Talk:Swedish dialects

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I've moved a lot of the somewhat problematic or overly detailed content from Swedish language#Dialects to try to deal with it separately. The table is a pretty good illustration, but it really hogs a lot of space in the already crowded main article and it's a lot of nitty-gritty for the average reader.
Though this article has a source, it provides a quite a lot of information from this one source without any page citations, making it somewhat difficult to verify the content. This is a problem primarily because the idea of "traditional" and "modern" dialects is something that to the best of my knowledge is not claimed by Pettersson. The idea that there are two almost separate sets of dialects of Swedish that is entirely dependent on how influenced by Standard Swedish is most likely not supported by anyone and seems to be a conclusion drawn by the author of the content here rather than the quoted source.
The content could also use a bit of copyediting and standardized layout.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:25, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Nice to see a decent contribution from you mr Isotalo for a change. Of course, the principle of separated treatment into traditional and modern dialects is not coined by me. This is done by e.g. Yair Sapir in his very nice article on Elfdalian. On p. 12 he writes:

"One of the consequences of this dissolution is that today’s Elfdalian differs more significantly between generations than between geographical varieties, resulting in a greater variation among individuals than earlier, likewise in differences in grammatical forms and in the degree of Swedish interference. However, early 20th century Elfdalian, also named ‘Classical Elfdalian’, still constitutes for many, both scholars and laymen, the model for ‘genuine’ or ‘correct’ Elfdalian. This is the Elfdalian used in grammars, teaching books and some children’s books."

Obviously, he writes about classical Elfdalian rather than traditional, but the it's just another word. (He also uses genuine and correct as adjectives. Traditional of course works as well.) So, following Sapir, we could use classical vs modern dialects. The former being the dialects in the pre-swedified form and the latter being the (to various degrees) swedified form of the dialects. The problem with the SweDia samples is that they vary from being close to classical to being modern (and even close to Standard Swedish).

The conclusion hereby is that we should use the notions of classical and modern dialects. Or do you go against Yair Sapir's terminology, dear mr Isotalo?

Jens Persson (213.67.64.22 20:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC))

I see you're still out to provoke me. I've already asked you not to refer to me as "Mr", and instead you use it more frequently. How do you think this behavior reflects on your standing as a Wikipedian? Do you think it actually adds anything to your arguments...?

You still keep up the interpretation of wording pretty much like you feel like. For example, "classical" becomes "traditional", and not just for the dialect being described but all dialects. I guess I don't need to point out that Sapir is just one Scandinavian linguist among many, and not a terribly notable one at that. And then you try to get some kind of community permission for these terms, though we were actually in the business of deciding these things. I'm not sure whether to call this a lack of NPOV or OR, but it's sure ain't kosher.

Why is it so hard for you to understand that you can't just use the sources you agree with?

Peter ^Isotalo 12:35, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

It may be good to quote a prominent dialectologist, Yair Sapir, here concerning the problem of classification:

"The Dalecarlian dialect group has traditionally been regarded as part of the Sveamål dialects, albeit with an exceptional position (see Wessén 1954). Others suggest distinguishing between Dalecarlian and the rest of the Sveamål. Reitan (1930) suggests treating Dalecarlian as a separate language. Elert (1994), taking his point of departure in contemporary circumstances, treats the dialects spoken in Dalarna and part of Västmanland as Bergslagstalspråk ‘Colloquial language of Bergslagen’ or Dala-Bergslagssvenska ‘Dala-Bergslagen Swedish’. The inclusion of Dalecarlian within Sveamål can again be ascribed to the strong focus on archaism in traditional linguistics. Synchronically, taking into account the Dalecarlian innovations on the one hand, and the growing Swedish influence on the other dialects on the other, I am of the opinion that Dalecarlian can be classified as a separate dialect group, where Elfdalian constitutes its most distinctive member2. Combining this argument with sociolinguistic arguments, Elfdalian can be regarded as a separate language." (Page 6 in this source.)

This supports why I don't invoke Dalecarlia directly into Sveamål. Ananalogously I do the same for Värmland and Jämtland-Härjedalen since these provinces also have exceptional varieties of dialects which would need a separate treatment.

Jens Persson (213.67.64.22 00:02, 28 May 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Wording about Norrbotten is clearly wrong.

The sentence "The grey area does not have any independently developed Swedish dialect.", which as far as I can understand refers to Norrbotten, is clearly wrong. However, my knowledge of this subject is not scientifically deep enough to make a correct description of the dialect in Norrbotten. --Smallchanges 11:04, 15 July 2007 (UTC)