Övdalian

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Maps of settlements in Älvdalen parish, Sweden, and the percentage of the population speaking Övdalian (2008 data)

Övdalian or Elfdalian (Template:Langx or {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}; Template:Langx or {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) is a North Germanic language spoken by around 3,000 people who live or have grown up in the locality of Älvdalen ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), in the southeast of Älvdalen Municipality in northern Dalarna, Sweden.<ref name="Dahl2" />

Like all other modern North Germanic languages, Övdalian developed from Old Norse, a North Germanic language spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements during the Viking Age until about 1350.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Övdalian developed in relative isolation since the Middle Ages<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and is considered to have remained closer to Old Norse than the other Dalecarlian dialects.

Traditionally regarded as a Swedish dialect,<ref name="Stickel2010">Template:Cite book</ref> but by several criteria closer to West Scandinavian dialects,<ref name=Kroonen>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Övdalian is a separate language by the standard of mutual intelligibility.<ref name="Aftonbladet2007">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> There is low mutual intelligibility between Swedish and Övdalian, but, since education and public administration in Älvdalen are conducted in Swedish, native speakers are bilingual and speak Swedish at a native level. People who speak Swedish as their sole native language, neither speaking nor understanding Övdalian, are also common in the area.

Classification

Övdalian belongs to the Northern branch/Upper Siljan branch of the Dalecarlian dialects or vernaculars, which in their turn evolved from Old Norse, from which Dalecarlian vernaculars might have split as early as in the eighth or ninth century,<ref>Levander, Lars, Dalmålet, vol. 1, 1925, pp. 37–38.</ref> i.e., approximately when the North Germanic languages split into Western and Eastern branches. Övdalian (and other Dalecarlian language varieties) is traditionally placed among the East Scandinavian languages, together with Swedish and Danish, based on a number of features<ref>Garbacz, Piotr (2008). Älvdalska – ett mindre känt nordiskt språk Template:Webarchive. s. 1. Oslo universitet</ref> that Övdalian has in common with them. According to Lars Levander,<ref>Levander, Lars (1925), Dalmålet. Beskrivning och historia., "1", Uppsala</ref> some of the West Scandinavian features that simultaneously do occur in Övdalian are archaic traits that once were common in many Scandinavian dialects and have been preserved in the most conservative tongues east and west of Kölen. However, this is rebutted by Kroonen.<ref name=Kroonen/>

Characteristics

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Archaisms

  • Lack of syllable lengthening.
  • Retention of voiced fricatives Template:IPAslink, Template:IPAslink and Template:IPAslink.
  • Retention of nominative, accusative and dative cases.
  • Retention of Proto-Germanic, Proto-Norse and Old Norse nasal vowels.
  • Retention of Proto-Germanic voiced labio-velar approximant Template:IPAslink: {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ('water'), {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ('wants'), {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ('knows'): compare English water, will, and wit and Standard Swedish {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.
  • Retention of consonant clusters ld, nd, mb, rg, gd and ng (with audible Template:IPAblink), as in ungg ('young'), kweld ('evening'), warg ('wolf') and lamb ('lamb') from Old Norse ungʀ, kveld, vargʀ (both with Template:IPAslink represented by 'v') and lamb.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Innovations and unique developments

  • More frequent assimilation of pre-Norse mp, nt, and nk to pp, tt, and kk, as in West Scandinavian dialects.
  • Shift of a to o before Pre-Norse nk (but not kk).
  • Shift of Old Norse ei, ey, and au to ie, ä, and o.
  • Diphthongization of Old Norse long high vowels í, ý, ú to closing diphthongs ai, åy, au, and of long rounded mid vowels ó, œ to opening diphthongs uo, yö.
  • Vowel harmony (present also in other dialects of Central Scandinavia).
  • Loss of h: compare Övdalian {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} with Swedish {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (or English house) and Övdalian {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} with Swedish {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.

Status

Bilingual street signs in Swedish and Övdalian

As of 2009, Övdalian had around 2,000 speakers and was in danger of language death. However, it is possible that it will receive an official status as a minority language in Sweden, which would entail numerous protections and encourage its use in schools and by writers and artists. The Swedish Parliament was due to address the issue in 2007, but has not yet done so.<ref>Uppsala University, Second Conference on Elfdalian, Älvdalen 12–14 June 2008 Template:Webarchive</ref><ref name=":1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The Council of Europe has urged the Swedish government to reconsider the status of Övdalian on a total of five occasions.<ref name=":1" /> The Committee of Experts now encourages the Swedish authorities to investigate the status of Övdalian through an independent scientific study.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2020, the Committee of Experts concluded that Övdalian fulfils the criteria of a Part II language, and asked the Swedish authorities to include reporting on Övdalian in its next periodical report as the language covered by Part II of the Charter, which the Swedish Ministry of Culture has not done in its 8th periodical report to the Council of Europe.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Eighth periodical report presented to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe in accordance with Article 15 of the Charter. Council of Europe. Accessed 5 November 2023.</ref>

Preservation and standardization

{{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, The Organization for the Preservation of Övdalian, was established in 1984 with the aim of preserving and documenting the Övdalian language. In 2005, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} launched a process aimed at bringing about an official recognition of Övdalian as a language by the Swedish authorities.

