Hi,
I know the history of Jamtland since I am from the province myself
(and I know Bo Oscarsson, whose web pages -
http://w1.635.telia.com/~u63501054/ -
I assume you are referring to).
Jamtlandic used to be a pure Western Norse dialect, and my ancestors
spread Western Norse as far east as into Finland (province of
Austrbotn). No far from the Baltic Sea, with Austrbotn not far away
on the other side of the sea, people actually spoke like this in mid
14th century:
"Vyrduleghum herra sinum herra Magnusi med guds nad
Noregs Swya ok Skane konongi h/oe/yllsa Lafrandz Gunnasson logmader
j Jamtalande ok Siugurder Endridar sson vmbods madr Biarna Erlings-
sonar j fyrnemfdo landæ q. g. ok sina audmiuka skylldugha þ/oe/nosto.
yder vilium mit kunnigt gera at eftir bode ok brefui ydru min herra
tokom mit prof a R/oe/fsundum j gilda skalanum a manadagin nesta ef-
tir Bonofacii m/oe/sso a fimta are ok tuttugta rikis ydars min herra
vm aftak *Hunælfs Alfuers sson er Olafuer Biarna sson vard aat skada
vfirir syniu varo þar þa erfwingiar hins dauda logligha till stemfdir.
Var þat aat vpphafue vidratto þæira at Olafuer ok Hunæfuer varo til
gæst hia Jone iambr hafde þa Hunæfuer fyrnemfdr eina aar ok stak
Olaf j briostid firir ofwan geirwortuna so at Olafuer var lengi krankr
af. sagde þa Hunæfuer at hann vildi eii gort hafua honom en Olafuer
suarade. þat venter ek at þu gerdir þat firir engum ilvilia. baro
þetta ok suoro Biorn iambr ok Jon Þoriss sson at so var ord eftir orde
sem nu er sagt. stod þetta þæira millium ual vm fim aar at þæir varo
ekki sattir en fim vettrum lidnum komo þæir badir saman til
R/oe/fsunda ok var þa Olafuer j kirkiugardenum kom þa Hunæfuer
gangande j kirkiu garden ok talade till Olafs laat eii illa Olafuer
min þar sem þik þr/oe/ngir enki vm. Þui nest stak Olafuer oftnemfdan
Hunef j briostid med knifue ok sagde so. haf þetta firir hitt er
fyrri var. lifdi Hunæfuer nokora dagha eftir þat en þo do hann þar
af. suoro þetta Besse Berþors sson ok Ketill Skeggia sson at so var
sem nu er sagt. Tokom mit ok viglysingar vitni þæira manna er so
heita ok so suoro a bok Gregorius Jorundar sson ok Helgho Vestars
dottor at Olafuer oftnemfdr kom till þæira samd/oe/ghers sem hann
hafde þat vigh wnnit ok lysti firir þæim at þat sem Hunæfuer fæk af
mik huart sem hann fær þar af bott ædr bana þa gerdi þat engin vttan
ek. var þetta vigh wnnit a fiorda aare ok tuttugta rikiss ydars min
herra. Var ok bodin ydr þæghn min herra ok frendonum b/oe/tr eftir
godra manna dome. Ok till sannenda at mit fengum eii meiri vissu ok
marghir adrir godir men med okkr af þessu profue settom mit okkorr
insigli firir þetta profs bref er gort var a deghi ok are sem fyr
segir."
BTW, my nick 'Sjuler' is 16th century flavor of 14th century Sjugurðr
(Icelandic: Sigurður'). Modern Jamtlandic would be 'Sjul'. Note the
rð > l development here.
Compare the Eastern Jamtlandic mid 14th century language in the text
above with the following Up-Swedish text (Yngre Västmannalagen) from
early 14th century:
"Gæfwer faþer ællær moþer eno barne mera æn andro. hafwe mæþan þön
lifwa. oc æcke længær. siþan scal þæt til skift bæra. mæþ þera manna
witnom þær hos waro þær faþer ællær moþer utt gaff. oc tolf manna
eþe. oc siþan sin lot op bæra. hwart æfftær þy. þæt ær byrþom til
boret. §.1. Fæstir man cono. oc wighis mæþ hænne. ware þæghar full
giftning þera. swa som þön i sæng haffþen waret. §.2. Hafwe alldre
ængen wizorþ at wita barn i giffta sæng."
One easily notices some differences in orthography, but the samples
are too small to give real examples of differences. One is that Old
Jamtlandic has 'þui' (dative of 'þat' =neut. 'it') and Old Up-
Swedish 'þy' (dative of 'þæt' =neut. 'it'), though. Still today we
notice this difference since Jamtlandic has 'di' and Swedish 'ty'.
Today, Dalecarlian is the most arcane language of Mainland
Scandinavia since Faroy Gutnish - in principle unchanged between
medieval age to 1900 - is extincted.
Jamtlandic is more or less like any Northern Swedish dialect, but
slightly more Norwegian/Tröndish and slightly less arcane.
Currently, I find Estonian-Norse qite interesting.
