Elfdalian (Älvdalska)
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- Опубліковано 28 тра 2024
- The spoken language known in English as Elfdalian and in Swedish as Älvdalska preserved some remarkably ancient features of Old Norse (mixed with its own unusual developments) until the recent past.
Jackson Crawford, Ph.D.: Sharing real expertise in Norse language and myth with people hungry to learn, free of both ivory tower elitism and the agendas of self-appointed gurus. Visit jacksonwcrawford.com/ (includes bio and linked list of all videos).
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On the topic of it being a language or not, legally in Sweden it's considered a dialect however not that long ago one of the politicians from that area in Sweden spoke with Älvdalska in the chamber and the speaker said "we speak Swedish in this chamber" to which he responded "Thank you for your support but according to current government policy my language is considered a dialect of Swedish and this it is Swedish for the purposes of this chamber" 🙂
I have no idea what else that politician represents, but that particular act of representation sounds righteously badass! :D
Reminds of when a king (I can't remember who) said that they spoke english in Dalarna because of the weird sound 😂
Yeah, I love it when people are represented and then everyone finds it difficult to understand what is being said. Representation, yeah! Almost like they would have been better off not "including" said represented individual.
@@iamthe80s49 What are you yapping about?
@@TitaniusAnglesmith My point exactly.
"I have no idea what else that politician represents, but that particular act of representation sounds righteously badass! :"
"...people are represented and then everyone finds it difficult to understand what is being said."
A joke in the Swedish Army Signal Corps, was to use Elfdalians the way US Marines used native code talkers during WW II.
Honestly, this would be a genious idea!
It is completely unintelligeble even by native Swedish speakers.
Add in some layer of confusion by using also some of the lesser known strong dialects in other parts of Sweden and it would be a huge task to start breaking it up.
"Old" jämtska, gutamål, listerlädska or bondska for example, to get a geographic spread. They might not be as divergent or archaic as Elfdalian, but to most of us, if we run into an elder who can speaks like they did just 50-70 years ago in those regions and its harder to comprehend than standard Norwegian or Danish.
One interesting fact is that the people in Älvdalen even used runes longer than other Swedes. There is postcards sent in Sweden where the text where written with runes as late as beginning of 1900-ties ...
I have a friend who comes from Älvdalen and it's so interesting to listen in when he calls his parents and switches from standard Swedish to Älvdalska when I mostly lose all understanding of what's being talked about 🙂
Which is actually a pretty common thing when people speak proper dialects and not a watered down version of it (as many do in school and when talking to others). Not to take away the experience of not understanding Älvdalska 😀
The understanding can even differ from village to village. When the mum of an old classmate of mine called her mother (his grandmother) living in the next village (but just accross the border to another province/landskap) and switched over to that village local dialect I understood absolutly nothing - and at the time I spoke with a pretty heavy local dialect as well as standard Swedish. The distance from his village to his grandma's village was less then 20 km and I lived perhaps 20 km further away at the time.
Another old friend lived for a long time in yet another village, perhaps 20 km from the grandma's village and 40 km from where I lived. I understand that dialect quite well but it is different from how I talk. However my friend, that now live in another part of Sweden, was in Stockholm for work and just happen to meet another person from her old village there and they automatically started to speak dialect to eachother. After a while their co-workers had to stop them and ask that they switched back to more standardized Swedish because they could no longer understand a thing. They themselves had barely noticed that they had switched over to their old dialect.
Another person that I know moved to Jämtland and worked in Östersund but lived at the time in a village perhaps 50-60 km south of the city. One day another person at the workplace asked where he lived and he said the name of the village. The co-worker then started to speak that village's dialect of Jamtska. Even though the person I know actually had studied Jamtska (he got a Swedish-Jamtska dictionary with over 2000 words as a moving present and study it heavily) he could not understand more the a few words so he had to stop the co-woeker and say that he wasn't a local to that village, so the co-worker switched back to more standard Swedish. I might add that he moved from a neighbouring province where he had lived for many many years (so he understood that dialect wuite well) and that this is fairly young people in fairly recent times and not like very old people several generations ago.
I personally have not lived where I grew up for more then 20 years so my dialect is now very watered down even though you can still pinpoint the region I grew up by listning to with what "melody" I speak. However despite my very watered down dialect I still regularly experince that people have no clue what I am saying because I use dialectal words that I think is standardized Swedish because they are general to the provinces/landskap around where I grew up (so more off regional dialect then local). I have other friends in a similar situation that experince the same on a regular basis. I even have one friend from Malmö that had a hard time ordering a hot dog in Stockholm despite using the same word ("krov") just due to difference in pronounciation...
What I am trying to say is that not understand a thing when it commes to people talking other dialects is quite common even when it is not as extreme as Älvdalska 🙂
@@sirseigan nice story with lots of recognition from me.
And in Norway those old dialects are much more live then in Sweden. And they even have two ways of write, Bokmål and Nynorsk. Where Bokmål is more or less Danish and Nynorsk was constructed when Norway divorced from Sweden.
I mean, it's the same when I switch from Rikssvenska to proper Scanian, aka Göingemål, which my Grandfather spoke. And I go aaued wa auttonseistisyv auk dää nööau i heila lannet Swärje, ente nåen mad finnes at eda. That's The year was 1867 and it is plight years in the whole nation Sweden, no food to be found to eat.