{{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, The Övdalian Language Committee was established in August 2004 within {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, its first task being to create a new standard orthography for Övdalian. In March 2005, the new orthography created by {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} was accepted by the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} at their annual meeting. {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} consists of five permanent members: linguist Östen Dahl, dialectologist Gunnar Nyström, teacher Inga-Britt Petersson, linguist and coordinator of the committee Dr. Yair Sapir, and linguist Lars Steensland.

As an initiative from {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} to encourage children to speak Övdalian, all school children in Älvdalen who finish the ninth grade and can prove that they can speak Övdalian receive a 6,000 Swedish krona stipend.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

An online version of Lars Steensland's 2010 Övdalian dictionary was published in September 2015.<ref>Elfdalian–Swedish dictionary. Template:Webarchive Retrieved 1 October 2015.</ref>

In March 2016, Swedish Radio reported that the Älvdalen City Council had decided that, starting in autumn 2016, the local kindergarten would operate solely through the medium of Övdalian.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref>

Phonology

Övdalian is comparable to Swedish and Norwegian in the number and the quality of vowels but also has nasal vowels. It has retained the Old Norse dental, velar and labial voiced fricatives. Alveolo-palatal affricate consonants occur in all {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Swedish {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, north of Siljan) dialects. The realization of Template:Angbr is Template:IPAblink, an apical alveolar trill. Unlike many variants of Norwegian and Swedish, Övdalian does not assimilate {{#invoke:IPA|main}} into retroflex consonants. The stress is generally on the first syllable of a word.

Consonants

Labial Dental/
Alveolar 		Post-alv./
Palatal 		Velar
Plosive voiceless Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
voiced Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Affricate voiceless Template:IPAlink ~ Template:IPAlink
voiced Template:IPAlink ~ Template:IPAlink
Fricative voiceless Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
voiced Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Nasal Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Trill/Flap Template:IPAlink (Template:IPAlink)
Approximant voiced Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
voiceless Template:IPAlink
  • The voiceless plosives {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, and {{#invoke:IPA|main}} are aspirated word-initially unless following {{#invoke:IPA|main}}.<ref name=":3">Sapir and Lundgren (2024), p. 43.</ref>
  • Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink are also commonly heard as allophones of {{#invoke:IPA|main}} and {{#invoke:IPA|main}} respectively in complementary distribution; the fricative allophones surface after vowels when short, and the plosive allophones surface elsewhere.<ref>Sapir and Lundgren (2024), p. 44.</ref> Template:IPAblink can surface word-initially in some pronouns and adverbs by sandhi.
  • {{#invoke:IPA|main}} and Template:IPAblink are allophones of {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in complementary distribution; the former surfaces when long, when adjacent to {{#invoke:IPA|main}} or {{#invoke:IPA|main}} and, for many speakers, before {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, and the latter allophone surfaces elsewhere.<ref>Sapir and Lundgren (2024), p. 45.</ref>
  • {{#invoke:IPA|main}} is also an allophone of {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in complementary distribution; the former surfaces after a tautomorphemic vowel, and the latter surfaces before a tautomorphemic vowel.<ref>Sapir and Lundgren (2024), p. 44.</ref> It is also sometimes realised as {{#invoke:IPA|main}} before {{#invoke:IPA|main}}. The fricative allophone was historically realised as Template:IPAblink.
  • The sound {{#invoke:IPA|main}} is typically realised as apico-alveolar. The affricates {{#invoke:IPA|main}} are realised as alveolo-palatal {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in western villages and as {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in eastern ones.<ref name=":3" />

Vowels

Front Central Back
Near-close Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Close-mid Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Open-mid Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Open Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
  • The sounds {{#invoke:IPA|main}} are heard as {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in some parts of Övdaln.
Nasal vowels
Front Central Back
Near-close main}} main}} main}}
Close-mid main}}
Open-mid main}} main}} main}} main}}
Open main}}) main}}
  • The sounds {{#invoke:IPA|main}} are heard primarily in Övdaln, whereas {{#invoke:IPA|main}} are heard in other parts nearby.
  • The sounds {{#invoke:IPA|main}} are heard as {{#invoke:IPA|main}} or {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in some parts of Övdaln.

