| Övdalian | |
|---|---|
| Elfdalian | |
| övdalsk, övdalską | |
| Pronunciation | [ˈœvdɐlskãː] |
| Native to | Sweden |
| Region | Älvdalen,Dalarna |
| Ethnicity | Swedish |
Native speakers | c. 3,000 (2023)[1] |
Indo-European
| |
| |
| Official status | |
| Regulated by | Swedish Language Council |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ovd |
qer | |
| Glottolog | elfd1234 |
 Älvdalen Municipality inDalarna, where Övdalian is spoken in the southeastern half | |
Övdalian orElfdalian (Elfdalian:övdalsk orövdalską,pronounced[ˈœvdɐlskãː];Swedish:älvdalska orälvdalsmål) is aNorth Germanic language spoken by around 3,000 people who live or have grown up in the locality ofÄlvdalen (Övdaln), in the southeast ofÄlvdalen Municipality in northern Dalarna, Sweden.[1]
Like all other modern North Germanic languages, Övdalian developed fromOld Norse, a North Germanic language spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements during theViking Age until about 1350.[4] Övdalian developed in relative isolation since the Middle Ages[5] and is considered to have remained closer to Old Norse than the otherDalecarlian dialects.
Traditionally regarded as a Swedish dialect,[6] but by several criteria closer to West Scandinavian dialects,[2] Övdalian is a separate language by the standard ofmutual intelligibility.[7][8][9] There is low mutual intelligibility between Swedish and Övdalian, but, since education and public administration in Älvdalen are conducted in Swedish, native speakers arebilingual 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.
Övdalian belongs to the Northern branch/Upper Siljan branch of theDalecarlian dialects or vernaculars, which in their turn evolved fromOld Norse, from which Dalecarlian vernaculars might have split as early as in the eighth or ninth century,[10] i.e., approximately when theNorth Germanic languages split into Western and Eastern branches. Övdalian (and otherDalecarlian language varieties) is traditionally placed among theEast Scandinavian languages, together withSwedish andDanish, based on a number of features[11] that Övdalian has in common with them. According to Lars Levander,[12] some of theWest 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 ofKölen. However, this is rebutted by Kroonen.[2]
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As of 2009, Övdalian had around 2,000 speakers and was in danger oflanguage death. However, it is possible that it will receive an official status as aminority 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.[14][15] TheCouncil of Europe has urged the Swedish government to reconsider the status of Övdalian on a total of five occasions.[15] The Committee of Experts now encourages the Swedish authorities to investigate the status of Övdalian through an independent scientific study.[16] 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.[17][18]
Ulum Dalska, The Organization for the Preservation of Övdalian, was established in 1984 with the aim of preserving and documenting the Övdalian language. In 2005,Ulum Dalska launched a process aimed at bringing about an official recognition of Övdalian as a language by the Swedish authorities.
Råðdjärum, The Övdalian Language Committee was established in August 2004 withinUlum Dalska, its first task being to create a new standardorthography for Övdalian. In March 2005, the new orthography created byRåðdjärum was accepted by theUlum Dalska at their annual meeting.Råðdjärum consists of five permanent members: linguistÖsten Dahl, dialectologist Gunnar Nyström, teacher Inga-Britt Petersson, linguist and coordinator of the committee Yair Sapir, and linguist Lars Steensland.
As an initiative fromUlum Dalska 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 6,000Swedish kronastipend.[19]
An online version of Lars Steensland's 2010 Övdalian dictionary was published in September 2015.[20]
In March 2016,Swedish Radio reported that the Älvdalen City Council had decided that, starting in autumn 2016, the localkindergarten would operate solely through the medium of Övdalian.[21][22]
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-palatalaffricate consonants occur in allUvǫ Silan (SwedishOvansiljan, north ofSiljan) dialects. The realization of⟨r⟩ is[r], anapical alveolar trill. Unlike many variants of Norwegian and Swedish, Övdalian does not assimilate/rt,rd,rs,rn,rl/ intoretroflex consonants. The stress is generally on the first syllable of a word.