It was just a random example, and I mean I also use words like Swartr meaning dirty or black. Myrkr is the word for dark. But since r's before consonants are dropped, it's Swaatr and Möekr and yes Jaw haw dä Möekt pau rummet. Jag har det mörkt på rummet. And writing these things down, isn't really good enough to show the contrasts between Swedish and proper Scanian, I have friends who don't understand me when I speak with the elderly... whether I speak Sydsmåländska or Göingska. Jygsk in Göingska.
It's really weird to me, when I use words like Hiwa(throw/lift) I mean häva is the swedish word, although no one uses it anymore in it's original meaning, and it only lives on in the words upphäva and hävstång. hiw mäj kókan, häe skall de dà bliw grogg pau redigt. Swedish still have a lot of archaic words it's just that no one uses words like Rädderlig, but we do, Rälig, it means terrifying, but we use it to mean disgusting. Like we use that word to describe anyone living north of Markaryd.
@@livedandletdie No one uses hiva any longer? That's like one of the most normal words to me... *hooray I'm archaic* 😂
@@Winterbay fairly common in norrland.
He äh juh ba att hiva ut soffan i-ge-nåm fönns-trä, vettja.
My grandpa grew up in Blyberg, a village outside of Älvdalen and do of course speak Älvdalska and he helped Lars Steensland with some translations on the Gospel of Mark. I have it my shelf. They also used modified runes for writing for a long time, still able to see them on old houses around.
When my grandpa was getting treatment in Uppsala(big city) he communicated with no problem with icelandic people, the nurses also thought he was from Iceland because the way he talked. Hes 92 years old, bad knees but clear in his head. I will show him this clip, he will be entertained!
You should do a video of him talking that dialect, I bet he has a lot of stories to tell(with subtitles of course xD)
Wasn't expecting to be called out as "that kind of Stockholmer" today, yet here we are
vi~i~i~i 👃🏽😅
@@johanek1291 v🐝
Haha! That cracked me up when I heard it. =)
What does the birds say in Lidingö? "Pi~i~p pi~i~p."
@@dsludge8217 sjuka är att man kan höra exakt hur det låter 😭🤣 jag bryter ihop
.During a military exercise in Älvdalen, I once drove an ammunition truck to a storehouse. There, I met two civilian warehouse workers - a father and his son - who were there to deliver the goods we needed. While they spoke to each other in what sounded like Icelandic to me, when they spoke to us, non-Älvdalings, they used normal Swedish.hh
Very interesting. Thanks! When I did military service in 1980-1981 in Linköping (Östergötland), we had "winter training" in Älvdalen, where there was a very large shooting range. We were served food by women from the area and I can honestly say that I did not understand a word when they spoke to each other. So from my perspective, I probably have to see Elfdalian as its own language. It is much easier for me to understand Norwegian and even Danish. Icelandic is very difficult for me to understand, maybe a little easier to read.
I fully agree that it’s bad that ‘älv’ gets translated as ‘elf’, making people comically associate that area with Lothlórien or Rivendell or something. I vote that we translate ‘Älfdalen’ much more correctly and literally as ‘Riverdell’. This will surely clear up all confusion for good. 🧌
That's actually a really awesome coincidence/idea, lol.
Jackson Crawford used that same phrase about Rivendell in his Elfdalian video a month ago. Pretty cool coincidence! Personally, I tend to think of DnD races before the Tolkien versions, because I’m not a fan of a lot of things about his elves and dwarves, so I picture a more generic elf settlement. At any rate not sure the local tourist board would like losing such a notable name.
I propose “Riverdale”, a direct translation of “Älvdal”. That should clear it up, lol.
@@autumnphillips151 Archie and Jughead have joined the Fellowship.
I come from Älvdalen. Once I was on a train from Stockholm on my way home to the village and my mother called and we spoke elfdalian for a little while. Afterwards an old man a few seats away spat: "Go home to your own f*ing country!". Oh well... 😅
Independence movement?
@@turkoositerapsidi
It would be quite a miracle to pursuade the village about that 😂. The mentality is more "we speak as we always have and don't particularly like changes".
@@elinegardt Yeah, I guess that would not propably work out.
@@turkoositerapsidi Rather the opposite, it's considered the core of Sweden. It was this area that Gustav Vasa got the moral support he needed to defeat the danes. There are oher areas (like mine, Jämtland) with more outspoken independence movement ideas.
@@cognomen9142 I see, was not being super serious anyways, just in response to the other comment.
In Älvdalen you can visit, what is most likely the only museum in the world, where you can see accordians, electric guitarrs, and stone working tools under the same roof.
Hagström, I suppose?
The discussion of whether Elfdalian is considered a language or a dialect reminds me of the Yiddish saying: A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armèy un a flot, "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy"
I am from Älvdalen, and I would say that one of the best things about this village is the hospitality - it is a _very_ safe and friendly village, where everyone trusts each other, partly because people tend to have common friends. I have been alone with girls from the village out in nature during first dates, and they have felt totally comfortable with that.
I understand your point. It is a crying shame what the world has become.
I've been to Älvdalen a week ago, very isolated and calm place with only one major road connecting it to the rest of Sweden.
Älvdalen and everything above it until you reach the norwegian border is what I wish the rest of Sweden still would be.
I remember driving trough Älvdalen with a friend of mine and she asked me ""What is the language on the road signs?" She has no idea that we had this language in Sweden and was surprised when I told her. We are from the Gothenburg area, so not locals.
Im a Hälsing living a few hours east of Älvdalen and a few years ago I listened to my old boss talking Älvdalska on the phone, I can say I could not understand anything. Its just sounded really really weird.
