Christensen, Birthe H. 2001 Dialekten i Sydvestgrønland: en grønlandsk i-dialekt. Eskimologis Skrifter, nr. 16, Københavns Universitet, 87 pages [The Dialect in South West Greenland: A Greenlandic i-dialect. Papers from the Department of Eskimology no. 16, University of Copenhagen].

The publication is — apart from minor biographical adjustments — identical to a prize paper at the University of Copenhagen. Birthe H. Christensen (BHC) has investigated the Southwest Greenlandic dialect (as spoken in Narsaq and Qaqortoq municipalities), a so-called "i-dialect." The term i-dialect refers to a characteristic phenomenon common to certain Greenlandic dialects where / u / is replaced by / i / according to more or less complicated rules. The purpose of BHC’s investigation is manifold: to describe a hitherto not described dialect and to compare it to the neighbouring dialect of Kap Farvel (described by Rischel 1974, 1975); to trace phonological and morphophonological changes through a comparison of speakers of different ages (the oldest born in the mid-1880s, the youngest born in 1969), in order to see if the dialect is approaching standard language (i.e. Central West Greenlandic). BHC expects so, because of the increasing impact of mass media and because of internal migration in Greenland. Interestingly, BHC also suggests that the very complexity of the rules might lead to a change which will be reflected, first and foremost, in a greater degree of lexicalized forms. Finally BHC discusses the possible origin of the i-dialect phenomenon through comparison with other Eskimo languages. The book is divided into five parts: 1) background, 2) transcriptions (in broad phonemic notation) of 12 recordings, 3) analysis of the data material and a conclusion, 4) references and 5) appendices (glossed text excerpts). In the first part, BHC gives a short presentation of previous descriptions of the i-dialect phenomenon. In the early sources, the i-dialect phenomenon was seen as a more or less arbitrarily occurring variation, until Rischel demonstrated in 1974 and 1975 the regularities behind the i-dialect phenomenon. The rules can only be formulated as "rules for / u / not changing into / i / ." Those are the so-called "Rischel’s Laws" (Dorais 1981): never in the first syllable (e.g., suli), never after a labial (e.g., immuk), and never after a preceding / u / (e.g., immussuaq). Furthermore there is a tendency that a following / u / also protects against changing (e.g., irnusuttuq), except when there is an intervening labial consonant (e.g., irnisippuq). A few years later, a comprehensive hypothesis concerning the spreading of the i-dialects was put forward (Fortescue 1986; Petersen 1986; Rischel 1986). In the first part of her book, BHC also presents the two different theories of the origin of the i-dialect phenomenon, namely diphthongization (Rischel 1974, 1975) and delayed labialization (Fortescue 1984). The data material of BHC consists of both sentence lists and interviews, partly her own recordings, party recordings (tape and video) by others. The purpose of using sentence lists is to make sure that the relevant structures are present. BHC mentions the methodological problems in using sentence reading and interviews: the style is more or less formal, and perhaps the speaker speaks a more standard-like variety, both due to the more formal situation in itself, and for reasons of being "polite" to the interviewer. This was the case of at least one speaker whom BHC easily communicated with during the interview, but whom BHC hardly understood while she was speaking to her mother on the telephone. The second part of the book consists of a (broadly phonemic) transcription of the recordings, which, together with the glossed transcriptions of part five, is a valuable documentation of the dialect. The third part is the main part where BHC goes into great detail in her description and analysis of the recordings. BHC focuses on specific features, …