Elfdalian is an Ancient Norse dialect

Is Elfdalian a dialect? Or a distinct language? Whichever way it is characterised, it is a very old variety of a Swedish dialect, Dalecarlian

Elfdalian or Övdalian is a North Germanic language spoken by about 3 – 5000 people in the Älvdalen Municipality in Northern Dalarna in central Sweden. Elfdalian is considered to be a separate language by some linguists, but many others believe it to be a dialect of Swedish. It has developed in relative isolation since the Middle Ages and maintains a number of features of Old Norse not found in other Northern Germanic languages, not even in Icelandic. As a result, Elfdalian differs markedly from Swedish and can be difficult for other Swedes to understand.

The dialectal position of Elfdalian within the Scandinavian continuum lies in the middle between East and West Nordic. Certain linguistic features indicate the language split from its Norse neighbours in the early Old Norse period; perhaps around the 8^th century.

One of the interesting features is the nasal sounds, which were documented in an Icelandic manuscript from the 13^th century. However, this was generally believed to be a “misunderstanding”. Now, however, scholars have found the phenomena in Elfdalian and believe it was very widespread.

Vocabulary

One scholar has measured the vocabulary of Elfdalian and found that it is in fact closest to Icelandic.

Runes were used to write Elfdalian until the early 20th century. Carved on small sticks, people used the Runic alphabet to send small messages to each other; just like the tradition must have been in the Middle Ages in the rest of Scandinavia. However, a new standard orthography for Elfdalian was devised in 2005 by Råðdjärum (The Elfdalian Language Council), and accepted by Ulum Dalska (The Organization for the Preservation of Elfdalian).

Up to the 1950s Elfdalian was used as the medium of instruction in schools in the Elfdalian-speaking region. Since then Swedish has been used, however since the 1980s some Elfdalian has been reintroduced in schools and there has been a revival of interest in and use of the language.