Swedish dialect
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Swedish dialects are the various forms of the
Swedish language Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language spoken predominantly in Sweden and in parts of Finland. It has at least 10 million native speakers, the fourth most spoken Germanic language and the first among any other of its type in the Nordic countr ...
, particularly those that differ considerably from Standard Swedish.


Traditional dialects

The linguistic definition of a Swedish traditional dialect, in the literature merely called ''dialect'', is a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by Standard Swedish and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic
case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...
inflections. These dialects can be nearly incomprehensible to most Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into the six traditional dialect groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. The color represents the core area and the samples are from ''
Svenska Dagbladet ''Svenska Dagbladet'' (, "The Swedish Daily News"), abbreviated SvD, is a daily newspaper published in Stockholm, Sweden. History and profile The first issue of ''Svenska Dagbladet'' appeared on 18 December 1884. During the beginning of the ...
s dialect project. : South Swedish dialects (dark blue); (Skåne, Perstorps socken, N. Åsbo härad). : Götaland dialects (red); (Västergötland, Korsberga socken, Vartofta härad, Skaraborgs län). : Svealand dialects (dark green); (Uppland, Håtuna socken, Håbo härad). :
Norrland dialects Norrland dialects ( sv, norrländska mål, links=no) is one of the six major dialect groupings of the Swedish language. It comprises most dialects traditionally spoken in Norrland, except for those of Gästrikland and southern Hälsingland, which a ...
(light blue); (Västerbotten, Skellefte socken, Löparnäs). :
Finland Swedish Finland Swedish or Fenno-Swedish ( sv, finlandssvenska; fi, suomenruotsi) is a general term for the variety of the Swedish language and a closely related group of Swedish dialects spoken in Finland by the Swedish-speaking population, commonly a ...
and
Estonian Swedish Estonian Swedish ( sv, estlandssvenska; et, rannarootsi keel, lit=Coastal Swedish) are the eastern varieties of Swedish that were spoken in the formerly Swedish-populated areas of Estonia (locally known as ''Aiboland'') on the islands of Ormsà ...
(orange); (Finland, Österbotten, Sideby socken). : Gotland dialects (light green); (Gotland, När Socken, Gotlands södra härad). The areas with mixed colors as stripes are transitional areas. The parts in yellow with coloured dots represent various distinct dialect areas which are not easily defined as belonging to any of the six major groups above. The areas west of the core for Norrland dialects, west of Svealand dialects and north of Götaland dialects are related to each of these, respectively, indicated by the colour of the dots. Samples from these areas
Jämtland, Föllinge socken
(related to Norrland dialects)
Dalarna, Älvdalens socken
(related to Svealand dialects) an
Värmland, Nordmarks härad, Töcksmarks socken
(related to Götaland dialects). The dialects of this category have in common that they all show more or less strong Norwegian influences, especially the dialects in Härjedalen, Northwestern Jämtland and Northwestern Dalarna. Dialects often show similarities along traditional travelling routes such as the great rivers in Northern Sweden, which start in the mountains at the Norwegian border and then follow a South-Easterly path towards the Bothnian Sea. The grey area does not have any independently developed Swedish dialect. Here is a summary of some of the most important differences between the major groups. Note that this table does not hold for the distinct (dotted) or transitional (striped) areas. Götaland dialects are mostly used in Västergötland, Dalsland, northern Halland, northern
Småland Småland () is a historical province () in southern Sweden. Småland borders Blekinge, Scania, Halland, Västergötland, Östergötland and the island Öland in the Baltic Sea. The name Småland literally means ''Small Lands''. The Latinized fo ...
and
Östergötland Östergötland (; English exonym: East Gothland) is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish) in the south of Sweden. It borders Småland, Västergötland, Närke, Södermanland and the Baltic Sea. In older English li ...
although they are also heard in
Bohuslän Bohuslän (; da, Bohuslen; no, Båhuslen) is a Swedish province in Götaland, on the northernmost part of the country's west coast. It is bordered by Dalsland to the northeast, Västergötland to the southeast, the Skagerrak arm of the North Sea ...
and Värmland and Öland. Examples of Götaland dialect features are
vowel reduction In phonetics, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic ''quality'' of vowels as a result of changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word (e.g. for the Creek language The Muscogee lang ...
, vowel shortening in front of endings and loss of ''-r'' in suffixes (as in ( = horses)). In addition, connect adjacent areas, mainly Dalsland, northern SmÃ¥land and Östergötland southwest. Värmland can also be counted here, although its dialects in many ways is a special case. A characteristic of Svealand dialects is the coalescence of the alveolar trill with following dental and alveolar consonants — also over word-boundaries — that transforms them into retroflex consonants that in some cases reduces the distinction between words (as for instance — , i.e. "habit" — "warn"). This feature is also found in East Norwegian,
North Swedish Norrland dialects ( sv, norrländska mål, links=no) is one of the six major dialect groupings of the Swedish language. It comprises most dialects traditionally spoken in Norrland, except for those of Gästrikland and southern Hälsingland, which ...
and in some dialects of Scottish Gaelic. * + → * + → * + → * + → * + →


Classification

The following dialect groups are sometimes classified as "Swedish" in the broadest sense (North Scandinavian): * Archaic Gutnish * Dalecarlian * Archaic Finnish Swedish,
Estonian Swedish Estonian Swedish ( sv, estlandssvenska; et, rannarootsi keel, lit=Coastal Swedish) are the eastern varieties of Swedish that were spoken in the formerly Swedish-populated areas of Estonia (locally known as ''Aiboland'') on the islands of Ormsà ...
,
Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
* Archaic Norrlandic, Jamtska Dalecarlian is intermediate in some respects between East and West Scandinavian.
Scanian The term Scanian (, or ) can refer to: * A person born or living in the province of Scania proper (Skåne) * The people and language of the historical provinces of Scania (Terrae Scaniae, Skånelandene (Danish), Skåneland (Swedish) * Scanian dia ...
, a dialect of East Danish, is South Scandinavian, along with
Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...
, East Danish, and Jutish.


See also

* Norwegian dialects * Danish dialects * Scanian dialects


Notes


References

*


External links


More samples
from many dialects not listed in this article. (Swedish site)
Dialect map
with audio from the
Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore The Institute for Language and Folklore ( sv, Institutet för språk och folkminnen, acronym Isof), is a Swedish government agency with the purpose of studying and collecting materials concerning dialects, folklore and onomastics. In June 2006 ...
. {{Language varieties