and settlement; natural phenomena, time, weather, etc. The selection of the lexical items for the Atlas of the Baltic Languages is based not only on words of common origin in Latvian and Lithuanian, but also on related semantics, therefore all volumes will include semantic maps as well.

The lack of homogeneous data recorded by similar methodologies has been a handicap to the development of more advanced studies on the dialectal variation of Basque. Now that the first five volumes of the Linguistic Atlas of the Basque Language have been published, researchers have access to a great amount of data and the possibility to use more sophisticated procedures to analyze the variation of the Basque language from a geolinguistic point of view. In this contribution, we use data taken from the fifth volume of this atlas, which is devoted to noun morphology. First, these data will be analyzed linguistically, and instead of using the phonetic representation, we will use the phonological or underlying representation. In order to do this, we will analyze the inventory of the morphological suffixes used in nominal inflexion cases and the phonological rules which appear in these cases (mainly assimilation, dissimilation, insertion and deletion), using the classical view of generative phonology. As far as the cartography of the data is concerned, we will use the recently created Diatech tool, instead of other dialectometrical tools, because of the multiple responses (MR) which that data show. In effect, the Diatech tool provides a more accurate processing of the MR than other tools. As well as conceptual maps, synthetic maps will be presented; these maps will show different geographical organizations of the suffixes and phonological rules.

Galician and Portuguese have a common origin. This genetic affiliation is not accompanied by any historical continuity (Monteagudo 2012: 38), as these language varieties were separated in a distant past, mainly through the establishment of a political and administrative boundary between their territories. This lack of contact is interesting when studying common and divergent linguistic phenomena, in particular in the field of prosody and intonation, as it presupposes a challenge to historical study, given that we only recently have sound recordings of speech. Our proposal is therefore to contribute towards a diachronic study of the intonation of absolute interrogatives in Galician and Portuguese by using synchronic data collected over the past decade. We aim to show the usefulness of the quantitative method of measuring prosodic distances, because it enables us to determine geographic areas using common standards and shows the degree of separation between the intonations of the two varieties.

In variationist linguistics, the concept of implicational hierarchies, i.e. the idea that feature x implies y but not the reverse, has passed into oblivion the last decades (cf. Rickford 2002: 142). This paper aims at showing the usefulness of implicational scales as an analytical tool, especially when attempting to understand stylistic dynamics and the structure of intermediate variations in dialect/ standard continua. The discussion is based on results from empirical research in Flanders, where intermediate language use between dialect and standard language (the so-called tussentaal ) is increasingly prevalent. In general, tussentaal is conceived of as the whole continuum of regionally coloured language use in between the poles ‘traditional dialect’ and ‘standard language’, and it is hence said to differ from region to region, situation to situation and even from speaker to speaker (Willemyns 2005: 31). Necessary and sufficient conditions would be impossible to define (cf. De Caluwe 2006: 19). This paper however demonstrates, on the basis of quantitative analyses of nine language features as used by ten West Flemish speakers in three types of speech settings, that tussentaal is not just a random idiolectal mix of dialect features, but that it is structured by implicational principles shared across the speech community.

The Baltic languages remain of special interest for linguists because they contain many archaic features essential for the comparative research of Indo-European languages and reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European (Mikić 2014: 39). The Lithuanian prosodic system is characterized by free accent and two types of syllable accents (or tones) in the long stressed syllables. The stress is inherited from Indo-European and can fall on any syllable of a word, i. e. last, penultimate, antepenultimate etc. (Stundžia 2014: 12). In the Northern Aukštaitian dialect of Panevėžys of the Lithuanian Language, four types of syllable accents are possible in the long stressed syllables (more clearly heard in the diphthongs, less in the monophthongs): acute, circumflex, neoacute, neocircumflex (Garšva 1982: 65 ff.). These accents are positional allotones of two types of syllable accents: acute and circumflex. Two more types of accents are possible in strong syllables consisting of two central sounds: typical and atypical. Typical acute and circumflex accents are characteristic of verbs of non-iterative action and of “barytone” denominative words, atypical accents, with an emphasis on the second part of the stressed component, are characteristic of verbs of iterative action and of “oxytonic” denominative words (Kačiuškienė 2009: 34). The article focuses on results of the auditory and instrumental experiment and demonstrates different auditory and acoustic properties of the secondary types of pitch accents of the Northern Aukštaitian Dialect of Panevėžys of the Lithuanian Language.

German-speaking Switzerland can certainly be regarded as one of the liveliest and at the same time best researched dialect areas in Central Europe. It is all the more surprising that dialectometric analyses in this area have only recently been performed and none of them included an investigation into the level of syntax. In this paper we pursue two goals: First, we present digital data that has been made available in recent years on the basis of the Sprachatlas der deutschen Schweiz (SDS) and the Syntaktischer Atlas der deutschen Schweiz (SADS). Our second goal is to present dialectometric analyses performed with this data. A special focus is put on the comparison of different linguistic levels (lexis, phonology, morphology and syntax). Our methods include hierarchical cluster analyses (of the whole dataset as well as of the linguistic levels), correlations (between pairs of linguistic levels and between linguistic levels and geography) and parameter maps which allow us to draw conclusions about the distributions of innovative and conservative regions, dialect centers and transition zones. Our results show that while all four levels generally yield similar geographic patterns (dynamic areas in the North vs. conservative areas in the South, agreement of dialect and cantonal borders, high correlations with geography), syntax deviates most from the other levels.

The following article strives to present a project that was launched by language enthusiasts in an attempt to revive Norn, a Scandinavian language that used to be spoken on the Northern Isles but died out about 200 years ago. On that account, the reasons and mechanics of language endangerment and language death are examined in this paper as well as different approaches to language revival or revitalization. The importance of language as a means of preserving one’s identity is only one of the reasons why these kinds of projects deserve more attention than they have gotten so far. Although Norn is classified as a Trümmersprache , which means that not a lot is known about it, a lot of works have been published about it. As a topic, it is far from being exhausted. The Nynorn project , however, is a relatively new attempt that hasn’t been covered by scientific research yet. The aim of this paper is to provide insight into the work of the Nynorn community that tries to reconstruct a version of Norn that people will be able to speak one day.

Significant studies on the sound systems of Edoid languages have been conducted, but studies of the internal relations that may exist within them are rare. Linguistic and nonlinguistic correlates of Northern Edoid features have been identified, thereby laying out broad phonetic and phonological indices for identifying this group of languages. Esan is classified as North Central Edoid. The goal of this study is to address the need to further define internal linguistic relations within the languages which constitute this linguistic group. Specifically, this study seeks to identify an order of historical emergence of identified Esan speech varieties. The study is lexicon based. Data were gathered from one adult native speaker from each of the twelve identified Esan speech varieties making a total of twelve informants. The Ibadan word list of 400 basic items served as an instrument. Available data were transcribed in phonetic tradition and subjected to sound identification procedures. A comparative analysis of the sound systems which emerged for each identified Esan speech variety, separated them into eight groups in the following order: Udo-Ugboha-Ubiaza; Ebhoato-Igueben-Ilushi; Uromi; Ekpoma; Ohordua; Ogwa; Irrua; Ugbegun. The first group of Esan speech varieties exhibit speech sound characteristics that indicate that it is an earlier form of the language. Ubiaza exhibited further linguistic indices to suggest that it predates its counterpart Esan varieties. Although this study is not aimed at reconstructing Esan, its findings serve as input to such a goal as well as to dialect studies of the language. It provided an avenue for the documentation of Esan speech forms. The outcome of this study contributes to further similar linguistic studies on Esan and other Edoid Languages.