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar | Post-alv./ Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | |
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||
| Affricate | voiceless | t͡ɕ ~t͡sʲ | |||
| voiced | d͡ʑ ~d͡zʲ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s̺ | ||
| voiced | v | ð | ɣ | ||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||
| Trill/Flap | r | (ɽ) | |||
| Approximant | voiced | w | l | j | |
| voiceless | l̥ | ||||
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Near-close | ɪɪː | ʏʏː | ʉ̞ʉ̞ː | |
| Close-mid | ooː | |||
| Open-mid | ɛɛː | œœː | ɐ | ɔɔː |
| Open | ææː | aː | ||
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Near-close | ɪ̃ɪ̃ː | ʏ̃ʏ̃ː | ʉ̞̃ʉ̞̃ː | |
| Close-mid | õõː | |||
| Open-mid | ɛ̃ɛ̃ː | œ̃œ̃ː | ɐ̃ | ɔ̃ɔ̃ː |
| Open | (æ̃æ̃ː) | ãː | ||
Unlike Central Swedish, there is no noticeable difference in quality between the long and the short realisations of the vowels.[27]
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Near-close | iɛiɛː yœyœː | ʉəʉəː | ||
| Open-mid | ɔyː | |||
| Open | ajː | awː | ||
| Front | Central | |
|---|---|---|
| Near-close | ĩɛĩɛː ỹœỹœː | ʉ̃əʉ̃əː |
| Open | ãjː |
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.
Nasal vowels are quite rare in Nordic languages, and Övdalian and a few other neighbouringDalecarlian dialects[29] 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: compareKalix dialect hąt and gås with Övdalianand andgą̊s.
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", butˈsiensåˌmår "late summer").[30]
Like most other North Germanic language varieties spoken in Sweden and Norway, Övdalian has atone 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 inOld Norse, respectively. The realisation of the contrast is similar tothat 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").[31]
InÄlvdalen, Germanicrunes survived in use longer than anywhere else. The last record of the Övdalian Runes is from the early 20th century;[32] they are a variant of theDalecarlian 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 periodicalSkansvakten.[33]
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[33] and is based on Loka dialect and is highly phonetic. It has many diacritics (Sapir 2006).
In March 2005, a uniform standard orthography for Övdalian was presented byRåðdjärum (lit. "Let us confer"), The Övdalian Language Council, and accepted byUlum Dalska (lit. "Let us speak Dalecarlian"), The Organization for the Preservation of Övdalian.[33] The new orthography has already been applied by Björn Rehnström in his bookTrair byönner frą̊ Övdalim 'Three Bears from Älvdalen' published in 2007. Råðdjärum's orthography was also used in Bo Westling's translation ofSaint-Exupéry'sThe Little Prince,Lisslprinsn.
The Elfdalian alphabet consists of the following letters[34]
| 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 withogonek, denotingnasal vowels: Ąą, Ęę, Įį, Ųų, Y̨y̨ and Ą̊ą̊. Additionally, it uses the lettereth (Ð,ð) for the voiceddental fricative.
Övdalian has a morphological structure inherited from its Old Norse ancestor. Verbs are conjugated according to person and number and nouns have fourcases, like ModernIcelandic andGerman. 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 ofwarg, "wolf" (long-syllabic, strong masculine noun) was as follows in what is sometimes called "Classic Elfdalian" (as described by Levander 1909):
| Singular | Plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite | |
| Nominative | warg | wargen | warger | wargär |
| Accusative | warg | wardjin | warga | wargą |
| Dative | wardje | wardjem | wargum | wargum(e) |
| Genitive | (wardjes) | wardjemes | — | wargumes |
Many speakers retain the distinct dative case, which is used especially after prepositions and also certain verbs (such asjåpa, "help").[35] The distinction between nominative and accusative has been lost in indefinite nouns,[clarification needed] and the inherited genitive been replaced by new forms created by attaching-es to the dative (see Dahl &Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2005), a trend that was well underway even in Classic Elfdalian.
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[36] 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:
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. Although some of the properties are archaic features that existed inOld Swedish, others are innovations; none of them has been studied in any detail.
In 2015, a new genusElfdaliana of deep-seanudibranch 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.[37]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)In many aspects Elfdalian takes up a middle position between East and West Nordic. However it shares some innovations with West Nordic but none with East Nordic. This invalidates the claim that Elfdalian split off from Old Swedish
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)