Sometimes you understand it and sometimes you don't. My then girlfriends grandmother speaks it, and at one time we were in this shop she said that I could go first if I wanted (to the counter), and I did. Later I realised she had spoken Älvdalska, and not only did I understand it, I didn't even reflect on it.
Whatever you think about language/dialect you can say that it's not entirely consistent that Finnish and Meänkieli are considered separate languages but Övdalian isn't. I'm Finnish and I've never heard Meänkieli I couldn't understand.
It’s because the distinction is purely political in both cases.
Meänkieli in Sweden and Kven in Norway are both part of the Peräpohjola group of Western Finnish dialects. But varieties of that group are considered dialects of Finnish in Finland and languages in Sweden and Norway (since quite recently) - even though they’re all mutually intelligible.
Elfdalian isn’t mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish, but it’s not completely unintelligible to speakers of neighbouring traditional Dalecarlian dialects (which themselves aren’t considered languages by anyone).
There are other traditional dialects, in Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Ukraine, that diverge quite a bit from Standard Swedish, that no one proposes to be anything else than Swedish dialects. But Elfdalian (just as Meänkieli and Kven) has an active group trying to promote it as a language. Unlike Meänkieli and Kven, Elfdalian activists have the misfortune of being in a country with a national language of the same linguistic group.
Elfdalian has got some international recognition as a language, but officially it’s not domestically recognised. Here in neighbouring Norway, Elfdalian (in Sweden) is considered a language, but the diverse Norwegian dialects (not all necessarily completely mutually intelligible to each other) aren’t considered anything else than Norwegian dialects.
All of the Scandinavian dialects are on a dialect continuum. What roughly makes a dialects for instance a Swedish or a Norwegian one is dependent upon which side of the border it’s spoken and which standard language it’s mostly influenced by. My late grandfather spoke a traditional Bahusian dialect with his fellow Bahusian fishermen of his generation, but he spoke Standard Swedish with his children and grandchildren (none of whom grew up in Bahusia [Bohuslän]). Everyone seems to agree that traditional Bahusian dialects are Swedish dialects even though they (to my Norwegian ear) aren’t that distinguishable from the Norwegian Østfold dialects just across the border (except perhaps for the voicing of plosives).
There are some interesting similarities and differences between Faroese and Elfdalian:
Faroese also loses the genitive but retains the accusative and dative. There is a fierce discussion about how alive the genitive is in Faroese but personally I think it is fair to say that if it isn't dead already it is in its death throes. When used though, it pretty much follows how it is in Icelandic: -s or -ar for masculine, -ar for feminine, and -s for neuter. (using strong nouns as examples). We do also have a clitic similar to English's 's, that being -sa. As for the case system otherwise, we keep the -ur in masculine nominative singular but the accusative plural has merged with the nominative plural; the exception are adjectives, numerals (except 2), and articles, where the accusative is distinct but it has gotten an -r by analogy, so ON -na becomes -nar.
No nasals in Faroese, but it is interesting that hook-o when not reverting to a, usually becomes ø except when followed by a nasal consonant when it becomes o, so barn > børn but land > lond.
Like Icelandic, Faroese generalised the dual vit as the plural but this t is not fricativised so we still say vit.
Similarly but also completely opposite to Elfdalian, some verbal morphology has been simplified: where Elfdalian simplified the singular but kept the plural, Faroese simplied the plural but kept the singular so "at vera" in the present tense is: eg eri - tú ert - hann er / vit eru - tit eru - teir eru.
Faroese loses over-heavy by monophthongising/shortening the vowel, so sótt goes from ON [so:t:] to Faroese [sœʰt:].
Likewise, long vowels tend to diphthongise: í /ʊi:/, ó /ɔu:/, ú /ʉu:/. The only except afaik is ǿ which is still /ø:/ (ǿ merges with æ in Icelandic and becomes /ai/).
Very interesting video as always.
The D/ð in words like 'weather' is kept inn Sunnmøre, Norway. The D/ð becomes the vowel I in normal case 'veir' but 'vede/veðe-' in combinations.
'Leather' becomes 'led/leð' though and only loses its R.
This ð-letter has become normal D with young people but older people had it.
Sunnmøre and Nordfjord has alot of "archaic" stuff too which are interesting.
Similar in Jamtish, ð becomes silent only after long vowels or in front of n or m. (It becomes r in front of k, though.)
Should be noted that Norwegian natively also lost its true genitive. The genitive it has today is from danish and english influence. That's why you often see texts written in landsmaal/høgnorsk not use any genitive, but instead phrases in a way that conveys the genitive. "Soge um Harald Håfagre", "Bilen åt Kari", etc.
Danish, definitely. But surely Norwegian has only been majorly influenced by English for a few decades. Has it really caused a big uptick in use of the _-s_ genitive?
@@AmyThePuddytat I think there's been a detectable change in writing, but I'm not sure of spoken Norwegian.
I avoid the genitive -s in my own dialect, too. Possessive (pro)nouns are acceptable though. "Handa hans far". "Gryta hennar mor".
This is traditionallt the case in large parts of Sweden as well.
Middle Norwegian had gone through a development similar to Älvdalska, where the dative case had swallowed the genitive case. So even now, after the dative case is gone from most dialects of Norwegian, prepostions are the most common way of expressing ownership ("båten til Yngve" rather than "Yngves båt"). Genitive is in fact used in Landsmål/Høgnorsk e.g. by Blix, Vinje, and Hauge, even outside frozen forms like dagsens, havsens, heimsens etc. but when and where to use it is a stylistic question. Genitive does exist in Norwegian speech, so wherever it would be natural to use in speech, it is natural to use in writing, but where it's unnatural, it's best to avoid (e.g. not writing "Karis bil", but still writing "kongens tale", "Noregs mållag" et cetera).
