Jamtlandic

Infobox Language
name=Jamtlandic, Jamtish
nativename=Jamska
familycolor=Indo-European
states=Sweden
region=Jämtland (Northern Europe)
speakers=30,000-60,000
fam2=Germanic
fam3=North Germanic
fam4=North Scandinavian
iso3=jmk

Jamtlandic or Jamtish ("jamska" [IPA|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 cannot 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, e.g., p. 112 in part one of [http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Noreen 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)." [ cite book
last=Noreen
first=Adolf
title=Vårt språk
publisher=
year=1908]

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. [ cite book
last=Gjerset
first=Knut
title=History of the Norwegian People, Volumes I & II
publisher=The MacMillan Company
year=1915]

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::²⁶"Å 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.´

:²⁷"Å 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 e.g. "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 is 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 (e.g. "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.

References

* "Dä glöm fäll int jamska", published by Margareta Persson (red.), 1986
*cite book
first=Vidar
last=Reinhammar
id=ISBN 91-85352-59-4
location=http://www.ssp.nu/nyheter/gustavadolf/folklivsbygd/hammerdal.htm
title=Hammerdalsmålet
publisher=Swedish Science Press

External links

*ethnologue|code=jmk|label=Jamtska
* [http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=jmk Code for Jamtlandic (jmk)]
* [http://web.telia.com/~u63501054/jamska_eng.html Jamska] - the dictionary project
* [http://www.sprakrad.no/nb-no/Toppmeny/Publikasjoner/Spraaknytt/Spraaknytt_3_2005/Jemtsk_og_troendersk/ Jemtsk og trøndersk – to nære slektningar] by Arnold Dalen
* [http://www.mdh.se/ima/personal/lln01/jamtamot/dokument/000.dok.stavningsregler-for-jamska.html Vägledning för stavning av jamska] by "Akademien för jamska"
* [http://www.syre.se/jengel/nagur.asp Publisher's webpage about "Nagur Bibelteksta på jamska"]
* [http://www.mdh.se/ima/personal/lln01/jamtamot/000-verksamhet-koj-jamska.html Presentation of Jamtamot] - Sample and description of Jens Persson's (somewhat outdated) orthography