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Scandiasyn-bloggen i april 2009

Onsdag 29. april Dialect trip to Finnmark Last week Björn Lundquist and Janne Bondi Johannessen went on an exciting two-day dialect recording trip to Finnmark – the first trip to this northernmost county so far. We did a few northernmost things on this trip, like doing field-work in the northermost town in the world (Hammerfest) and staying in the northermost hotel on a continent (our hotel in Mehamn). Reindeer (Photo: Björn Lundquist) Janne and the airplane to Mehamn (Photo: Björn Lundquist) The trip followed a very tight schedule that worked well. We started early on Monday morning from Tromsø, took a plane to Hammerfest and a new plane to Mehamn. From there we went straight by the combined bus and lorry (”godsbuss”) to Kjøllefjord, where we met our young informants at Kjøllefjord School. We were very well received, and were given keys to the school so that we could go in and out between the two informant sessions. Kjøllefjord turned out to be a very idyllic place, a little village of about 1000 inhabitants, where all the houses stood close together in nice and bright colours, with the fiord straight out to the Northern sea. Everyone we talked to loved living there and praised the freedom they had had as children growing up in this place. However, the place also offers harsh living conditions. Björn and the "godsbuss" (Photo: Janne Bondi Johannessen) The weather changed every hour, and included most types, from snow storm to sunshine and calm sea. Even towards the end of April, the road out to Mehamn is closed at night because of the danger of snow blocking the road, and the road is regularly closed even now only to be open at intervals for ”kolonnekjøring” where the cars follow a snow clearing truck. We learned a few things about life. For example, some families have their own salmon fishing places, which they have had for generations, and which only they can use. These families usually smoke the fish themselves, and neighbours and friends can buy wonderfully-tasting wild salmon every year at a good price. Unfortunately, when we had dinner at the only open ”restaurant”, which according to the sign outside was ”one of Finnmark’s best restaurants”, we could only get fast-food. Children on kicksled (Photo: Björn Lundquist) After a night in Mehamn and a very early plane at 06.08 we arrived in Hammerfest the next morning. This is a thriving town of about 10 000 people, with a new big gas installation giving work to many people. We were kindly given two rooms at the municipal library, a nice building staying just on the quay of the boats to nearby towns. Our two older informants told us interesting stories about life in Hammerfest during and after the second world war. The Germans burnt practically all the houses there as they withdrew, and the population had to evacuate. But nearly everybody returned afterwards to build up the town, where they lived in poverty for many years after. The young informant that we had later, could tell us that all youths in Hammerfest today have their own snow scooter. They drive with their friends on the mountain plains, and have rests in which the blokes jump with their scooters while the girls do some barbecuing. Janne and colorful houses in Kjøllefjord (Photo: Björn Lundquist) But we were in Finnmark for dialect research and we were not disappointed. We had read in a book published 13 years ago that the traditional fricative realisation of the first phoneme in sound sequences like /rk/ was disappearing, but this sound was found in Kjøllefjord even amongst young speakers aged 17. We saw several dialect features that are also shared by other North Norwegian dialects, such as V3 in wh-questions with short wh-words (kæm ’who’, ka ’what’) and V2 with long (two-syllable) wh-words (kossen ’how’, koffør ’why’). Thus, the claim sometimes made that Finnmark dialects are almost like the written Norwegian standard bokmål, is not true w.r.t. this central word order feature. Dried fish (Photo: Björn Lundquist) It was also clear that no informant accepted the very common Eastern Norwegian possibility of (in subordinate clauses) a (negative) adverb following the complementiser and preceding the subject: Thus a sentence like the one below would be fine in South East Norway, but not in Finnmark. Så limte vi den til hylla for at ikke den skulle FALLE ned. so glued we it to the.shelf for that not it should fall down ’Then we glued it to the shelf in order for it not to fall down.’ We also saw that binding theory as it is known for standard Norwegian does not apply in (these two varieties of) Finnmark Norwegian. Even if scholars (especially Helge Lødrup) have shown in recent years that the binding conditions are more complex than the binding theory would suggest, the Finnmark data seem to show that there is even more variation than known up to now. The Finnmark dialects, unlike the Oslo dialect, also seem to have a clear that-trace effect. These were a few small teasers. We look forward to look closer at all the data. View from the airplane to Mehamn (Photo: Björn Lundquist) – Janne Tysdag 28. april Judging from the blog it might look as if nothing has been going on in the ScanDiaSyn/NORMS lately, with no entries in March and April. But that is just an illusion! In fact, lots of things have happened on both sides of Easter, and more will soon take place, so I expect the blog to be filled again with fresh and frequent entries within short. Before that a super-short resumé: 18-19 March I organized a Workshop on Determination in Tromsø, and that whole week Tom Leu (Yale) was here as a visitor. The week after Cecilia Poletto (Padua/Venice) also came to Tromsø for a few days. That was before Easter. Last week Tania & co. organized the workshop Relating to Reflexives in Reykjavík with Eric Reuland as the invited speaker. Another happening last week was otherwise Kristin M. Eide's appearance on the national radio program Språkteigen, talking about her native Trøndelag dialect of Fosen, in particular focusing on the demonstrative herre (literally ‘here’) and adjective incorporation. Furthermore, fieldwork trips to three locations in Norway also took place last week: Janne and Björn went to Kjøllefjord and Hammerfest in Finnmark county and Christine and Tor went to Inderøya in Nord-Trøndelag, and I expect reports from both trips to appear here within a few days or so. Speaking of fieldwork, a trip to Rømskog in Østfold ("Østfolds perle” as their slogan has it) will be carried out later this week, and then Monday through to Friday next week the sixth NORMS field excursion will take place, this time to “Inner Scandinavia”. I won't be able to participate myself this time, but I'm looking forward to following the endeavour here from the blog (hereby putting pressure on the participants to produce some instant textual contributions). – Øystein