Review of North American Icelandic: The Life of a Language

• Main Author: Wolf, Kirsten
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln 2007
• Subjects: Other International and Area Studies; Iceland
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsresearch/894; https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/context/greatplainsresearch/article/1893/viewcontent/Arnbjornsdottir_GPR_2007_North.pdf

A curious phonological feature of North American Icelandic is flámceli ("skewed speech"). The term refers to the apparent mergers of two sets of front vowels: on the one hand (1) and (E), and on the other hand (Y) and (ö). Flámceli was widespread in certainly one of the areas of Iceland that witnessed considerable emigration to North America in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and was brought to the New World in the speech of the immigrants. It was found in three regional dialects of Icelandic up until the last few decades when, through official efforts, it was eradicated since the mergers created homonyms that were considered to cause communication problems.