@@andeve3 do you have any examples of Hauge using genitive outside of archaic/pronoun forms?
For a lot of us with the caught/cot split, caught rhymes with thought. In Canada, both rhyme with thought.
As a Canadian, I can confirm.
Interestingly German currently has the tendency towards losing the genitive case as well. In the spoken language you can see that mainly the dative case is used with certain prepositions former generations (only) used the genitive case with. One example is 'wegen' (due to / because of) in the sentence 'Today I can't come because of the bad weather.': 'Ich kann heute wegen des schlechten Wetters nicht kommen. [genitive case] gets replaced by 'Ich kann heute wegen dem schlechten Wetter nicht kommen. [dative case]
Yes, that is a really interesting development! Maybe I should be pleased as I never quite learned genitive even after several years of German study. . .
Thank you for the video. As a Swede who has attempted to clarify some misconceptions about Älvdalska/Övdalska without a linguistic background this'll be a great resource to point to rather than my amateurish ramblings.
On a related note; would you do a video on some of the Fenno-Swedish dialects, for instance the dialect spoken in Närpes? I know it has a fair bit of archaisms and it's not really intelligible to speakers of standard Swedish (with people from Närpes learning both their dialect and standard Fenno-Swedish)
Finally, I was waiting for someone to make a video for elfdalian! Thank you Mr Crawford.
Me too! So happy now!
All my respect to you Jackson! I'm from Sweden and have lived here all my life and still you know so much more than me about my native language than I'll ever do! :D Great video!
Just to put this out there but most "young"(think 30-45 age group) people in Sweden that grew up reading fantasy and playing Baldurs Gate 1-2, icewind dale etc, make a distinction between alver and älvor. Alver is the elven race most commonly thought of from lord of the rings and älvor is the more fairy like nature of elfs.
The area is one of the more isolated in the mountains between Norway and Sweden and was even Norwegian until 1645. To my Norwegian ears, modern elfdalian sounds half-norse.
It'd be cool if other Nordic dialects beside Älvdalska where given attention too. Each and every dialect features its own unique set of archaisms and innovations (my own channel related).
Thanks for your fantastic work to make our common Norse historical legacy for both English and Scandinavian speaking people so interesting and easy to understand.🥇🤺💪
Thank you so much for talking about Älvdalska 🙏
Always found it odd here in Sweden that we use different terms for rivers depending on if its a domestic or foreign. Swedish rivers are älv, foreign ones are called "flod" (e.g Amazonfloden)
As for "sot" an old fashioned word for sickness as in "lungsot" ( which is what it sounds like) it is pronounced "soot" in standard Swedish
i havent finsihed watching yet. but i have to say that im from älvdalen or 60km north, and grew up wiith 3 languages of swedish english and älvdalska. i like to think of words and their meaning , and the word "otherwise" would be "annars in swedish, but in älvdalska it is "oderwise" wich is so far from modern swedish and so close to the english that it makes me think either some of the vikings brought it back home or that we gave that word to the english. just something i think about sometimes
I recently was telling some folks about Jackson Crawford calling out bad info on Norse language and myth, glad to hear the opening talk about just that!
Regarding syllable structure: In eastern Norway, and also in parts of western Sweden, two-syllable words adhere to the so-called "rule of equilibrium" (jamvektsregelen): if the first syllable was short in Old Norse (meaning the two syllables are "in equilibrium"), then the second syllable becomes "stronger". So it retains its vowel quality and is often lengthened as well, i.e. words that end in -a often end in -å instead. Depending on dialect, the short consonant may be lengthened, or the first syllable may be pronounced like a true short syllable. There is also a lot of vowel harmony stuff going on in these words, that again varies from dialect to dialect: looking in a Norwegian dialect dictionary, a word like Old Norse "vika" (week) may have forms such as: vek(k)å, væk(k)å, vek(k)u, vik(k)u, vuk(k)u, vok(k)o, or vyk(k)u.
On the other hand, if the first syllable was long or overlong in Old Norse, then the syllables are not in equilibrium and the second syllable is weakened, usually to schwa.
Central eastern Norway falls within the dialect area which observes the rule of equilibrium, but the upper-class sociolect of Oslo, which forms the basis for the "standard" spoken language in Norway, doesn't follow it much, if at all.
Check out the band Arckanum. He writes lyrics in reconstructed archaic Älfdalian from Mora region.
I've never heard of him before but that sounds amazing.
I was born with jaundice - gulsot - yellow 'sot'
Same. I was put under a UV light amongst the pre-mature babies, so the nurses called me "sumobrottaren på solsemester" - the sunbathing sumo-wrestler.
The diphthongization in Älvdalska is reminicent of Setesdalsk (another "dale-ish") except "ais" and "maus" would sound more like "eis" and "meus", while the a word like "hèlsótt" ("deadly illness") would sound something like "hyelsowt", more or less.
The diphthongisation in Setesdalsk is more like the diphthongisation in other West Norwegian dialects, Faroese, Gutnish and Norrlandic dialects. Elfdalian is a northern Dalecarlian dialect, an Ovansiljan dialect. The other dialects in Ovansiljan are very similar to Elfdalian.
