Re: Estonian Swedish

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "squilluncus" <grvs@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> wrote:
>
> I think it's strange
> > that Swedes should have colonised Estonia during that time,

before

> > the Union of Kalmar.
> > Possible solutions:
> >
> > 1) Estonia was colonised by Swedes after 1346
> >
> > 2) Estonia was colonised very early by Eastern Norse speakers?
> >
> > 3) The Estonian Swedes were swedified Danish colonists?
> >
>
> Perhaps early Eastern Norse speakers at a time when the difference
> between Swedish and Danish was insignifant.
> Cf. http://runeberg.org/nfbg/0500.html spalt 951:
> Historia. E. har redan under vikingatiden stått i
> förbindelse med Skandinavien, och det är troligen från
> denna tid den svenska befolkningen på västkusten och
> öarna härstammar; något säkert härom är dock icke
> kändt.

I thought something like that. About 2000 years ago, someone seems
to arrive in Finland and Estonia; traditionally the newcomers are
identified with the ancestors of Baltic Finnic speakers, but that
arrival has now been pushed back some thousand years. Consequently,
one might identify the newcomers in the centuries around the
beginnning of our era with the people that appeared also in Fyn and
Jylland at that time. The story of Odin's death on Odensholm (they
recount it on a map in the Stockholm-Tallinn ferry) fascinated me,
since it fitted in with the rest of my speculative scenario.

> Danish origin might as well be probable, but only one thing is
> really Danish:
> Also it seemed d -> zero, g -> zero in inlaut (Danish -> ð, ->
> > G, > dialectally -> zero).
>
> Palatalisation is insignifant:
>
> > At what time did palatalisation of velars before front vowels

take

> > place in Swedish?
>
> Hard /g/ and /k/ can't be taken as criteria for a difference

between

> Danish and Swedish until late.
> The palatalization in Swedish is not going further back than the
> 17th century judging from king Carl XI's misspellings like 'Sier-
> Torsdagen'.

You mean of course they go back at least that far?

> 'Stjärna' wasn't /Sän,a/ until around 1800.
>
> Furthermore the same development seems to have been going on in
> Kjöbenhavn at this time, but was stopped by anti-German
> shibbolethization in the middle of the 19th century. (That I've
> learnt by studying this list!)
>

I think it was going on in all the dialects in Denmark (but I might
be wrong) plus in the standard language (the spellings (s)kie-/
(s)kje, (s)kiø-/(s)kjø- etc for present (s)ke-, (s)kø-). Today only
the peripheral dialects of Bornholm and Vendsyssel have palatal
stops.


Torsten