Jamtlandic may be spoken by a handfull of people in Denmark as well, just like Danish is spoken by some people in Jamtland. Hey, Chinese is spoken in Denmark, so why not Jamtlandic? ;)

Now, there are many local scandinavian languages in Sweden which are almost extincted: Dalecarlian, Jamtlandic, Gutnish, various northern swedish dialects, Scanian etc. Amongst these, Dalecarlian and Jamtlandic have the greatest chances to survive. You can even study Dalecarlian at the university in Sweden:
http://www.nordiska.uu.se/varasprak/alvdalska.htm
Note that Älvdalska is the name of the most archaic dialect of Dalecarlian, and last spring they actually fixed a spelling through some decision. I have put up a course on Dalecarlian, using my own orthography, here:
home.unilang.org/main/wiki2/index.php/Dalecarlian
There you can listen to some sound samples as well. (Dalecarlian is considered to have a more archaic pronunciation than Icelandic, e.g. due to preserved nasal vowels.)
Here you can find a site where you can see how the Dalecarlian runes (late middle ages to about early 20th century) looked like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Futhark
(I wonder why modern Dalecarlian isn't written using these runes which expired only three-four generations ago. Strange. But it may depend on the fact that computers don't support the Dalecarlian runes, unless you install extra fonts in e.g. MS Word.)

Improving link
 

The link
home.unilang.org/main/wiki2/index.php/Dalecarlian
should of course be
http://home.unilang.org/main/wiki2/i...hp/Dalecarlian

Nordic L.
 

Hi Aðnljøt Gellin,
I'm also a complete profane in Nordic languages. Can Nordic language speakers understand each other. For example would a Swede understand a Norwegian or a Finnish. I understand the languages are different, but is there some kind of a resemblance? I am a speaker of Slavonic (Slavic) groups, so I may not know and never've studied Ukrainian, Belarusian or Bulgarian, but I can have at least some idea what the conversation is about when it's held.

A swede wil understand "standard Norwegian" (or moderately spoken dialect) and vice versa. The same goes for Danish as well, but to a less degree. A dane would have really huge problem understanding less moderatly spoken swedish dialects though, especially the northern ones. The norwegian dialects would probably be more comprehensible since Norway used to be an integrated part of Denmark for very long time.

Swedish speaking finns and baltic people would be like any swedes in this context, but regarding the finnish language, it cannot be understood by other nordic people. Remember that Finnish doesn't even belong to the Indo-European language family which contains Germanic (like e.g. Swedish), Slavic (like e.g. Russian) etc.

It would be a good idea to compare a given, neutral sentence and see how similar the scandinavian languages are, at least in the written form. (It is actually mainly due to the "hot-potato effect" which makes Danish really hard to understand for other scandinavian speaking people.)

Icelandic and Faroese
 

I forgot to include Icelandic and Faroese into the discussion. Icelandic is the most difficult scandinavian language to understand, given you're not an icelander. And icelanders understand other scandinavian languages less than other scandinavians do. (This is party due to the fact that Icelandic is very different from other scandinavian languages and that icelanders are extremely nationalistic, at least concerning the language. They used to be good at Danish until the WW2, but since the independence from Denmark in 1944, they have stopped learning Danish and thus have become linguistically isolated regarding using scandinavian to communicate with other scandinavians.)

The Faroese language in its written form is to some degree comprehensible for all other scandinavian speaking people since it resembles Icelandic in some respects and Norwegian and Danish in some other. Spoken Faroese is, due to some novations, incomprehenseible to all other scandinavian speaking people. Instead, faroese people are really good at understanding spoken and written Norwegian, Danish and Swedish. (Especially Danish since it is the second language in the Faroese islands.) Faroese people may read some Icelandic, but spoken icelandic is completely incomprehensible. (I think that the faroese people would have the greatest possibility to understand northern swedish dialects though since they are used to learn to understand various scandinavian tongues. Northern swedish dialects are almost as archaic as faroese, Dalecarlian is even somewhat more archaic than Faroese though.)

Thanks, Aðnljøt!
 

Hi, all language lovers!!!:)

I see there is so much going on here! I am really glad you are keeping this thread moving ahead.

I haven't writen much lately, cause I am travelling abroad, and it has not been so easy. I will try to be here more often though.

So, Aðnljøt, welcome at Infohub. I am so glad to read your posts about languages spoken in Sweden. I am learning a lot. I have checked the site on Jamtlandic, and I will get back to it later.

Let me please tell you that our forum is always open for anybody willing to share his or her knowledge of languages, different countries and cultures. You can also feel free to join Infohub Forum as a member. The importante thing is to be able to interchange experience.

I am particularly interested in Scandinavian languages. So it was for me a great surprise to read so much about Jamtlandic, Dalecarlian, and the other languages and/or dialects of the region.L=:-)

As some linguists consider Jamtlandic to be a dialect, I would like to hear your opinion on that. Also would like to know if you come from that area.

