Gotlandic

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Gotlandic (Swedish gutniska, gutamål or gotländska, whereby the latter is often not used for the autochthonous dialects but for the regionally colored colloquial language closer to standard Swedish ) describes a group of closely related dialects on the Swedish island of Gotland . Today's Gotlandic is considered a dialect of Swedish . Its medieval stage, the Old Gutnish (Swedish Forngutniska ), on the other hand, is traditionally not assigned to Old Swedish, but is viewed as an autonomous variety.

The boundaries between the terms Gotlandic, Gutamål and Gutnisch are fluid and do not have a generally recognized scientific distinction. However, Gutnish is often understood to mean the Old Gutnian language, and Gotlandic is the regional standard language on Gotland. This article mainly deals with the traditional Gotland dialect, often called Gutamål . When the term Gotlandic is used in the text , it means the traditional dialect.

history

The old good niche

The Old Gut Niche, which was spoken on Gotland in the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, can be regarded as a Scandinavian language in its own right , according to the Swedish Nordist Elias Wessén . It must not be confused with the extinct East Germanic language Gothic , even if the languages ​​have individual similarities. The Old Gutnish is handed down in numerous runic inscriptions from the period from 900 to the beginning of the 16th century and in some medieval manuscripts. The best known are Gutalagen (Guten-Recht) and Gutasagan , which were recorded around 1350, but most likely go back to an older tradition. Below is a text example from the Gutasaga:

Mangir kunungar stridu a Gutland miþan ha [i] þit was. Þau hieldu gutar e iemlica sigri oc ret sinum. Siþan sentu gutar sendumen manga til Suia rikis. En engin þaira fic friþ gart fyr þan Awair Strabain af Alwa socn. Hann gierþi fyrsti friþ wiþr suia kunung. [...] þaut gutar haiþnir waru, þau sigldu þair miþ caupmannascap innan all land, baþi cristin oc haiþin. Þa sagu caupmenn cristna siþi i cristnum landum: þa litu sumir sic þar cristna och fyrþu til Gutlandz presti. Botair af Acubec hit þann sum fyrsti kirchiu gierþi i þann staþ sum nu haitir Kulasteþar.
“Many kings fought Gotland when it was pagan. However, the good [the Gotland people] always retained victory and their rights. Then the good guys sent many messengers to Svea Reich. But none of them could make peace until Aivar Straibain of Alva Congregation [did]. He first made peace with the Svea king . [...] Although the Good were pagans, they sailed with merchandise to all countries, both Christian and pagan. Then the merchants saw Christian customs in Christian countries: then some of them allowed themselves to be Christian and led priests to Gotland. Botair from Akebäck was the name of the one who was the first to build a church on the site that is now called Kulesteþar. "

Old Gutnish differs from Old Swedish in terms of both phonological and morphosyntactic peculiarities. It shows many archaic traits, such as the preservation of the umordian diphthongs (in the text: haiþit, haitir ) and the umordian u (gutar, gutland) . The complex system of nominal and verbal inflection that has been retained also distinguishes the Old Gut niche in a certain way from Old Swedish and radically from Old Danish. In addition, several vowels had retained or developed a more closed pronunciation (in the text: fyrsti, siþan ). Further differences from the other Nordic ancient languages ​​are the more frequent use of i-umlaut and the lack of w- refraction in words like singe und sinke .

Later Altgutnisch and external influences

In contrast to Old Swedish, Old Gutnish remained little influenced by other languages ​​for a relatively long time. Contrary to what Wessén and others assumed, this cannot be explained by isolation, since Visby was an international trading center during the Hanseatic League. In the Middle Ages there was a lot of exchange with Russia, the Baltic States, (Northern) Germany, Sweden and Denmark and thus had good conditions for linguistic influence. The fact that there were no major developments at this time is probably due to the fact that trade and thus also language contact primarily took place within the city walls of Visby. When Visby later lost influence, the land niche spread from the country to the city.

