SOMMERFELT, Alf. The Dialect of Torr Co. Donegal. I, Phonology.

Christiana: Jacob Dybwad, 1922. First edition. Imeperial octavo. pp. viii, 198. Modern purple quarter morocco on cloth boards. Spine with raised bands and double black morocco lerrerpieces. Ex. lib with neat circular stamps. A fine copy. Scarce.
Alf Sommerfelt (1892–1965) was a pioneering Celtic scholar and linguist, and the first professor of linguistics in Norway, holding the chair at the University of Oslo from 1931 to 1962. He first came to Ireland in 1915, choosing Donegal rather than the more commonly studied Kerry Gaeltacht, influenced by E. C. Quiggin’s A Dialect of Donegal (1906). Sommerfelt spent nine months in the glen of Torr, Gweedore, living with the Mac Maonghail family, whose care, he later recalled, saved his life during the influenza outbreak of 1916. From this immersion he produced The Dialect of Torr, Co. Donegal (1922), completed in manuscript by 1918 and later substantially revised in Lochlann (1965), establishing Torr as one of the most thoroughly documented dialects in the Celtic world.
After leaving Ireland, Sommerfelt pursued advanced studies at the Sorbonne under leading figures such as Meillet, Vendryes, and Gilliéron, also undertaking extensive fieldwork in Brittany and later the Caucasus. Returning to Oslo, he became a central figure in international linguistics, founding the journal Lochlann (1958), serving UNESCO from 1946 to 1952, and holding senior roles in global linguistic and humanistic bodies.
The present work represents the first volume of his systematic description and internal history of the Torr dialect, based on fieldwork conducted between July 1915 and December 1916.

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