I am looking forward to hearing more about the diversity within the language system in Sweden.;-)b

Meanwhile, to all of you, skål og god jul!!!! (Cheers and Merry Christmas!!! - Norwegian) *<}:-)
Enjoy your study and have fun!
Sergio.

The links I presented were to sites on Dalecarlian rather than Jamtlandic.

Personally I think that all varieties of Scandinavian are scandinavian dialects, including Jamtlandic. The exceptions are Swedish, Danish, "Bokmål", "Nynorsk", Faroese and Icelandic which are scandinavian languages (with strong support and used in all levels of society, both orally and in written form). Thus, e.g. Danish is not a dialect of Scandinavian, but a scandinavian language, and the variety spoken in Suðuroy, Faroese
islands is not a language, but rather a scandinavian dialect. My main point here is that the "languages" are artifical constructions based on merely written forms of these "languages", while the "dialects" have direct, oral roots in Old Norse.

Note here that Jamtlandic is just like any scandinavian dialect spoken on Mainland Scandinavia, there's really nothing special about it linguistically. (I can't point out many - if any - unique jamtlandic novations or archaisms, for example.) But unlike all other dialects (except Scanian and Gutnish in southern Sweden), Jamtlandic has a political motivation to be recognized as a language, just like Swedish, Danish etc. have merely political reasons to have become languages. (Jamtland used to be an independent republic until 1178, and more or less autnomous from Norway/Denmark until 1645 and had special agreements with Sweden until early 19th century. Jamtland has thus been fully assimilated in another nation for only 200 years. )

Dialect vs. Language
 

Hi to all,

By the way is there some certain distinction standard between language and dialect? It’s clear when two word systems make part of completely different language groups the result is obvious: two dissimilar languages. Naturally, German and Japanese, English and Chinese are different languages, because their linguistic regularities and structures are so different. But Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, being structurally similar are considered different languages??? The known example of Serbian and Croatian, so close to each other, as well as Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi both structurally and lexically very similar but – different languages. How can one orderly contrast a language and a dialect?

Linguists usually come to use “mutual intelligibility” criterion. If (lets say) Sergio understands A-language, without being native speaker or being taught this language, it is a dialect of Sergio’s own B-language. Or it may be that Sergio’s native B-language is a dialect of the one he can understand, A-language. Or the both languages Sergio speaks or understands (A and B), are dialects of some third C-language, which is then called "a language" (while A and B are dialects). But if Sergio doesn't understand A, it is a different language. But this criterion of mutual intelligibility is also far from being perfect. Let us say that speaker A understands B, and speaker B understands C, who in his turn understands D. On the other hand, speaker A does not understand C, and speaker B does not understand D. Where can we draw the line between a language and a dialect. Or if A understands B but B does not understand A, are A and B dialects of the same language for speaker A who understands both, but two different languages for speaker B who does not understand both?

Ok,8| I'll better stop before going crasy 8| with this language/dialect 8| differentiating 8|

Hope to hear from you in the next year too :)

dialect <> language
 

It looks like the story is rolling down the wrong way here. A dialect is actually a specific (usually regional) form of a language, characterized by peculiar pronounciation, regional words or even inordinary grammar patterns, though the latter case is much more scarce. Therefore, a certain language cannot be a dialect of another discrete and well-defined language! Even the "comprehensibility" degree is too arbitrary a criterion for relating languages. Just think about the many dialects of languages extending over vast areas, such as German, Spanish or Arabic! Although all dialects would most probably more or less follow the literary form based on conventional grammar in writing, the regional lexical peculiarities and specific pronounciations would be very manifest in spoken language, and would sometimes be difficult to understand even for people who speak a different dialect of the same language.

>:-) Denis. O:-)

Sometimes I wonder whether it is really interesting to define a "tongue" as a "language" or "dialect". Since not only pure comparing linguistics plays a roll here, but also exposure of different tongues to different societies (e.g. Swedish is more exposed in Norway than the other way around), politics (Norway, Sweden and Denmark are independent countries, let it be that they are really close to eachother in many ways) etc.

For example, linguistically, Älvdalen speech (also known as a subdialect of of Dalecarlian) is to a higher degree than Standard Swedish an independent tongue. But due to political reasons and reasons having to do with how limited Älvdalen speech can be used in a wide variety of contexts, Standard Swedish is more an independent tongue. Usually the latter definition of a "language" is stronger, so Swedish is regarded a "language" but Älvdalen speech a "dialect". (These days it is said to be a dialect of Scandinavian rather than of Swedish, though.) Personally, I think this emphasize on the non-linguistical, i.e. political, degree of usability etc., features of the tongue is correct when defining it as a language. A language needs some power behind it. But of course, in many instances there's no doubt that one linguistically can define a tongue as a language. But if this tongue has no power behind it, it will likely vanish, no matter how unique and special it is.