Jämtland language

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Jämtland (Jamska)

Spoken in

Sweden ( Jämtland and Härjedalen )
speaker 50,000
Linguistic
classification
Official status
Official language in -
Language codes
ISO 639 -1

-

ISO 639 -2

gem (other Germanic languages)

Jämtland ("Ja-amsk" / "Jamske" in your own language) is a well-defined group of Scandinavian dialects spoken in the Swedish province of Jämtland . It is commonly used between today's Swedish- Norwegian border and the Swedish-Norwegian border further to the east before 1645. According to the sagas , Jämtland was originally settled by refugees from Trøndelag ; after Harald Fairhair unified Norway in the 9th century, it became part of Norway under the rule of Haakon I in the 10th century and remained part of Norway until the 17th century.

Jämtland shares many characteristics with both Trøndersk , the dialect spoken in Trøndelag , Norway, and the dialects spoken along the coast of Norrland . Because of this middle position, there has been a debate since the early 20th century as to whether Jämtland belongs to West Norse or East Norse. The truth is likely that Jämtland cannot be clearly assigned to either of these groups.

Since Jämtland is a group of dialects, it is difficult to determine the actual number of speakers. If the definition were to include all residents of Jämtland Province, the number of speakers would be around 120,000. In the event that one only counts more easily distinguishable rural variants, the number would be between 30,000 and 60,000. It is difficult to trace the history of the language, since written sources have only existed since the early 18th century, if one does not include the Frösö runestone from the early 11th century and the legal texts from the 14th century, which are not verified It is possible that they are written in Alt-Jämtland, the presumed Old-West Norse Jämtland dialect. There have been attempts to standardize the Jämtland spelling; the most widely accepted attempt to date is Vägledning för stavning av jamska (Guide to Spelling Jämtland) (1994 and 1995), presented by the Akademien för jamska , which consists of Bodil Bergner, Berta Magnusson and Bo Oscarsson. Its best known application is the translation of excerpts from the Bible into Jämtland, which resulted in the book Nagur Bibelteksta på jamska (Some Bible texts in Jämtland). An excerpt from the book:

Gen 1.26-27  EU :

26 Å Gud saa: 'Lätt oss gjära nåromanish, nager som e lik oss. Å dom ske rå öve fishn derri havan å över foglan pyne Himmela, å öve tamdjura öve heile jola, å öve all de djur som kravl å rör se på jorn.´
27 Å Gud skapa Jungsishan å gjool som n avbild ta se själv. Te kær å kviin skapa n dom.

Finally, attention is drawn to the fact that the book does not consistently correspond to the orthography and in some places also uses words and expressions that are too strongly Swedish. For example, the Vägledning för stavning av jamska gjæra uses "do, make", not gjära , and in real Jämtlandic one uses hemela for "[divine] heaven" instead of Himmela (cf. Swedish heaven ). Another different spelling rule is the use of the digraph sh instead of sch , which the Vägledning för stavning av jamska uses, which corresponds to the sound of the German "sch".

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