Only in the 16th and especially in the 17th century, when Gotland was under Danish rule, did the linguistic influence from outside become significant. Danish and Low German words came into the Gutnish vocabulary and the inflection system was gradually simplified. A Danish and Low German influence can be identified to this day. Examples from Danish are någle (Danish. Nogle, Swedish. Några, German. "Some"), saktens (Danish. Say, Swedish. Nog visst, German. " Light ") or um en trent (Danish. Omtrent, Swedish. Approximately, German "approximately, approximately"). From 1645, when Sweden gained dominion over Gotland, the Swedish influence on Gutniche grew stronger. With the introduction of the general elementary school in 1842 and compulsory schooling in 1882, the Swedish written language gained more and more ground, at the expense of good niche. The end of the Gutniche is set at the end of the Middle Ages, but many elements from the Altgutniche are still present in the Gotland dialect.

Phonology

The most defining feature of Gotlandic phonology is its wealth of diphthongs and triphthongs . Gotlandic appears as a dialect that is relatively rich in vowels.

Vocalism

The vowel system has the following special features compared to standard Swedish:

  • The Umordian diphthongs ai and au have been preserved from the Old Gutniche and were not monophthongized to ē, ȫ as in Swedish : gotl. aik, haim (Sw. ek, hem; Ger . "Eiche, Heim") or augä, staur ( Sw . öga, stör; Ger . "Auge, Stange"). The Umordian øy was lowered to oy / oi in the Altgutnischen , but remained diphthong and was also not monophthongized to ȫ : bloytä / bloitä, snoy / snoi (Schw. Blöta, snö; dt. "Wet, snow").
  • The Old Norse diphthong iū , which was pronounced iau in Old Gutnish , still appears today as a triphthong: biaude, diaup ( Sw . Bjuda, djup; dt. "Offer, deep").
  • New diphthongs have developed that were not present in either Ur-Norse or Old Gutnish : Old long ī became äi , long ȳ became öi and long ū became äu : sväin, nöi, fäul (Schw. And Altgutn. Svin, ny, ful; German "Pig, new, ugly (lazy)").
  • The Old Gutnian long ē (Old Norse ǣ / ē ) has undergone different developments in different geographical areas. In the south the long e was preserved, on the rest of Gotland it either became a separate diphthong egg or coincided with the diphthong ai developed from old ī . The short u after a simple consonant has developed into iu : hiul, siun ( Sw. Hål , båge; Eng . "Loch, Bogen").
  • Long old Norse a has been preserved: bat [baːt], nal ( Sw . Båt [boːt], nål; Eng . "Boat, needle").
  • The quality of the short i and the short y was retained: skip, vit ( Sw . Skepp, vett; Eng . "Schiff, Verstand") and hyllä, yvar ( Sw . Hölja, över; Eng . "Hüllen, über"). However, the quantity has changed in some cases.
  • The original Nordic short u is preserved in some positions: buck (sw. Bock ; Eng. "Bock"), but in others it has been diphthongized (see above). The a-umlaut of Old Norse u , which was already characteristic of Old Swedish , only occurred before r : ård (Schw. Ord ; Eng . "Word"). Basically Gotland knows the »European« u-sound [u], not the Swedish palatalised [ʉ].
  • Unstressed vowels have usually been weakened: drickä (Schw. Dricka; Eng . "Drink"). In some places in the north and north-east of Gotland, however, the ending - i received: bälti, minni (otherwise like standard black : balte, minne; German "belt, memory").
  • As in the Altgut niche , the w-refraction is missing, for example singä (schw. Sjunga; eng . "Sing").

Consonantism

Gotlandic also shows several peculiarities in the consonant system:

