Language Contact Across the North Atlantic : Proceedings of the Working Groups Held at the University College, Galway (Ireland), 1992 and the University of Göteborg (Sweden), 1993

This volume contains a selection of papers which have been revised and extended for publication from two working groups held at conferences at Galway (1992) and Göteborg (1993) which celebrated the quincentenary of Columbus' discovery of America in 1492. The pre-Columbian period of language contact is covered by articles on Old Norse in the Faroes, Scotland and Ireland, the Shetland dialect and Norn, and placenames in Iceland and Greenland. The articles on the post-Columbian period are wide-ranging and cover, in the Scandinavian context, the Scandinavian emigration, American Swedish, American Finnish, Swedish-Spanish and various aspects of Norwegian in America and also in Spitzbergen; in the British colonial context, English dialects in New England, Scottish Gaelic in Nova Scotia and Scots in North America (Maryland, the Appalachians and Virginia); in the context of the later continental mass emigration, American Dutch, Texas German, Croatian and Italian. Two papers deal with reverse emigration, that of Sicilian and Calabrian dialects, and the special case of Krio in Sierra Leone. Preface Acknowledgements Opening of the SLE conference in Galway Introduction I. PRE-COLUMBIAN CONTACTS A. OLD NORSE IN THE FAROES 1. Old Norse in the Faroes (with special reference to palatalization) B. OLD NORSE IN SCOTLAND AND NORN IN SHETLAND 2. Historical and linguistic evidence for Gall-Gaidheil and Norse in Western Scotland 3. On the use of “be” as a perfective auxiliary in modern Shetland dialect: hybridization and syntactic change C. OLD NORSE IN IRELAND 4. Old Norse in Ireland D. OLD NORSE IN ICELAND 5. Language contact in Iceland: the evidence of names E. GREENLAND 6. European contacts with Greenland as reflected in the place-names II. POST-COLUMBIAN CONTACTS A. SCANDINAVIAN CONTACTS – EMIGRATION HISTORY 7. Swedish exodus – from Sillgatan in Gothenburg to America 8. The Swedish Emigrant Institute and the documentation of the transatlantic emigration era 9. Five decades of research on Swedish emigration to North America B. SWEDISH – AMERICAN ENGLUSH 10. Linkers, fillers, tags and flags – code-switching of conjunctions and conversational signals among American Swedes C. SWEDISH – SPANISH IN ARGENTINA 11. Immigrant Swedish in Misiones, Argentina – towards language loss D. NORWEGIAN – AMERICAN ENGLISH 12. The Norwegian immigrants of the late 18th century and the problem of the so-called ‘great melting pot’ in America 13. Scandinavian-American place-names as viewed from the Old World 14. The position of Nynorsk in the Norwegian-American press 15. a. Some phonological changes in a Norwegian dialect in America b. The gender of English nouns used in American Norwegian E. NORWEGIAN DIALECTS IN SPITSBERGEN 16. Semi-migration in the Arctic – a theoretical perspective on the dialect strategies of children on Spitsbergen F. FINNISH-AMERICAN ENGLISH 17. Retention and replacement of original Finnish words in American Finnish G. ENGLISH DIALECTS IN AMERICA 18. English dialects transported H. SCOTS-GAELIC – AMERICAN ENGLISH 19. Cape Breton – Western Isles: transatlantic resonance of language and culture 20. Gaelic-influenced Scots in pre-revolutionary Maryland 21. Ulster English as Janus: Language contact across the Irish Sea and across the North Atlantic I. DUTCH – AMERICAN ENGLISH 22. American Dutch: general trends in its development J. GERMAN – AMERICAN ENGLISH 23. The death of Texas German in Gillespie County K. CROATIAN – AMERICAN ENGLISH 24. Sociolinguistic conditions for maintenance of a dialect: The case of the Konavle dialect in Watsonville, California L. ITALIAN – AMERICAN ENGLISH 25. Language contact among North-American people of Italian origin 26. Emigration from Southern Italy to the United States: Bilingualism and its linguistic effects on local dialects III. AFRICAN-EUROPEAN – AMERICAN CONTACTS 27. A West African Creole language in an Atlantic perspective: the origins and present state of Krio Index Index of languages Index of names Authors’ addresses Main description: This volume contains a selection of papers which have been revised and extended for publication from two working groups held at conferences at Galway (1992) and Göteborg (1993) which celebrated the quincentenary of Columbus' discovery of America in 1492. The pre-Columbian period of language contact is covered by articles on Old Norse in the Faroes, Scotland and Ireland, the Shetland dialect and Norn, and placenames in Iceland and Greenland. The articles on the post-Columbian period are wide-ranging and cover, in the Scandinavian context, the Scandinavian emigration, American Swedish, American Finnish, Swedish-Spanish and various aspects of Norwegian in America and also in Spitzbergen; in the British colonial context, English dialects in New England, Scottish Gaelic in Nova Scotia and Scots in North America (Maryland, the Appalachians and Virginia); in the context of the later continental mass emigration, American Dutch, Texas German, Croatian and Italian. Two papers deal with reverse emigration, that of Sicilian and Calabrian dialects, and the special case of Krio in Sierra Leone Over the past few decades, the book series Linguistische Arbeiten [Linguistic Studies], comprising over 500 volumes, has made a significant contribution to the development of linguistic theory both in Germany and internationally. The series will continue to deliver new impulses for research and maintain the central insight of linguistics that progress can only be made in acquiring new knowledge about human languages both synchronically and diachronically by closely combining empirical and theoretical analyses. To this end, we invite submission of high-quality linguistic studies from all the central areas of general linguistics and the linguistics of individual languages which address topical questions, discuss new data and advance the development of linguistic theory. Die Buchreihe Linguistische Arbeiten hat mit über 500 Bänden zur linguistischen Theoriebildung der letzten Jahrzehnte in Deutschland und international wesentlich beigetragen. Die Reihe wird auch weiterhin neue Impulse für die Forschung setzen und die zentrale Einsicht der Sprachwissenschaft präsentieren, dass Fortschritt in der Erforschung der menschlichen Sprachen nur durch die enge Verbindung von empirischen und theoretischen Analysen sowohl diachron wie synchron möglich ist. Daher laden wir hochwertige linguistische Arbeiten aus allen zentralen Teilgebieten der allgemeinen und einzelsprachlichen Linguistik ein, die aktuelle Fragestellungen bearbeiten, neue Daten diskutieren und die Theorieentwicklung vorantreiben. The book series Linguistische Arbeiten (LA) publishes high-quality work in linguistics that addresses current issues in synchrony and diachrony, theoretically or empirically oriented.