Gutnish ( ), or rarely Gutnic ( or ), is a

North Germanic language The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also ...

spoken sporadically on the islands of

Gotland Gotland (; ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a Provinces of Sweden, province/Counties of Sweden, county (Swedish län), Municipalities of Sweden, municipality, a ...

and

Fårö Fårö () or in Gutnish is a Baltic Sea island just north of the island of Gotland, itself off mainland Sweden's southeastern coast. It is the second-largest island in the county and it is a popular summer resort. It has its own language, Fårö ...

. The different dialects of Gutnish, while stemming from the

Old Gutnish Old Gutnish was a stage in the development of the North Germanic language Gutnish, spoken on the Baltic Sea, Baltic island of Gotland and Fårö. The extant body of Old Gutnish is small, and Gutalagen and the Guta saga constitute its majority. ...

() variety of

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

, are sometimes considered part of modern Swedish. Gutnish exists in two variants, Mainland Gutnish (''Storlandsgutamål'' or ''Storlandsmål''), mostly spoken in the southern and southeastern portion of Gotland, where the dialect of Lau became the standard form on the Main Island (''Lau Gutnish'' → ''Laumål''), and Fårö Gutnish (Gutnish: ''Faroymal''; ), spoken on the island of

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

defines Gutnish as a " definitely endangered language" as of 2010. Some features of Gutnish include the preservation of Old Norse diphthongs like ''ai'' in for instance (; English: ''stone'') and ''oy'' in for example (; English: ''die''). There is also a triphthong that exists in no other Norse languages: ''iau'' as in / (; English: ''shoot''). Many Gotlanders do not understand Gutnish, and speak Gotlandic (), a Gutnish-influenced Swedish dialect. There are major efforts to revive the traditional version of Modern Gutnish and Gutamålsgillet, the Gutnish Language Guild, organizes classes and meetings for speakers of traditional Gutnish. According to the guild's webpage, there are now 1,500 people using Gutnish on Facebook.

Phonology

Vowels

The contrastive vowels in Modern Gutnish are , , , , , , . Of these, all but have a short and a long version. What is etymologically a long has been broken into the sequence . A distinctive feature of Gutnish is the existence of a large number of sequences of vowel plus or which form vocalic phonemes of their own. These sequences are the following: , , , , , , , , . Some of these sequences alternate with short vowels between different morphological forms of the same lexeme, cf. such pairs as "veit" 'white' (f.) ~ 'white' (n). * , when preceding other vowels, , or post-alveolar sounds, have a tendency to be more open . * In Fårö Gutnish, are further backed . * may be realized as more close when preceding a sonorant. * may be when unstressed.

Consonants

* Voiceless stops may be aspirated .

Lexicon

Gutnish has many words of its own that make it different from Swedish. The following is a small selection of Gutnish's everyday vocabulary:

Status

Gutnish is now under strong influence from the Swedish standard language, both through speaker contact and through media and (perhaps most importantly) written language. As a result, Gutnish has become much closer to the Swedish standard language. Due to the island's Danish and Hanseatic period there were also influences from Danish and

Low German Low German is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language variety, language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. "Low" ...

. There are also many Gotlanders who do not learn the language, but speak a regionally colored variant of the standard Swedish (Gotlandic). This is characterized mainly by its intonation, but also by diphthongs and triphthongs, some lexical peculiarities as well as the infinitive ending ''-ä.'' The ''Gutamålsgillet'' association, which has been working for the preservation and revitalization of Gutnish since 1945, estimates that Gutnish is spoken today by 2,000 to 5,000 people. How many are still passive, is not specified. However, an interest in Gutnish seems to be present: From 1989 to 2011, the radio show ''Gutamål'' ran in Radio Gotland, which regularly reached about 15,000 to 20,000 listeners, and in 2008 Gotland University offered their first course in Gutnish. Gutamålsgillet collects writings of authors and poets who write their texts in Gutnish, and maintains a Swedish-Gutnish dictionary and an ever-growing list of Gotlandic neologisms. In 2022, a citizen of the island of Gotland asked to use her surname with the Gutnish ending ''-dotri'' (instead of Swedish ''-dotter''). The authority appealed against the positive decision of the administrative court in Stockholm, but in the end, the Court of Appeal ruled that she was allowed to use a Gutnish surname.

Examples

Notes

References

External links

Official site of the Modern Gutnish Guild
{{Authority control Gotland North Germanic languages Endangered Germanic languages Languages of Sweden Scandinavian culture Germanic languages