  • g and k are also pronounced plosive before front vowels and not, as in standard Swedish, palatalized to [j] or [ɧ] or [ʃ]: [gɪ: va], [körke] (schw. [jɪ: va], [ɧʏrka] or [ʃʏrka]; Eng. “give, church”).
  • In the consonant compounds gj , sk , skj and stj , each sound is pronounced separately, and there is no palatalization to [j] or [ʃ] or [ɧ]: [gjautä], [skjautä], [stjennä] ( black [jʉ: ta], [ɧʉ: ta] or [ʃʉ: ta], [ɧɛ: ɳa] or [ʃɛ: ɳa]; German "pour, shoot, star").
  • In the consonant combinations dj , ld , mb , rd and ng, there are no assimilations in most positions: [djaup], haldä, lamb (Schw. [Jʉ: p], hålla, lamm; Eng . "Hold, lamb").
  • In the consonant combination ld and ng , d and g are pronounced in most positions: [kvɛld], [drɛŋg] (Schw. [Kvɛlː], [drɛŋ]; Ger. "Abend, Knecht").
  • The assimilation of the consonants compounds rn and rs , in the standard Swedish to the retroflex is [ɳ] and [ʂ] is carried out, can be found in Gotland conducted complete: [BAN], [kɔsː] (schw. Barn [baːɳ], Kors [kɔʂː ]; German "child, cross").
  • J disappears before the verb ending : hylle ( Sw . Hölja, Old West Norse hylja; dt. "Hüllen").
  • Weak tones - t and - n in the final sound , as is common in Scandinavian dialects, are silent: häuse, bite, jordi ( Sw . Huset, bitet, jorden; dt. "The house, the piece, the earth").
  • The final - r can disappear in plural forms: hästa (Schw. Hästar; eng . "Horses").

morphology

Gotlandic has only preserved parts of the complicated inflection system in Altgutniche. This primarily describes the phenomena in which Gotlandic differs from standard Swedish.

Nominal inflection

Gotlandic, like most Swedish dialects, but in contrast to standard Swedish, has a preserved three-digit system. The nouns are divided into the grammatical categories masculine, feminine and neuter.

The indefinite article is änn (änn skog) for masculine, ätt (ätt brev) for neuter and i, a or ä (i / a / äuter) for feminine, depending on the region .

The definition marker (“certain article”) is suffused as in standard Swedish. There are two different definiteness markers for feminine, depending on whether the word ends in a consonant (strong) or a vowel (weak). The scheme below shows the inflection for nouns in indefinite and definite forms.

Masculine Feminine (weak) Feminine (strong) neuter
änn skog i / a / ä kollå i / a / äuter ätt brev
skog än koll u then i brev ä

The plural is usually formed with -ar : änn häst - trei hästar ("one horse - three horses"). Monosyllabic neutrals usually remain unchanged: ätt brev - trei brev ("one letter - three letters"). In contrast to standard Swedish, Gotlandic has no double definition with a preceding and closing article when an adjective precedes the noun: trei hästar - di sma hästar ("three horses - the little horses").

The noun follows the possessive pronoun in a certain form, which is rarely the case in North Germanic dialects. Noun phrases like din garden (“your garden DEF”) and däiras de yngst päiku (“whose youngest girl DEF”) are grammatically correct in Gotland.

Adjective inflection

The adjective is inflected after the associated noun. The endings in the predicative position are as follows:

Masculine Feminine neuter Plural
acid ar acid stäur t sträur a

So: Han jär stäurar, ha jär stäurar, de jär stäurt, di jär stäurar. ("He / she / it / she-Plur is / are big").

The presubstantivic (weak) ending of the adjective is -ä in all genera : Den stäurä skogän, de stäuri dautri, de stäuri häusä, de stäura hästar ("the / the / the / big / n / forest / daughter / house / horses" ). In the adsubstantivic position, feminines have the (strong) ending -u . Plurala noun received -u in some areas , -å [o] in others .

Verbal inflection

Verbal inflection by person has been almost completely eliminated, as in standard Swedish and in the other mainland Scandinavian languages. However, in the second person singular there are some forms that are still used in most of the island. This is especially true for the auxiliary verbs: Jau kan (“I can”), but däu kanst (“you can”). On the island of Fårö, northeast of Gotland, the full paradigms were used the longest, at that time jau kan, däu kanst, han kann, vör kunå . The infinitive ending -ä : kallä, ropä ( Sw . Kalla, ropa, dt. “Call”) is characteristic of Gotlandic and is common today in the Gotlandic standard language .

