Dialect Variation Along the Mura

Abstract

The paper gives the vocalic systems and some prosodic features of some lesser-known speech varieties in villages around the Mura river in eastern prleški, western međimurski, and southern prekmurski, i.e., at the point of convergence of the three dialects. In addition to presenting new material collected by the author, the paper discusses the innovations that have occurred as a result of contact, as well as background on divergences and convergences among these areas in the more remote past. The paper affirms the transition between međimurski and prleški and the disjuncture between these two and prekmurski. Observations about interaction between the dialects in recent times include the spread of ei, ou diphthongization southward from prekmurski across the Mura, the failure of plain u (replacing the fronted reflex of Proto-Slavic *u) to penetrate from međimurski north of the river, and the parallel development of the last step in the tendency to replace quantity oppositions with quality in the stressed syllable which entails also the emergence of new diphthongs ie, uo replacing formerly short-stressed mid-vowels.