| Jamtlandic | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | Jämtland, Härjedalen |
| Language family |
Indo-European
|
| Official status | |
| Official language in | Republic of Jamtland |
| Regulated by | No official regulation |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Linguist List | jmk |
Jamtlandic or Jamtish (jamska [ˈjamskɐ], formally a definite form, in Jamtlandic) is a well-defined group of dialects of Scandinavia. It is spoken in the [Swedish] province of 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 Adolf Noreen's Vårt språk (translated from Swedish):
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The local name for the dialects is jamska, which translates to English as "Jamtlandic". However, since there is no single 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.
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.[2]
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.
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 and 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:
It should be emphasized here that the book does not fully follow Vägledning för stavning av jamska. For example, using Vägledning för stavning av jamska one would spell gjæra v. 'do; make', not "gjära". Another 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.