Lexicons

Gotland has many words of its own that distinguish it from Swedish. Below is a small selection from everyday Gotland vocabulary:

Gotlandic Swedish German
päiku flickan the girl
sårken pojken boy
Russian haste the horse
rabbis canine the bunny
träsket sjön the sea
sjoen havet Ocean

Gotlandic today: distribution and future

Like most dialects of Swedish, Gotlandic is heavily influenced by standard Swedish, both through speaking, through the media and (perhaps especially) through the written language. As a result, Gotlandic has become much more similar to the standard Swedish language. There are also many Gotlanders who do not even learn the dialect, but speak a regionally colored variant of standard Swedish. This is mainly characterized by its intonation, but also by diphthongs and triphthongs, some lexical peculiarities and the infinitive ending -ä .

The Gutamålsgillet association , which has been working for the preservation and revitalization of Gotlandic since 1945, assumes that »genuine« Gotlandic is spoken by 2,000 to 5,000 people today. How many can still passively is not specified. However, there seems to be an interest in Gotlandic: From 1989 to 2011 the radio program Gutamål was broadcast on Radio Gotland , which regularly reached around 15,000 to 20,000 listeners, and in 2008 Gotland University offered its first course in Gotland. Gutamålsgillet collects writings from authors and poets who write their texts in Gotlandic, and maintains a Swedish-Gotlandic dictionary and an ever-growing list of Gotlandic neologisms.

Gotlandic in the Scandinavian context

The old Gutnian tradition already had a distinct linguistic special character, which, supported by the largely independent life of the island of Gotland, which lasted until the Peace of Brömsebro in 1645, has been preserved and partially reinforced to this day.

The Gotland dialect is particularly characterized on the one hand by its archaisms - thanks to its peripheral location, it has received features that have given way to innovations elsewhere. This primarily concerns the preservation of Old Norse long [an], which is otherwise rarely found in Scandinavia. The many preserved consonant combinations, apart from Gotlandic, are only typical of a small part of the Scandinavian dialects (in Danish they were partially restored in the 19th century). The preservation of "European" u, which applies to all North Germanic varieties outside the Scandinavian Peninsula (including Iceland and the Faroe Islands, Denmark and Finland), is less exceptional  .

On the other hand, it is the extensive diphthongization of Old Norse lengths and the triphthongization of Old Norse diphthongs that give Gotland a very distinctive character. These also occur in certain West Nordic dialects and in island Nordic, but set Gotlandic apart from the neighboring dialects. Almost all other innovations can, however, be connected to the closest areas of the Scandinavian mainland: the particularly strong implementation of the Nordic refraction, the fading of -t and -n in the weak- toned final, the general weakening of final -a , the transition from ǣ to ē (Neo-Gothic to ei, äi diphthong) and others can also be found in the dialects of central and northern Sweden. The triphthong iau , developed from iū , can also be traced back to early inscriptions on the mainland and is therefore more of a preserved archaism than a Gotlandic innovation. The Old Gutnian R umlaut, which has raised ǣ to ē , the disappearance of j before the verbal final vowel -a and vocabulary phenomena also appear in Dalarna, the former also appear in certain old Swedish texts and thus refer to an older all-Eastern Nordic connection that was only created through later developments has been disturbed. The dwindling of the final -r in plural forms as well as perhaps the weakening of the final -a have something in common with Danish.

All in all, Gotlandic shows close connections to the neighboring dialects and is not as isolated as it might seem. What Gotlandic creates its considerable special character, however, is the combination of distinctive archaisms and distinctive innovations.

Language examples

To kvälden
Nätt'l för manfolk u kungvall för kune.
Neie slags local for ymsedere.
Svalk di at saudi, styrk di me dune
um däu jär djaupt i naudi nere!
Vävald pa raini, beef lye i hagen
- fool sma kluckar gynnar ljaude.
The aimar fran marki u rydmen av dagen
slucknar langum för livnes u daude.
Gustaf Larsson