Unlike Central Swedish, there is no noticeable difference between the long and the short realisations of the vowels.<ref>Sapir & Lundgren 2024, p. 39-40</ref>

Diphthongs

Front Central Back
Near-close main}}
{{#invoke:IPA|main}} 		{{#invoke:IPA|main}}
Open-mid main}}
Open main}} main}}
  • The sounds {{#invoke:IPA|main}} can also be realised as {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, depending on the village. The back-vowel realisations are used in the area west of Dalälven.
  • {{#invoke:IPA|main}} is realized in some village dialects {{#invoke:IPA|main}}.
  • The combination {{#invoke:IPA|main}} may be analysed as a sequence of a glide and the diphthong {{#invoke:IPA|main}}.<ref name=":2">Sapir & Ludngren (2024), p. 41.</ref>
Nasal diphthongs
Front Central
Near-close main}}
{{#invoke:IPA|main}} 		main}}
Open main}}
  • The sounds {{#invoke:IPA|main}} can also be realised as {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, depending on the village (the back-vowel realisations being typical of the area west of Dalälven).
  • The above are phonemically nasal diphthongs; all diphthongs may be nasalised allophonically in front of a nasal consonant.<ref name=":2" />

Nasal vowel sounds

Övdalian has nasal versions of most vowels. They have several origins, belonging to different layers of history, but most involve the loss of a nasal consonant, with lengthening and nasalisation of a preceding vowel.

  • Late Proto-Germanic loss of *n before *h, which was lost in early Norse, but the nasalisation remained: {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} "doorway" (Proto-Germanic {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}).
  • Old Norse loss of nasal consonants before *s: {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} "goose" (Proto-Germanic {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} "lard" (Template:Langx).
  • Old Norse loss of *n before *l and *r: {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} "our" (Proto-Norse {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}).
  • Old Norse loss of word-final *n but only monosyllables: {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} "on" (Proto-Germanic {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} "to see" (Proto-Germanic {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} "two (accusative)" (Proto-Germanic {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) and the prefix {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} "un-" (Proto-Germanic {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}).
  • Central Scandinavian loss of word-final -n if it had been preserved in Old Norse generally; The change affected neither Standard Swedish, nor final geminate -nn. The shift occurred in primarily the definite noun suffix of feminine nouns but also {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} "she" and a few other words.
  • Secondary post-Norse loss of n before s: {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} "to wash" (Template:Langx), {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} "left" (Old Norse {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} with /w/-sound)
  • Spontaneous (non-etymological) nasality: {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} "to travel" (from Template:Langx), {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} "cheese" (Template:Langx, from Template:Langx).
  • Before nasal consonants. This case of nasalisation is allophonic and is not indicated in the orthography.

Nasal vowels are quite rare in Nordic languages, and Övdalian and a few other neighbouring Dalecarlian dialects<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> are the only ones that preserve nasal vowels from Proto-Norse; all other Nordic dialects with nasal vowels have developed them later as a result of the loss of a nasal consonant: compare Kalix dialect hąt and gås with Övdalian and and gą̊s.

Prosody

As in most Germanic languages, main stress is normally on the first syllable in words of native origin, but many loanwords have non-initial stress. The initial stress moves to the last syllable in phrase-final position in certain pronouns, prepositions and adverbs (noger "someone", yvyr "over", itjä "not", older "never") and in personal names and some kinship terms in vocative function. Non-initial compound elements have secondary stress, but if they are polsysyllabic and their lexically stressed syllable is short, the secondary stress falls on the next syllable after the lexically stressed one (e.g. ˈsåmår "summer", but ˈsiensåˌmår "late summer").<ref>Sapir and Lundgren (2024) , p. 55-56.</ref>

Like most other North Germanic language varieties spoken in Sweden and Norway, Övdalian has a tone contrast between two lexically determined accents that are associated with the primary-stressed syllable in a word and originally correspond to monosyllabic and polysyllabic words in Old Norse, respectively. The realisation of the contrast is similar to that found in Central Swedish, in that accent 1 has one peak in focus position, while accent 2 has two peaks in focus position and the second peak is normally realised on the post-stress syllable. Unlike Central Swedish, however, accent 2 can occur in monosyllabic words - the words in question were originally disyllabic but have undergone apocope. Compounds typically have accent 2 (e.g. 2iennbru "iron bridge"), but, as in most Norwegian and some Swedish dialects, some of them have accent 1 instead, such as those with a first element ending in a vowel (1blåbruok "blue trousers"), a first element that is itself polysyllabic (1okkymattj "ice hockey match"), past participles of phrasal verbs with a monosyllabic first element (1autkastað "thrown out") and those with an infixed -s- (1landsweg "country road").<ref>Sapir and Lundgren (2024) , p. 53-55.</ref>

Writing systems

In Älvdalen, Germanic runes survived in use longer than anywhere else. The last record of the Övdalian Runes is from the early 20th century;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> they are a variant of the Dalecarlian runes. Älvdalen can be said to have had its own alphabet during the 17th and 18th century.

