--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Haukur Thorgeirsson
<haukurth@...> wrote:

> Hinn 19. febrúar 2004 lét sjuler þetta frá sér fara:
> > I am currently working on a course concerning Dalecarlian:
> > http://www.unilang3.org/wiki2/wiki.phtml?title=Dalecarlian
> > I am using etymological spelling, so Old Norse Course students

won't

> > have much trouble recognizing much of the features.
> >
> > Worth to be noted: Dalecarlian has six cases (nominative,

accusative,

> > dative, prepositional dative, possessive dative and vocative).
>
> Fascinating :) Do you have any information on the historical
> development of this system?
>

No, I don't. My resource is an almost 100 years old doctoral
dissertation about the language/dialect written by Lars Levander. In
fact, he doesn't give the vocative much notice, since he only
mentions it in a footnote:

"2) Dessa ord ha även en särskild vokativ, som är ändelselös, t. ex.
lass, niss. [voc. of the names Lasse (i.e., Lars) and Nisse (i.e.,
Nikolaus), my remark]"

I am quite confident that weak nouns had a special vocative in older
Dalecarlian. E.g., "Ig tyttsjer itt um dig, skaul!" ('I don't like
you, school!'), where 'skaul' is vocative of 'skaule' (ON 'skúli,
skóli').

The vocative exists in some other Swedish local languages/dialects as
well (e.g., "pitemål"), but I don't know the historical development.
Personally, I don't find this development too strange, since it feels
almost natural to drop a final vowel in situations when addressing
someone. I mean, when you address someone in real life, you pronunce
the name a bit different than in other situations: "J-o-o-o-o-hn,
where are you?", "H-a-a-a-a-u-k-ur, your mother says it is dinner
time!" In Swedish, onesyllable names often get the vowel repeated
when addressing: "Pä`är, kom in och ät!". The vocative in Dalecarlian
may be a natural development of this phenomenon.

/Sj-u-u-u-u-ler, kom in nunän og et mat'n!