Everything about Jamtlandic totally explained
Jamtlandic or
Jamtish (
jamska [ˈjamskɐ], formally a
definite form, in Jamtlandic) is a well-defined group of
dialects of Scandinavian. It is spoken in the
Swedish province Jämtland. It is commonly used in the region between the modern Swedish-
Norwegian border in the west and the pre-1645 Swedish-Norwegian border in the east, though
Trøndersk is spoken in
Frostviken in the northernmost part of Jämtland colonized in the 18th century by Norwegians, and
Norrlandic is spoken in
Ragunda in the easternmost part of Jämtland which until 13th century was a part of
Ångermanland.
Jamtlandic shares many characteristics with both Trøndersk—the dialect spoken in
Trøndelag, Norway and with the dialects spoken along the coast of Norrland, Sweden. Due to this ambiguous position, there has been a debate since the early 20th century whether Jamtlandic belongs to the
West Norse or the
East Norse language group. Jamtlandic can't be uniquely defined belonging to either of these groups. Prior to, and around, the time of the
dissolution of the
Swedish-Norwegian union, Jamtlandic was undisputedly considered a dialect of Norwegian. See, for example, p. 112 in part one of
Adolf Noreen's
Vårt språk (translated from Swedish):
» The Westnorthern Swedish ("Norwegian-Swedish"), originally Norwegian dialects in Särna and Idre (the northwesternmost Dalarna), Härjedalen and Jämtland (where, though, the language east of Östersund eventually passes into Medelpadian or Ångermanlandic).
Being a group of dialects, the official number of speakers is hard to estimate. If the definition was to include all inhabitants of the Jämtland province, it would be around 120,000 people. Only counting more distinguishable rural variants, the number would be between 30,000-60,000.
Name
The local name for the dialects is
jamska, which translates to English as "the Jamtlandic". Though since there isn't one established name for the dialects in English, the two forms
Jamtlandic or
Jamtish are commonly used. Jamska as such is a definite form, the original form is rarely used, besides as a
verb:
te jaamsk or
te jamske (depending on the dialect) — "to Jamtlandic/Jamtish". Jamska is sometimes spelled with a
silent t as
jamtska.
History
According to the
sagas, the region called Jämtland was originally settled by fugitives from Trøndelag after
Harald Fairhair united Norway in the
9th century. It became part of Norway during the reign of
Haakon I in the
10th century and remained part of Norway until the
17th century. At that point it became part of Sweden. The history of the region accounts for many of the dialects features.
It is difficult to the trace the history of Jamtlandic dialects because written sources only exist from the early 18th century, if not including the early 11th century
Frösö runestone or the 14th century legal documents which can not be confirmed to have been written in Old Jamtlandic, the assumed distinct Jamtlandic dialect of Old West Norse.
Orthography
There have been attempts to standardize the orthography of Jamtlandic, and the attempt which has been the most popular so far is
Vägledning för stavning av jamska (1994 and 1995) which is the work of the committee
Akademien för jamska consisting of Bodil Bergner, Berta Magnusson och Bo Oscarsson. The most prominent application of this orthography has so far been to prepare translations of parts of the
Bible into Jamtlandic resulting in the book
Nagur Bibelteksta på jamska. An excerpt from the book:
Genesis 1:26–27:
» 26Å Gud saa: ’Lätt oss gjära når mänish, nager som e lik oss. Å dom ske rå öve fishn derri havan å över foglan pyne himmela, å öve tamdjura öve heile jola, å öve all de djur som kravl å rör se på jorn.´
» 27Å Gud skapa mänishan å gjool som n avbild ta se själv. Te kær å kviin skapa n dom.
It should be emphasized here that the book neither fully follows
Vägledning för stavning av jamska nor is written in fully genuine Jamtlandic. For example, using
Vägledning för stavning av jamska one would spell
gjæra v. 'do; make', not "gjära", and in genuine Jamtlandic one has
hemela n. 'the heaven (dat.)' rather than "himmela" (cf.
Swedish himmel n. 'sky'). (A more disturbing spelling convention in
Nagur Bibelteksta på jamska is the use of the digraph "sh", in for example "mänish" n. 'human being' and "fishn" n. 'the fish', with the same pronunciation as English 'sh' in 'shoe'. Properly using
Vägledning för stavning av jamska, this would be spelled
sch; see § 26 in the external link below.)
The attempt of standardizing the orthography performed by Jens Persson is worth mentioning as well since it's considered to be a more serious attempt to unify the dialects, though on the other hand seen as less realistic to make people begin adhere to. His orthography is more firmly based on the etymology than
Akademien för jamska´s is. For example, it includes the
Old West Norse letter
ð (silent version of
d), vowels with acute accent (for example
á), Norwegian-Danish
æ and
ø instead of Swedish
ä and
ö, respectively), dropped Scandinavian
å (which is replaced by
á), the old
au diphthong is spelled
ou (cf.
Akademien för jamska´s norwegianized spelling "
au") etc.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Jamtlandic'.
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