Due to the great phonetic differences between Swedish and Övdalian, the use of Swedish orthography for Övdalian has been unpredictable and varied, such as the one applied in the Prytz's play from 1622, which contains long passages in Övdalian, or in the Övdalian material published in the periodical Skansvakten.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

A first attempt to create a separate Övdalian orthography was made in 1982 by Lars Steensland. Bengt Åkerberg elaborated it, and it was applied in some books and used in language courses<ref name=":0" /> and is based on Loka dialect and is highly phonetic. It has many diacritics (Sapir 2006).

Råðdjärum's orthography

In March 2005, a uniform standard orthography for Övdalian was presented by {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (lit. "Let us confer"), The Övdalian Language Council, and accepted by {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (lit. "Let us speak Dalecarlian"), The Organization for the Preservation of Övdalian.<ref name=":0" /> The new orthography has already been applied by Björn Rehnström in his book {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} 'Three Bears from Älvdalen' published in 2007. Råðdjärum's orthography was also used in Bo Westling's translation of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}'s The Little Prince, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.

Elfdalian alphabet

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}

The Elfdalian alphabet consists of the following letters<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The Elfdalian alphabet
Upper case A Ą B C D Ð E Ę F G H I Į J K L M N O P Q R S T U Ų V W X Y Y̨ Z Å Ą̊ Ä Ö
Lower case a ą b c d ð e ę f g h i į j k l m n o p q r s t u ų v w x y y̨ z å ą̊ ä ö

Other than the letters occurring in the Swedish alphabet, Elfdalian has letters with ogonek, denoting nasal vowels: Ąą, Ęę, Įį, Ųų, Y̨y̨ and Ą̊ą̊. Additionally, it uses the letter eth (Template:Ipa, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}) for the voiced dental fricative.

Grammar

Morphology

Övdalian has a morphological structure inherited from its Old Norse ancestor. Verbs are conjugated according to person and number and nouns have four cases, like Modern Icelandic and German. The Old Norse three-gender system has been retained. Like the other North Germanic languages, nouns have definite and indefinite forms, rather than a separate definite article (as in English). The length of the root syllable plays a major role in the Övdalian declensional and conjugational system. The declension of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, "wolf" (long-syllabic, strong masculine noun) was as follows in what is sometimes called "Classic Elfdalian" (as described by Levander 1909):

lang}} ('wolf')
Singular Plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
Nominative lang}} lang}} lang}} lang}}
Accusative lang}} lang}} lang}} lang}}
Dative lang}} lang}} lang}} lang}}
Genitive lang}}) lang}} — lang}}

Many speakers retain the distinct dative case, which is used especially after prepositions and also certain verbs (such as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, "help").<ref name="dahl">Template:Cite book</ref> The distinction between nominative and accusative has been lost in indefinite nouns,Template:Clarify and the inherited genitive been replaced by new forms created by attaching {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} to the dative (see Dahl & Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2005), a trend that was well underway even in Classic Elfdalian.

Syntax

Unlike other Swedish vernaculars, the syntax of Övdalian was investigated in the early 20th century (Levander 1909). Although Övdalian syntax has attracted increased attention, a majority of its syntactic elements are still unresearched. In May–June 2007, a group of linguists from the pan-Scandinavian NORMS network<ref>Nordic Center of Excellence in Microcomparative Syntax Template:Webarchive</ref> conducted fieldwork in Älvdalen especially aimed at investigating the syntactic properties of the language.

Presented with the help of generative syntax, the following features have been identified:

  • Only first- and second-person plural pronouns (Rosenkvist 2006, 2010) can be dropped grammatically.
  • First-person plural pronouns may be dropped only if they appear directly in front of the finite verb. Verb raising occurs, but there is variation between generations (Garbacz 2006, 2010).
  • Multiple subjects seem to occur in clauses with the adverbial {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, "actually", or the verb {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} "is possible" (Levander 1909:109).
{{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
literally: "You are Template:ScTemplate:Clarify you very good speak-Övdalian"
"You are actually very good at speaking Övdalian"

That has recently been studied more closely from a generative perspective by Rosenkvist (2007).

Other syntactic properties are negative concord, stylistic inversion, long distance reflexives, verb controlled datives, agent-verb word order in coordinated clauses with deleted subjects, etc. Some of the properties are archaic features that existed in Old Swedish, but others are innovations, but none of them has been studied in any detail.

New organisms named after Övdalian

In 2015, a new genus Elfdaliana of deep-sea nudibranch molluscs was named after the Övdalian language in reference to evolutionary basal characters of the new genus never before reported for the family, just as Övdalian preserves ancestral features of Old Norse.<ref name="Martynov A., Korshunova T. 2015.">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Notes

Template:Reflist

References

Template:Incubator

English

Swedish

Template:Languages of Sweden Template:Germanic languages

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