Re: -e -a gender distinction in Swedish

> Well, I must by my own experience maintain that the alternance –e –

a

> is rather genuine in colloquial language in the west of Sweden, in
> opposition to other parts, where the distinction is only

maintained

> in refined written language and the colloquial ending is generally
> –a.
> In Göteborg, for instance, where the tramway lines have different
> colours on their signs at least older people refer to line 1

as "den

> vite", 4 as "den gröne" etc. (-vagn being an old masc.).
>
> I suspect that Själland would still have had this distinction if –

a

> hadn't been weakened to –e.

Actually the old 'Öresundsmål' maintain a three-gender distinction
in adjectives, eg. Bornholm sjøger m., sjøg f., sjøgt n. "sick"

>If I have got it right from perusing
> your past posts your theory is that the NW-block people were

ousted

> from Kattegatt-Skagerack to the Northsea coast by Germanics coming
> from the Scandinavian peninsula. Is that correct?
>

Half correct. I think (with Kuhn) that the NWpeople (in NWGermany
and the Netherlands, more precisely the area between Weser/Aller and
Somme/Oise) were infiltrated and subdued by the Proto-Germanic
speakers coming from Thuringia, who at the same time infiltrated
Denmark (South & East Jutland and Fyn), then Sweden, then Norway,
and last Sjælland, if Snorri's chronology is to be trusted.
In other words, Scandinavia wasn't Germanic-speaking before appr.
the first century BCE.

At least the language in Jutland would have been similar to NWBlock.

> How then to explain generalization to –a in Svealand and

Norrland?

> It can't be shibboletization so far from Denmark. Or is it due to
> deep-rooted memory of the massacre in Stockholm 1520 staged by
> Christian den andre (in Denmark also: den gode) ?

Swedes tend to forget that he was kicked out of Denmark, too ;-)


Those things seem to acquire a life of their own. I've no doubt that
in the 1520's -e/-a was a very political shibboleth, but the social
and 'subethnic' factions that participated in them did not cease to
exist. I think it's interesting that Småland, Östergötland(?) and
Gotland have infinitives in -e, against standard -a (didn't Gustav
Vasa have trouble with the loyalty of Småland?), but Scania and
Bornholm keep -a, as if those landscapes in Sweden had a tendency to
lean to the Union side, whereas Scania within Denmark held on to its
independence.



And a self-correction: According to Brøndum-Nielsen the original two-
gender area is eastern Jutland. The islands, including Sjælland, are
solidly three-gender, except for Amager (these are old data!).



Torsten