Believe it or not, but this is not Elfdalian:
O, edde ig weri ung o edde ig weri raik,
dą̊ edde ig sku witå tä livå
Dą̊ edde ig sku werd ienn stur kall laik
o stura garda djärå
Dą̊ edde ig sku go bort i
fremmande land og sjǫ̈ ą̊ stura staða
Dar byddjer eð fuok åv ymsum sortum,
ja, diem byddja dar i laungum raðum
O tirulį tuoga laungt bort i skuogą;
gätum wið laungt, men Guð wet ur eð gor
Sturuksan staungum wið o gelrakkan bandum wið,
og småfläðį driev borti bokkam
That is Våmhusmål.
I tried translating it to Elfdalian:
O, edde ig werið ung og edde ig werið raik,
dą̊ edde ig ulað witå tä livå
Dą̊ edde ig ulað werda ienn stur kall laik
og stura garda djärå
Dą̊ edde ig ulað go brott i
fremmend land og sją̊ ą̊ stura staða
Dar byddjer eð fuok åv ymsum sortum,
ja, dier byddja dar i laungum raðum
Og [tirulę?] [tuoga?] laungt brott i skuogą;
[gätum? getum?] wįð laungt, men Guð wet ur eð gor
Sturuksan staungum wįð og gelrakkan bandum wįð,
og smą̊fläðę drievu brotti bokkam
@@dan74695 The only similar diphthongization I can think of in western Norwegian dialects is the change from the monophthong "å" into the diphthong "ao" in Sognamål, Vossamål, and Hardingmål so "ås", "mål" and "frå" sound like "aos", "maol" and "frao" (Icelandic has a similar diphthongization of "á"). Setesdalsk is differnt from those other dialects because it diphthongized many more monophthongs (often the same monophthongs diphthongized by Älvdalska). Anyhow, one feature that Sognamål, Vossamål, and Hardingmål do have in common with Faroese is that the old diphthong "ei" from ON words like "einn", "heimr" etc. developed into "ai" (also similar to Gutnish "haim").
English: I, we, house, white, surface, weather, to tie
Standard Swedish: jag, vi, hus, vit, yta, att knyta
Elfdalian: ig, wįð/wįr, aus, wait, åyta, te knåyta
Våmhusmål: ig, wið, aus, wait, åyta, te knåyta
Moramål: ig/i, wir/wi/wið/wid, åis/åys/öys, wait/weit/wäit/väit/veit, öyta/åyta, te knöyta/knåyta
Orsamål: ik, wi, ais, wait, aita, te knaita/knåita
Oremål: i, wi, hôis, wäit, öita, te knöita
Sollerömål: i, vir, åus/åys, väit, öyta, te knöyta
Venjanmål: i, wur, öys/håys, weit, eita, te kneita
@@andeve3 Several West Norwegian dialects also diphthongised ó, ú, ý and í, for example dialects in Sogn and Fjordane. The first video in my West Norwegian playlist has some examples of this.
Surprised to see Americans cover Älvdalska, but still really cool.
My mother's side of the family is from the region and it's nice to see some awareness being spread about the language, as it's unfortunately a dying language that is on the verge of disappearing entirely.
The dialect of Selbu in Trøndelag, Norway, has retained some nasalised vowels too. Examples are 'bygdã' (the village), 'gã' (to go) and 'hõ' (she, her).
It's not only English and Älvdalian which have retained the 'w'-sound, but it can be commonly found in many dialects of Dutch in the southern Nederlands and Flanders, too. As it does in Dutch spoken in Surinam.
w also remains for a long period in swedish and danish, its actually a very recent shift to v
w is still a feature of the dialects of western and northern Jutland.
The dialects of southern Fyn also feature nasalized vowels, especially before a final n.
There are also TONS of mainland scandinavian languages that have retained w, except for when it is the single onset consonant at the beginning of a word
yes you know too, thank you for that. Sometimes I feel crazy trying to point out things. There's a real erasure of scandinavian languages that aren't standardized@@kniter
First time I am literally first, this is a fantastic chance. :D
Also, I am very interested in Älvdalska. Lucky friday.
Very interesting, I visited the site and it was as different from Swedish as written Norwegian and Danish is, if not more. I agree with them that it should be considered its own language.
I'm glad you spoke about Elfdalian, great video, as always.
I've never heard of Elfdalian. Interesting
There can't be many who speak it today. Nobody talks about it, so many who live in Sweden probably don't even know that the language exists.
The Elfdalians could do what the Navajos do to represent nasal vowels with other features: "łį́į́ʼ" (horse) has a long nasal vowel in high tone. It is spelled with these Unicode points in hex: 0142 012f 0301 012f 0301 02bc; where 012f is į and 0301 is an acute accent. This requires a special font to render correctly; in the font I see here the accent is above the dot on the i instead of replacing it.
If you want to hear älvdalska in song i highly recommend a cover of ”i’ve been everywhere” called ”I a we yvurrållt, kall” by Billy Opel. Its fantastic, humerous and fascinating!
thank you as always for your straight up, factual videos. Keep up the great work, Jackson! It is remarkable how quickly languages evolve. I distinguish between "caught" and "cot", and also among "Mary", "marry", and "merry". On the other hand, my father pronounced "against" to rhyme with "gain", but I pronounce it where the "ai" rhymes with the "e" in "genitive".
Tack så mycket igen för ett mycket givande avsnitt!
What an interesting channel jeeez! Stoked to have found it in my recommendations
Jackson, what's your take on the Närpes dialect of Swedish, spoken in Southern Ostrobothnia in Finland? I've been told it's a rather archaic dialect as well.
Elfdalian is not that different from the other dialects in Ovansiljan.
