Hallingmål-Valdris (also known by the individual names ''Halling'', ''Hallingdøl'', or ''Valdresmål'') is a group of

Norwegian dialects Norwegian dialects (''dialekter'') are commonly divided into four main groups, 'Northern Norwegian' (), 'Central Norwegian' ('' trøndersk''), 'Western Norwegian' (''vestlandsk''), and 'Eastern Norwegian' (). Sometimes 'Midland Norwegian' () and ...

traditionally spoken in the traditional districts

Hallingdal Hallingdal ( en, Halling Valley) is a valley as well as a traditional district located in the traditional and electoral district Buskerud in Viken county in Norway. It consists of six municipalities: Flå, Nes, Gol, Hemsedal, Ål and Hol. ...

Buskerud Buskerud () is a former county and a current electoral district in Norway, bordering Akershus, Oslo, Oppland, Sogn og Fjordane, Hordaland, Telemark and Vestfold. The region extends from the Oslofjord and Drammensfjorden in the southeast to Ha ...

and

Valdres Valdres () is a traditional district in central, southern Norway, situated between the districts of Gudbrandsdalen and Hallingdal. The region of Valdres consists of the six municipalities of Nord-Aurdal, Sør-Aurdal, Øystre Slidre, Vestre Sl ...

Oppland Oppland is a former county in Norway which existed from 1781 until its dissolution on 1 January 2020. The old Oppland county bordered the counties of Trøndelag, Møre og Romsdal, Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Akershus, Oslo and Hedmark. The c ...

Phonology

Consonants

* is usually realized as a prestopped nasal , while the allophone only occurs in words like ''baren'' () "the bar". * also has a prestopped realization . * The phoneme which is commonly called ''thick L'' (written in

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners A ...

), exists in words that had either or in Old Norse. In Vang, occurs only in the first case. * The consonant clusters , , and were not pronounced as , only was. Sørbygdi in

Flå Flå is a municipality in Viken county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Flå. The municipality of Flå was established when it was separated from the municipality of Nes on 1 January 1905. The municipal ...

pronounces as , while

Gulsvik Gulsvik is a village in the municipality of Flå in Buskerud, Norway. It is located in Hallingdal at the north end of Lake Krøderen. The center of the village lies at Gulsvik Rail Station. Bergensbanen railway terminated at Gulsvik Station fr ...

pronounces it as . * The consonant clusters and were mostly assimilated to .

Hol Hol is a municipality in Viken county, Norway. Administrative history The area of Hol was separated from the municipality Ål in 1877 to become a separate municipality. In 1937 a part of neighboring Uvdal with 220 inhabitants moved to Hol munic ...

and Ål assimilated these to , and Sørbygdi in

assimilated to . * The clusters , and are pronounced as spelled. * The

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

cluster is pronounced as assimilated or .

Vowels

* The

back vowel A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be c ...

s and in older Hallingmål-Valdris were pronounced as in

, without the

vowel shift A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language. The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century. The Greek language also underwent ...

to, respectively, and that is found in most other Norwegian dialects. * The short Old Norse vowels and are pronounced as central almost everywhere, except for Ål (but not Torpo), where these are back . In

(except for Vang), the schwa can also be realized as . * Traditionally, were pronounced as open-mid . * The words pronounced and mean "I" and "am", respectively. *

Itacism Iotacism ( el, ιωτακισμός, ''iotakismos'') or itacism is the process of vowel shift by which a number of vowels and diphthongs converged towards the pronunciation in post-classical Greek and Modern Greek. The term "iotacism" refers to ...

is found in southern Hallingdal (

, Nes and some in Gol), making the vowel to be unrounded to . * The Old Norse diphthongs , and are traditionally pronounced as , ( in southern Hallingdal) and . This is occurs today especially in upper

and

and Ål.

Grammar

Citations

Notes

References

Literature

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hallingmal-Valdris Valdres Hallingdal Norwegian dialects