Jamtlandic (Jamsk'/Jamske)

[Bokkjen]

Some is written, but unfortunately people don't follow their own (or other's) recommendations all the way. And personally I haven't been writing any publishable stuff.

Well parts of the bible has been written down. There are several word lists (i got two myself) and in regional publishments (like parish-papers) are full of poems and storys in the dialect. Here's one in Bärsmaol:

Dom hadde laungt te' körcha, nästan mila,
geck te fots, sa dom dro-te tila.
Tänk sa slitsamt, o sa' vart i sola,
men, da va seggt i ösche ti' n'Anners o n'Ola.
Inga biler, bare kraka pau väjen n'dan tia.
grinner, o haga bådde pau'n eine o n'anner sia.
Milla Barsvitjen o Rören va'i stor i' grinn.
letthanterlen när dom geck, o int' aukte ti'na
Han som geck före öppne, o n'anner stängne
varenda sondag, vare'se da störme hell regne
Öppne n'eine, sa stängne n'anner.
dom litte pau da, som go'i granner.
Men sa en gaong, dau geck n'Anners före,
gönom grinna, - sa smauningom ville n'Ola
"Vårt'a stängt grinna, hell hårre var'e?"
"jaa, da va'no du som geck ätte", vårt svare.
"O' du stängne väll, som de anner dagan".
"Jee" sa n'Ola. "som kleiv öve hagan".
Jaa, n'Anners gatt no gau te'baks o stänge,
o n'Ola hadde rolen att de'ranne länge.

Hope your eyes won't bleed to much.

[Hunef]

To be concrete, Jamtlandic is the only Norse dialect to have the combination jø (~ OWN jó) together with a dropped unstressed r (~ OEN -R).

thewhatnow?

Let's take the Frösö Runestone (northernmost runestone in the world, and one of the five most important since it describes the conversiono of a whole nation to christianity rather than merely saying that someone died) as an example. There you have words like triun normalized Trjónn (a male name) and runoR þisaR normalized rúnaR þessaR 'these runes' (lit. "runes these"). These are the Viking age Old Jamtlandic.
If the runestone would have been erected in the Old West Norse speaking area, the inscriptions would have been triun = Trjónn (like before), but runor þisar = rúnar þessar (i.e., simplified -R to -r). This clearly proves Jamtlandic isn't West Norse.
But on the other hand, if the runestone would have been erected in the Old East Norse speaking area, the incriptions would have been runoR þisaR = rúnaR þessaR (like before), but trun = Trýnn (i.e., simplified jó to ý in this position). This clearly proves Jamtlandic isn't East Norse either.
Thus, we must conclude that Jamtlandic is it's own branch. (The dialectal features above are rather central for the division into West and East, especially during the Viking age.)

In Modern Jamtlandic, the jó in a position like above changed into ø (progressive umlaut + dropping of j), i.e., Trjónn would be Trøn today if it existed. (But as you know, e.g. Swedish bryta 'break' is brøt'/brøte in Jamtlandic. OWN brjóta vs OEN brýta.) The -R has been dropped in modern speech, which couldn't have happened to a western -r. Thus, rúnaR þessaR would be rún' dess' (or rúne desse in the southwest) if þessi 'this' would have survived into modern times, which it hasn't (unlike all other Norse languages in their standard forms - colloquial Central and Northern Swedish lacks it too).

Bokkjen, I hope you understand now.

[Hunef]

Hope your eyes won't bleed to much.

I had to stop reading at "körcha" 'the church' in the first line. My eyes exploded then. Why the hell and for God's sake can't the author write at least körsa (which wouldn't be exactly my spelling which respects our glorious history, but I can't stand the ch combination in Norse language so rs could be acceptable)?

And he's really mixing au and ao for the southwestyern diphthong [ɑʊ]? God, I hate inconsistencies.

[Bokkjen]

I knew you'd love it.

[Hunef]

The spelling ösche looks almost as terrible as körcha. Why doesn't he write örse like the Academy recommends and common sense tells you to do unless you invent an etymological spelling like mine? Who the hell is this schmuck?

[Boingy88]

I knew you'd love it.

[Bokkjen]

Is there some fancy rule regarding as to how K is pronounced? In Swedish it's only hard before a, o, u, å but in Jamtic it's hard in ske (ske ma?) but not ski.