This is Våmhuska:
O, edde ig weri ung o edde ig weri raik,
dą̊ edde ig sku witå tä livå
Dą̊ edde ig sku werd ienn stur kall laik
o stura garda djärå
Dą̊ edde ig sku go bort i
fremmande land og sjǫ̈ ą̊ stura staða
Dar byddjer eð fuotje åv ymsum sortum,
ja, diem byddja dar i laungum raðum
O tirulį tuoga laungt bort i skuogą;
gätum wið laungt, men Guð wet ur eð gor
Sturuksan staungum wið o gelrakkan bandum wið,
og småfläðį driev borti bokkam
And here's a translation to Elfdalian:
O, edde ig werið ung og edde ig werið raik,
dą̊ edde ig ulað witå tä livå
Dą̊ edde ig ulað werda ienn stur kall laik
og stura garda djärå
Dą̊ edde ig ulað go brott i
fremmend land og sją̊ ą̊ stura staða
Dar byddjer eð fuotjeð åv ymsum sortum,
ja, dier byddja dar i laungum raðum
Og [tirulę?] [tuoga?] laungt brott i skuogą;
[gätum? getum?] wįð laungt, men Guð wet ur eð gor
Sturuksan staungum wįð og gelrakkan bandum wįð,
og smą̊fläðę drievu brotti bokkam
Orsamål:
O, edde ik weri ung ö edde ik weri raik,
do edde ik sku witåd tä livå
Do edde ik sku wärda jenn stur kall laik
ö stura garda djerå
Do edde ik sku go bört i
[fremmend?] lånd og sjå o stura stada
Dar bor ed fotje åv imsum sörtum,
ja, dem bo dar i löngum radum
Og [tiruli?] [toga?] löngt bört i skoga;
[gätum? getum?] wi löngt, men Gud wet ur ed gör
Sturuksån stöngum wi ö gelrakkån båndum wi,
og smofläni drive börti bökkåm
All of the northern Dalecarlian dialects are similar to these.
Being a speaker of Rättviksmål it does get harder still to understand the closer it gets to dalska. But I obviously have a way easier time than someone who only speaks standard Swedish.
@@Zakhath Oi, talar du rettvikemål? Heftigt! Detta er fyrste gongen eg heve møtt nokon som talar det. Rettvik heve veldugt godt mål. Kor myket våmhusk og orsamål skynar du?
Alle måli verda kallade fyre "dalska", trur eg.
@@Zakhath You speak Rättviksmål? You're the first speaker of it I've met. Rättviksmål is great.
They're all called "dalska".
@@dan74695 I learned it from my grand parents. It is really only older people that still speak it. I mostly get to use it when talking to elders in my work.
Very interesting discussion! Thank you so much, Doc Crawford! 🪶
I love learning new things!
Swedish here, and my immediate assumption was that "älv" refers to a river, rather than to elves.
Aha vert interesting episode. Huge shout out to Prof. Crawford. Älvalska is fantastic. You can find streetnames in villages still in this language locally. Hey I wanna challenge you. I thou find Gutemål (Gotlandic) the most archaic variety of Swedish. Please, would you do a show on Gutemål from the fabolous island of Gotland (in the Baltic see). Still spoken by old folks particularly on the south part of Gotland, "Sudret" (Hemse/Burgsvik) district. Fabolous show you have. Great shout out again.
Other Dalecarlian dialects and Norrlandic dialects also have short and overlong syllables
18:52 just a correction: tree in Swedish is ”träd”, not ”tre”. In Norwegian it’s ”tre”, however. (Tre is also the number 3 in both languages).
the newer typeface for explanations is also a nice update!
Elfdalian is not the only mainland scandinavian language to retain syllable structures from old norse, instead of reducing them all to heavy syllables. There's dialects in the north of sweden that have only lost the overlong VVCC but retain the short VC, and even one that only conditionally lengthens depending on pitch accent
Great stuff
I'm from a town (Rättvik) 80 km away from Älvdalen, it sits right in the middle between the Norwegian border and the east coast, but it still in Dalarna so in the same dialectal region. We also have some Norwegian traits when it comes to grammar and the pronunciation of certain words, we also tend to have a genitive case that is in fact dative plus an -s (for example 'ônomôs' instead of 'hans', literally 'him's' in English or 'honoms' in Swedish), and although we've lost the nasal vowels you can see that vowels are different (in certain cases) where there used to be an 'n' which is now lost. Also, we still have short vowel + single consonant in stressed syllables in word like for example 'gatu'. The oldest speakers may still have verb endings and case endings, and traditionally we had a three gender system. But people who are in their 50's or younger normally can't distinguish between all of these things, they basically just speak standard Swedish with a few local words thrown in. Which means the dialect will be gone in a few decades. Quite sad, really. In any case, I find it pretty difficult to understand älvdalska, even though it's not that far away. Even the Mora dialect, spoken halfway between Älvdalen and Rättvik is difficult.
The point about wĩð/wĩr is not true. Different villages in Älvdalen have either wĩð for both dual and plural (like Blyberg) or wĩr for both dual and plural (like Evertsberg). No part of Älvdalen distinguishes dual and plural. The same is true for ĩð/ĩr ”you (plural)”.
Indeed, it's just a phonetical change ð to r that's happened systematically in some villages. This happened also in for example Överkalixmål (blað, tíð, hljóð etc. have become bler, täir, lior etc., in Elfdalian r-dialects blar, tair, liuor/lyör etc.) and in some positions (very commonly in front of k: maðkr, buðkr, liðka etc. have become mark (dial.), burk (Stand. Swe.), lirka (Stand. Swe.) etc.) in many other dialects.
