Re: Estonian Swedish

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

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > In the meanwhile I discovered that the dialect of Gotland was also
> > de-palatalized or never palatalized. That island had been under
> > Danish rule (1361 - 1645), and so had the Estonian island of
> > Saaremaa (Øsel) (1560 - 1645); Estonian Swedish was spoken
> > on islands and in coastal villages nearby.
> >
> >
> > Torsten
> >
> Worth considering. Cf http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutniska :
>
> "På 1500-talet inträffade en del novationer i det gutniska språket,
> bl a diftongerades längre vokaler och språket tog allt större
> intryck från tyska och danska, varför man ofta väljer denna tid som
> slutpunkt för forngutniskan. Från denna tid och framåt finns väldigt
> få skriftliga vittnesbörd. Gutniskan förblev emellertid det
> officiella språket på Gotland fram till dess att ön blev en del av
> det svenska konungariket vid Brömsebrofreden år 1645."
>
> But also:
> "I motsats till övriga folkmål i Sverige härstammar gutniskan varken
> från fornsvenska, forndanska eller fornnorska utan har ett eget
> fornspråk."
>
> Considering what is said about keeping very old diphthongs intact I,
> personally, would also consider absence of palatalization due to
> similar archaism rather than influence from Sjaellandish rulers as a
> a model of depalatalization (or the influence from Germans in the
> Hansastadt Visby). Gutnic history seems to indicate a certain
> apartheid between the town population and the rural population of
> the island.
>
> It wouldn't surprise me that Estlandish also might be characterized
> as a dialect apart from the classification of West- and Eastnordic.
>
> Cf. "Från den östliga bildades svenskan, danskan och gutniskan. Av
> de tre senare språken står svenskan och danskan varandra närmast
> medan gutniskan på många sätt avviker från de övriga två."
>

One should bear in mind that what was counted as *the* dialect by its
lexicographers was the form of language furthest from the standard
language. Thus Bornholm has palatalization, which of course doesn't
mean that no one there speaks varieties that are unpalatalized, as in
standard Danish, and the reverse for Gotland, of course.

But I think one might consider this:
Old Norse (ie. Old Icelandic) palatalized to gy-, ky-.

Sjaelland, Gotland and Estonia had unpalatalized dialects, at least
for some speakers. Where did those dialects come from? To my knowledge
no other Swedish dialect was unpalatalized.


Torsten