Staingylpen
Staingylpen gärdä bryllaup,
langhalu bigravdä läik,
tra torkä di däu sigderäivarä
va fyrä komst däu intä däit?
According to PA Säve

further reading

  • Oskar Bandle : The structure of the North Germanic. With 23 cards. Helbing and Lichtenhahn, Basel / Stuttgart 1973 (contributions to Nordic philology 1); since then reissued.
  • Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet - inledning till studium. Barry Press Förlag, Visby 1977.
  • Elias Wessén : Våra folkmål. Fritzes, Lund 1969.
  • Elias Wessén: De nordiska språken. Almqvist & Wiksell Förlag AB, Stockholm 1979.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rune Palm: Vikingarnas språk. 2nd Edition. Norstedts, Lund 2010, p. 329.
  2. ^ Elias Wessén: De nordiska språken. 11th edition. Almqvist & Wiksell Förlag AB, Stockholm 1979, p. 109.
  3. ↑ a b c Elias Wessén: De nordiska språken. 11th edition. Almqvist & Wiksell Förlag AB, Stockholm 1979, p. 110.
  4. ^ A b Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet - inledning till studium. 3rd revised and expanded edition. Barry Press Förlag, Visby 1977, p. 10.
  5. ^ Translation of the Swedish translation in: Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet - inledning till studium. 3rd revised and expanded edition. Barry Press Förlag, Visby 1977, p. 10.
  6. ↑ Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet - Inledning till studies. 3rd revised and expanded edition. Barry Press Förlag, Visby 1977, p. 12.
  7. ↑ a b c Elias Wessén: De nordiska språken. 11th edition. Almqvist & Wiksell Förlag AB, Stockholm 1979, p. 109f.
  8. ↑ a b Rune Palm: Vikingarnas språk. 2nd Edition. Norstedts, Lund 2010, p. 330.
  9. ^ Bengt Pamp: Svenska dialekter . Natur och Kultur, Stockholm 1978, ISBN 91-27-00344-2 , p. 76 .
  10. ↑ a b The following according to Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet - inledning till studium. 3rd revised and expanded edition. Barry Press Förlag, Visby 1977, p. 11ff .; Oskar Bandle: The structure of the North Germanic. With 23 cards. Helbing and Lichtenhahn, Basel / Stuttgart 1973 (Contributions to Nordic Philology 1), p. 106ff .; Elias Wessén: Våra folkmål 9th edition. Fritzes, Lund 1969, p. 50.
  11. ↑ a b c Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet - inledning till studium. 3rd revised and expanded edition. Barry Press Förlag, Visby 1977, p. 26.
  12. ↑ Øistin Alexander Vangsnes: «Identificasjon» and morphologiens roll in the northiske nominal turf. In: Vangsnes u. a .: Dialect syntaktiska studier av den nordiska nominalfrasen. Novus Forlag, Oslo 2003, p. 178.
  13. ↑ Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet - Inledning till studies. 3rd revised and expanded edition. Barry Press Förlag, Visby 1977, p. 27.
  14. ↑ Examples from Øistin Alexander Vangsnes: «Identificasjon» and morphologiens roll i den nordiske nominalfrasen. In: Vangsnes u. a .: Dialect syntaktiska studier av den nordiska nominalfrasen. Novus Forlag, Oslo 2003, p. 177.
  15. ↑ Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet - Inledning till studies. 3rd revised and expanded edition. Barry Press Förlag, Visby 1977, p. 30.
  16. ↑ Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet - Inledning till studies. 3rd revised and expanded edition. Barry Press Förlag, Visby 1977, p. 31.
  17. ^ A b Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet - inledning till studium. 3rd revised and expanded edition. Barry Press Förlag, Visby 1977, p. 34.
  18. ↑ Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet - Inledning till studies. 3rd revised and expanded edition. Barry Press Förlag, Visby 1977, p. 18.
  19. ↑ Gutamålsgillets Årdliste / Ordlista
  20. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gutamal.org
  21. ^ Archive of the Gutamål broadcasts on Sveriges Radio
  22. ↑ Gutamålsgillet
  23. ↑ The following according to Oskar Bandle: The structure of North Germanic. With 23 cards. Helbing and Lichtenhahn, Basel / Stuttgart 1973 (Contributions to Nordic Philology 1), pp. 106–109.
  24. ↑ Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet - Inledning till studies. 3rd revised and expanded edition. Barry Press Förlag, Visby 1977, p. 62.
  25. ↑ Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet - Inledning till studies. 3rd revised and expanded edition. Barry Press Förlag, Visby 1977, p. 73.