Interesting Dr. but the microphone needs to be clipped to your shirt for better sound volume.
I know I didn't cause this video to be, but I have repeatedly commented about elfdalian so i'm happy
Thanks for making a video on this topic. I haven’t heard a linguist’s take on Älvdalska before, and I definitely heard the fiction that it’s some kind of perfectly preserved version of Old Norse. (I can’t bring myself to call it “Elfdalian”… it just sounds too much like the name of a modern fantasy language.)
For certain in south louisiana, we'll distinguish cot (kaht) and caught (kawt) for sure. Never noticed the wh stress by my grandparents. Or at wasn't strong enough to pay attention to for me
Cot/caught merger is also incomplete where I am on the East Coast, in the Philly/NYC region.
Dunno, out here in the Northeastern US, you sleep on a kaat but you kawt the ball. Pretty distinct pronunciation.
Aw, nothing on subject doubling or negative concord.
I took a course with Professor Garbacz on the morphology/syntax of the Nordic languages, which quickly became a course in comparative analyses of Övdalian to other languages. 😊
A very good video Jackson.
There is though something begging to be pointed out, the OWN "Vér" as in "we" is still completely acceptable in modern icelandic even if somewhat archaic and formal. Having been raised by, as you pointed out yourself, grandparents, I was exposed to words not common anymore but would still fully qualify. Same goes for "Þér" as in pl. "You" (Elf. "Dier"), still qualifies and understandable although somewhat archaic and formal.
I see this in some of your otherwise absolutely great videos, the icelandic vocabulary does retain more completely acceptable even if archaic words than most would realize.
Keep up the good work !
When I first saw this i thought the word reminded of the first time I saw the word Elvin in norwegian.
> `"They're only excited about how Elfdalian speakers' grandparents speak; modern speakers have approximated more to Standard Swedish and so have lost a lot of the features which made Elfdalian more archaic such as the case system"`
Hit geendod is. Thusende menn "hinga dinga durgen" secgan sceal.
Fascinating presentation. And my first Elfdalian lecture ever! 😁
I found all the comparisons to modern North-Germanic languages very interesting, and useful too. I would like to point out what seems to be a mistake though, or possibly an imprecision due to over-generalisation when comparing Elfdalian syllable structure to that of other North-Germanic languages.
I'm not sure about the different Swedish and Norwegian dialects, but modern Danish has two features which seem to be left out of the comparison: Phonetic realisation of vowel length, and over-heavy syllables.
Historically, both of these features have, if not collapsed, then at least diminshed. So, if the comparison only deals with the phonetic lengths and heavinesses of preserved Old Norse syllables, then every bit of what is stated in the video may be true. But if the comparison is supposed to analyse the differences in currently active syllable structures, then it's simply not right.
1. Phonetic realisation of vowel lengths in modern Danish doesn't in any way rely on vowel quality. Almost all vowel phonemes are phonetically realised as a pair of long and short vowels with the exact same quality. And in stressed syllables, vowel length can only be realised with the vowel sound of the right length.
2. Perhaps only ten lexical words or so have an over-heavy syllable in Danish. But that's nevertheless more than none. And over-heavy syllables of course also arise from many types of word endings, including grammatical ones like with adjectives in neuter and verbs in the past and perfect tenses, and productive ones like '-sk'. And apart from the ten or so over-heavy root words in the basic vocabulary, Danish by regularized conventions inserts length to certain types of syllables in borrowed words from Greek and Latin without making exceptions when those syllables end in more than one consonant. Likewise, the Danish standard pronunciation of Latin, as well as of the names of pharmaceutical products, produces over-heavy syllables for the same reason.
I'll definitly check out the dictionary. i've heard of dalian but never actually heard it spoken. Cool video.
Interesting. My grandfather spoke a different dialect: Bondska/Bumpska. He was from northern Västerbotten, and never spoke standard Swedish.
Bumpska? 🤨
@@clanDeCo like 'bumpkin'. At least that's what my mother said it was called. She's a native English speaker, so it's possible she misheard or misremembered.
@@karlwiklund2108 are you american?
@@clanDeCo Canadian. My grandfather (on my father's side) was the one from Sweden.
@@karlwiklund2108 I'm a heritage speaker of bondska, I find it extremely interesting that bondska was spoken in canada too at some point. Coincidentally also from västerbotten but I speak south västerbottnian bondska which is somewhat different
Great video!I think one reason for not officially recognising it as a minority language is that there would then be dozens of other local languages; many areas have their own "dialects" that are almost as different as 'Elfdalian', though not always with as many archaic features. At the same time it should be clear that this is a political rather than linguistic reason
Caught and cot sound totally different lmao. Thats crazy you say them the same lol. Im from Ohio too. But I also distinguish "wh" too so i guess i sound like your grandparents.
My wife’s family on her father’s side comes from the Älvdalen area. I’d love to learn some of the language at some point.
There is a lot of focus on "elfdalian" but this only one of seven "dialects" or "mål" in a group of dialects from this area i Dalarna called "ovansiljanmål". All of them are more or less archaic and are very difficult to understand for a swedish speaker. They have some i common but are also different from one another. There is also other parts of Sweden and swedish speaking Finland where the language has archaic components and is nearly not intelligible for a swedish speaker ex. "bondska" i Överkalix i northern Sweden, "närpesmål" in Finland and "gutamål" in Gotland. Gutamål has is roots in old gutnic, one of three branches of old norse - old west norse, old east norse and old gutnic.