[Johanna]

Maybe Jamtlandic has the same rules as Norwegian regarding this, in Norwegian e is a hard vowel, just lika a, o, u and å. Only i, y, æ and ø are soft

[Aszev]

Maybe Jamtlandic has the same rules as Norwegian regarding this, in Norwegian e is a hard vowel, just lika a, o, u and å. Only i, y, æ and ø are soft

Actually in Norwegian only i and y trigger softening of k and g. See Swedish köra vs Norwegian kjøre.

Iirc, the Akademien för Jämtska (or however they're calling it) uses the Norwegian version.

[Johanna]

Maybe Jamtlandic has the same rules as Norwegian regarding this, in Norwegian e is a hard vowel, just lika a, o, u and å. Only i, y, æ and ø are soft

Actually in Norwegian only i and y trigger softening of k and g. See Swedish köra vs Norwegian kjøre.

I knew it! It didn't look quite right when I wrote it but I've forgotten most of the Norweggain spelling rules and then I thought it was all in my mind

[Bokkjen]

Iirc, the Akademien för Jämtska (or however they're calling it) uses the Norwegian version.

It's akademien för jamska, and they claim to have adopted the nynorsk spelling (though they don't follow it, check för, not før, in hteir said name).

And we also got folk and folkje, just like bokk and bokkjen respectively.

[Hunef]

Is there some fancy rule regarding as to how K is pronounced? In Swedish it's only hard before a, o, u, å but in Jamtic it's hard in ske (ske ma?) but not ski.

In my dialect we say ski with hard k, i.e. 'Ski ma?' (not "Sji ma?") 'Shall we?'.

In this case it's an analogous i-umlaut, i.e. a > e (> i) through analogy with e.g. teg 'takes'. The analogy obviously appeared after the softening of k in front of soft vowels.

[Hunef]

In initial position, Jamtlandic has the same softening rules as in Swedish and Norwegian, that is, Old Norse e ę i y ø (and long versions) caused softening, a o u ǫ (and long versions) didn't.

(NB: Elfdalian doesn't follow the Norwegian-Swedish-Jamtlandic rules though due to e.g early diphtongizations. Thus, ON skít 'shit' has become "skait" rather than softened to "stsjait", Swe-Nor-Jam "sjit".)

How to spell things is a completely different issue. In Norwegian they follow the (old) Danish rule to use a redundant j, and thus only treat i and y (and the diphtongs ei and øy, which is theirt own connvention) as soft vowels.

In my spelling of Jamtlandic I use the Swedish rather than the Norwegian convention. Why? Because I don't think following Danish conventions is better than following our own language history; Old Norse e ę i y ø (and long versions) caused softening in Jamtlandic, so of course they should be treated as soft vowels.

What makes things complicated is that i-umlauts occured in Jamtlandic after the softening period. That's why "ski" 'shall, will'(in my dialect) is pronunced with a hard k. But these are exceptions and special rules, so they should be marked in some special way.One shouldn't introduce redundant j's in the cases when there were perfectly regular developments, like they unfortunately do in Norwegian (and in the complete failure of Akademien för jamska).

[The Finnish Spaniard]

What books for learning Jamtlandic exist?

[Hunef]

What books for learning Jamtlandic exist?

Only Swedish speaking ones, though in the form of scientific dissertations. There are no books at all devoted for learners, only for scientists. As far as I know.
But Elfdalian - another Norse dialect/language - spoken in Sweden - has a significant amount of learning material. It's not very different from Jamtlandic. (Jamtlandic is approximately between Norwegian and Elfdalian, and Elfdalian is approximately between Jamtlandic and Swedish though with many archaisms.)

[The Finnish Spaniard]

hmmm, is Jamtlandic taught at universities in Scandinavia?

[Hunef]

hmmm, is Jamtlandic taught at universities in Scandinavia?

No, but Elfdalian is.

[skye]

What makes Elfdalian so different from Jamtlandic that it is taught at universities and Jamtlandic is not?

[Travis B.]

What makes Elfdalian so different from Jamtlandic that it is taught at universities and Jamtlandic is not?

Elfdalian is the most archaic North Germanic dialect spoken in Scandinavia proper, one should remember. On the other hand, Jamtlandic is a moderately conservative northern North Germanic dialect existing outside of any standard varieties and retaining things such as the dative case (albeit not with Elfdalian's degree of conservatism).

In other words, Jamtlandic is a neat traditional continental North Germanic dialect, whereas Elfdalian is effectively akin to Icelandic and Faroese despite being fundamentally East Norse rather than West Norse. There are many traditional dialects like Jamtlandic, even though they may not be as prominent as it, while Elfdalian truly stands out as continental North Germanic dialects go.

[skye]

Thanks, I understand now. Nice explanation.