/Sjuler
--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, erek gass <egass@...> wrote:
> Perhaps, it is important to remember the political implications
applying to the growth of the Swedish Kingdom. Sweden conquered other
small domain around them and incorporated them, often uneasily, into
its "empire". It isn't only Dalska that is "different". So is
Jamtish, Gutnish, asf. I refer you to the internet urls from
Jamtland. One contains a rather interesting history of how that
(really Norwegian) province went through turmoil during the medieval
period as it went back and forth, and describes the suffering the
Jamtish population endured from the wars and occupations.
>
> Erek
>
>
> --- "sjuler" <sjuler@...> wrote:
> Konrad, what about those Norse dialects that were not in any way
> written down on paper? What did Norse spoken in Northern Sweden
sound
> like, for example? Of course, we don't know. My point here is that
a
> statement like "Fortunately, West Norse was the most conservative
> branch, often markedly so." is based only on the written records.
> POerhaps Northern SCandinavians still spoke Viking age Norse in
> Medieval times. We don't know, and therefore one should restrict
> oneself to a statement like "Fortunately, West Norse was the most
> conservative branch amongst the known Norse dialects, often
markedly
> so."
>
> BTW, since Icelandic did preserve vocabulary, grammar etc in an
> almost uncanny way, but did not preserve stuff like pitch accent,
> short and over-long syllable lengths and nasal vowels, it may be
> interesting to listen to a dialect that did. Here are some sound
> samples:
>
> http://www.unilang2.org/wiki2/wiki.phtml?
> title=Dalecarlian_sound_samples
>
> Konrad, any comments on it?
>
> /Sjuler
>
>
>
>
> --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "akoddsson"
> <konrad_oddsson@...> wrote:
> > --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Berglaug Ãsmundardóttir
> > <berglauga@...> wrote:
> > > Sjuler wrote: "As far as I know, the only sound which Icelandic
> has
> > preserved better than all other Scandinavian dialects is the þ-
> sound
> > (like 'th' in English 'thing')."
> >
> > > Don't forget our lovely unvoiced resonants, which all you
> > scandinavians seem to have lost in some freak accident! ;)
> > >
> > > unvoiced r, l, m, n are fun to say!
> >
> > Lovely, I might add ;)
> >
> > > and wouldn't ð also be a 'preserved sound'?
> >
> > Yes, no doubt.
> >
> > > i'm well aware that icelandic isn't anything like old norse
was,
> > but really, it's mostly in the vowels and their surroundings
(that
> > would be lenght of syllables), the consonant changes are minimal.
> >
> > I agree. ll, nn, g between vowels(segir), maybe final d/b
> (land/lamb)
> > and a few others. Not much of a change at all. However, as you
> point
> > out, the vowel-system is changed. I would say quite radically so.
> If
> > we had a living speaker, however, I think we could learn it
without
> > having to learn the whole language over again.
> >
> > (hmm.. same as with english,
> > > really, their vowels are all messy nowadays.. compared to a
> > thousand years ago, at least)
> >
> > English is nowhere near the same tongue it was a thousand years
> ago.
> > The price of an empire, I suppose.
> >
> > I think what students need to understand about old pronunciation
is
> > this: there were many 'old norse' languages and just as many ways
> of
> > pronouncing them. In Sweden, for instance, we had the Gautlandic
of
> > east and west, Swedish proper, Gutnish and others. In my opinion,
> it
> > was the Old Gutnish that was the 'jewel of the east' -
> conservative
> > like the oldest West Norse, but with a radically differing
> phonology
> > and even usage. Danish was also markedly different in
> pronunciation,
> > and to some extent in usage and vocabulary, from West Norse. The
> way
> > I see it, one of the main advantages of old West Norse is that it
> is
> > considered to have been very uniform (einsleit). Because Faroese
> and
> > Icelandic were once the same language as West Norwegian, matching
> on
> > vocabulary and usage as well, we can get a fairly good idea of
how
> > it was pronounced by comparing the how these tongues are
pronounced
> > today and doing the math. Although it had the most complicated
> vowel-
> > system (through more mutations) and the least speakers of any
> nordic
> > tongue from the 9-10 centuries, West Norse is now by far the
> easiest
> > tongue to reconstruct, as there is a firm basis for comparison.
> This
> > is ironic, perhaps, given the numerical inferiority ;)
Fortunately,
> > West Norse was the most conservative branch, often markedly so.
> Only
> > Gutnish equals its antiquity. Shamefully, Gutnish was neglected,
> set
> > out to die and never used as a literary tongue. Our only book in
> the
> > tongue was written in the early 14th century. Fortunately, it is
> old
> > enough to give us some idea of the tongue in its golden age. I
> think
> > we are very lucky, on the other hand, that Old Icelandic was used
> as
> > a literary tongue in the west as early as 1100-1130, when the
> tongue
> > was only slightly changed from its golden age.
> >
> > Vesið ér heil (pronun.: uesið êr hæil (short æ+i - between
ei &
> ai ;)
> >
> > Konrad
> >
> > Regards,
> > Konrad
> >
> >
> > > Berglaug
>
>
>
>
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>
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