Haven't got time to watch this right now, but Äldvalen is probably IMO the inspiration for Rivendell, it's a direct translation. Tolkien was a great fan of Scandinavian languages.
Haha, I really liked that you pointed out "that kind of Stockholm person" with 'the Lidingö I-vowel"!
That was the first type of 'nasalized vowel' I could think of initially.
...until I realized; my dialect has it too! Without doxxing myself completely, I'm from 'a different älvdal', namely the "Klarälvdalen" area (the-clear-river-valley, if I were tp break it down).
We have four distinct Ö-vowel sounds (I've previously thought of them as "front and back" variants, but comparing them to what you described here, they are likely actually nasalized variants!) and either three or four A-variants (I can't quite discern if there are just three, or if I am just blanking on a word that would contain a long nasilized A, at the moment).
We also have a front and back K-sound, which I interestingly enough think is tied to to the "front-or-back", or rather 'nazalized-or-not' -vowel!
I love how listening to you talk about other, related things to my language and dialect can "unlock" things for me (or atleast let me speculate about stuff), about how I speak.
This is very interesting to me personally, since there are no written or documented "standards" that I've found, about specific local dialects. They tend to get lumped into regional generalizations, which are not usually satisfying enough to explain or show off the little differences, even if it will point out things like 'retained femininum gender' and more obvious things of that nature.
Note, it has nothing to do with elfs, älv in Swedish means river an dal means valley.
The word for elf is in Swedish alv or älva.
Tolkien might have used this play with words when he named Rivendell, in Swedish Älvdalen meaning rivervalley. 🙂
Sound level is pretty close to my noise floor.
You can write ą̊ in unicode by using ą with the ˚ combining character.
Älv = River (a big river at that)
Dal = Valley
so Rivervalleyaccent one could say :)
Romanticism may not be scientific but it speaks to a core need of human beings to be inspired by something. As long as you stick to facts, romantic feelings about things can help rather than hurt.
(High) German had something similar happen with the genitive case, at this point it is almost entirely replaced by the dative case, even in situations where "correct grammar" calls for the use of genitive.
That's an exaggeration. Though many Germans indeed don't use the genitive in daily speech, it is very much still present in writing and more formal speech, albeit not for all of the constructs where it was formerly used.
Sweden mentioned!!!
Good point. I don't know why archaisisms are considered 'cooler' than novations by some. Me, I like unique features, I find them interesting.
What caused such similar & parallel vowel shifts to happen in three languages (German, English, and Alvdaluan ?)
15:48 Interesting. IIRC 19th century Swedish that still preserved plural form of the verbs (at least when written) would be something like
jag är
du är
han är
vi äro
I ären
de äro
This just going by my hunch of having been exposed to 19th century Swedish texts a lot at a young age (long story). "I ären" feels pretty close to the Old East Norse example of "ír erun". Now that makes me wonder how "I" managed to become "ni" (Edit: It's written in the slide, heh. Can't still completely wrap my head around it though)
How "I" was usually capitalized like the english "I" also kinda fascinated me, despite being very different pronouns here.
As for Älvdalska taking a mix of Old West Norse and Old East Norse for "ir irið; ", might relative proximity with what is modern day Norway be any sort of explanation perhaps?
Edit2: As for Älvdalska being its own language or a dialect as a Swedish-speaking Swede living in Sweden, I can't understand it (heck, I have an easier time understanding many Norwegian dialects or even Danish), so I'm fine with saying it is its own language tbh...
Awesome man! Keep them coming, matybe you could do an overview of dialects in sweden and then add why denmark and norway has stronger dialects than sweden wich now is basically just accents. Was our nationalism stronger and more centralized?
Sweden has more preserved dialects than Denmark, and until less than 100 years ago Sweden still had a greater dialectal diversity than Norway. t's Norway that's the odd guy here, and it's because of political choices how to treat dialects. It also helps - at least morally - that there are several written forms of Norwegian.
I live not so far from this place, a couple of valleys west. I can understand fairly good when the swedes in the borderlands put the pedal to the metal and speak really broad dialect, its not so distant from my dialect. But Älvdalsk.. Forget about it, its greek to me, no chaance understanding it. =) Thanks mr. Crawford
Thank you. Do you have anything to say about. Under the Pillow, under kudden, pånni koddn. Thats from my lokal dialekt in Sweden, thats a Problem for other Sweds.😮
The /p/ is likely a transfer from the "upp-under" expression. My own Norwegian dialect uses a very similar preposition. Can't say anything about the vowels.
So, it sounds like the Old Norse said "on", like the french say it "en"
The interesting thing to me about Dalarna is how we in the south kinda don't speak Dalmål.
"Bergslagen" as a region has It's own dialekt.
It doesn't sound to different from when a northern Dalcarelian speaks regular Swedish because we obviously have influence from our northern kin but listen to a person from around Grängesberg, Falun or Borlänge and It'll sound more like a person from Västmanland or north east Värmland then when you think of someone from Dalarna.
Hej. Here in the western swedish talking part of Finland, we also have a small area of an old version of swedish, called the Närpes dialekt , that is not easily understandable for swedish or of course not for finnish speakers. Could it also be kind of an Elfdalian/Älvdalsk ting?
I always thought the älv word came from all the white stuff in the river and that it inspired the word for älva/elf because you could imagine it as elfs dancing on the water.
Älvdal mål and Rot mål is different and the 2 villages is only a couple km from eachother and theres alot of dialekts in Sweden
You speak too softly for me to be able to hear unless I turn the sound all up and even then only in good sound conditions with headphones.