Dalécarlien

Dalecarlian (dalmål in Swedish) is a group of East and West Scandinavian languages, and their respective dialects spoken in Dalarna County, Sweden. Some Dalecarlian varieties can be regarded as part of the Swedish dialect group in Gästrikland, Uppland, and northern and eastern Västmanland. Others represent a variety characteristic of a midpoint between West and East Nordic, unlike the Swedish language. They also show some similarities with the dialects of the other counties bordering Dalarna. In the northernmost part of the county (i.e., the originally Norwegian parishes of Särna and Idre), a characteristic dialect reminiscent of eastern Norwegian is spoken. One usually distinguishes between the Dalecarlian Bergslagen dialects, which are spoken in south-eastern Dalarna, and Dalecarlian proper. Dalecarlian dialects are traditionally regarded as part of the Svealand dialect group. Some Dalecarlian dialects takes up an intermediate position between East Nordic (Swedish–Danish) and West Nordic (Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese). Kroonen cites a number of features that Elfdalian (a dalecarlian language) in particular shares with West Nordic, and writes: "In many aspects, Elfdalian, takes up a middle position between East and West Nordic. However, it shares some innovations with West Nordic, but none with East Nordic. This invalidates the claim that Elfdalian split off from Old Swedish." In everyday speech, many with Dalecarlian often also refer to regionally coloured Standard Swedish from Dalarna, that is, a lexically and morphologically "national" Swedish with characteristic Dalarna intonation and prosody. In linguistics, one distinguishes between regionally coloured national languages and genuine dialects, and Dalecarlian is used exclusively for dialects in the latter sense. Varieties of Dalecarlian are generally classified geographically: Ovansiljan, north of the Siljan lake: sockens Ore, Orsa, Våmhus, Älvdalen (Elfdalian), Mora, Venjan, Sollerön. Nedansiljan, south of the Siljan lake: sockens Boda, Rättvik, Bjursås, Ål, Siljansnäs, Leksand, Gagnef.