Westrobothnian
Encyclopedia
Westrobothnian is a common name used to refer to a number of closely related Germanic
, North Germanic
languages spoken in Westrobothnia along with Sami
, Finnish
and the national standard language Swedish
. Like other Scandinavian languages, all different forms of Westrobothnian originate in Proto-Norse
and dialects of Old Norse
, spoken by immigrating Germanic settlers during the Viking Age
. It has three grammatical gender
s in most dialects, two plural forms of indefinite
nouns, and broad usage of definite nouns. Nouns are also inflected differently in the dative
and accusative
case. Some adjectives can though be serially joined with nouns and some have two plural forms. A pleonastic article is always used before people's and pet's names in the vocative and when referring to a person.
cultures have been present around Westrobothnia for several thousand years, all forms of Westrobothnian are developments from Germanic
speaking settlers, arriving along the coast of the Scandinavian peninsula
.
and most likely visited the Bothnian Bay
, but there is no clear evidence of Norsemen
/Germanic settlement along the river valleys in the area. The first Germanic settlers were probably a combination of farmers, hunters and fishermen, arriving around 1100 AD, in the late stages of the Viking age
. Different theories exist as of how exactly Westrobothnia came to be settled by Germanic speakers, as in e.g. Umeå
, Luleå
and Piteå
, but they were probably using small boats to move along the coast and up along river valleys, generation after generation settling river by river.
The Germanic settlers spoke a north dialectal development of proto-Norse
, related to, but not equal to the Old Norse
spoken by Vikings many hundred kilometers down the Scandinavian coast. Old Norse is rather well preserved in runestones and later also in a Bible translation. But few runic inscriptions have been found north of Svealand
, and none at all in what is now the administrative areas Västerbotten
and Norrbotten
. This suggests that the farming settlers finally reaching Westrobothnia had little or no contact with Vikings during the Viking age, and most probably already by then had developed different lingual features, some of which are still preserved in some Westrobothnian dialects, particularly in the dialects spoken in Skellefteå
and Bureå
.
started dominating trade in the Baltic sea, mostly speaking an earlier form of low German languages
. Trade routes might have gone as far up north as to the Bothnian bay, and this might have influenced the languages in the region. After the Consolidation of Sweden
, this uprising power started to take control of trade along the coast, and exploit what was named lappmarken
(the Sami lands), by using birkarls
(trade men).
Christianity
also came to the relatively non-organized and free Germanic settlers, who by then might have been practicising variants of Norse mythology
. A monastery was built in Bureå in the early 15th century, and with the arrival of Christianity, priests began registering all family relationships in the villages, and since this new era we have better knowledge of the local history, also from preserved documents and maps used for taxation.
Colonisation escalated under the Swedish Empire
, and while Österland
received independence in the Treaty of Fredrikshamn 1809, Swedish colonialism still remains in terminology like Norrland
.
. This was, at first, a rather peaceful form of language education
, but escalated under the early 1930s into a system where students were forbidden to speak all forms of local languages in the classrooms throughout Sweden. Similar laws existed in Scotland
were speakers of Scottish Gaelic were forbidden to use their language in schools as a result of the 1872 Education Act. In Westrobothnia, parents were informed that "the Swedish standard language was the future", and that "children can only learn one language properly", and therefore local languages "will handicap them in a future society based solely on standard Swedish". These ideas have been proven well and truly wrong by later research into the field of Multilingualism
, but they had a huge influence on many relatively small societies like Umeå and Skellefteå where those living in Umeå today could be accused of speaking a Westrobothnian dialect which is far more influenced by Standard Swedish than the by far purer Skellefteå Westrobothnian, the Westrobothnian dialect spoken in Skellefteå
. Nowadays however people are encouraged to use Westrobothnian as much as possible, and students are encouraged to study whatever local form of Westrobothnian that is spoken in their home-town.
can boast with, a large number of modern writers, artists and musicians use different forms of Westrobothnian on a daily basis. Several prominent Swedish writers have used Westrobothnian in their novels, among them Sara Lidman
, Niclas Lundgren ( Nikanor Teratologen) and Torgny Lindgren
and a number of short stories and collections of idioms have been written.
Furthermore, it is worth noting that several different scholarly studies into different forms of Westrobothnian have been published over the years, among them a study of Norsjö
Westrobothnian.
A number of dictionaries exist to aid the speakers and learners of Westrobothnian as well. A dictionary documenting the language spoken in Vännäs
, a municipality
in southern Westrobothnia was published in 1995 after 8 years of studies and the speakers of Skellefteå Westrobothnian have published a number of different grammars and dictionaries.
on the Scandinavian Peninsula
, and more locally along the coastline of the Bothnian Bay
. As such all forms of Westrobothnian are more or less related to the languages spoken in Jämtland
, Ångermanland
and Norrbotten
.
, with many characteristics similar to the German language
, but seeing as differences exist between different parts of Westrobothnia, it is hard to describe the Westrobothnian grammar as such. In the examples that follow, Skellefteå Westrobothnian is the dialect used.
s exists and all words have an indefinite and a definite singular and plural form. The plural is formed by elongating the central vowel of a word, so that e.g.stoL/stoL (chair) becomes stooL/stooLa in the plural.
.
is separated from the Accusative
and Nominative case
, in that it differs from the two others, whom are identical to each other. Whenever a dative is used, the dative -suffix -åm is added to masculine nouns, whereas the suffix -e is added to a feminine noun.
(LMA), developed by Johan August Lundell
was used to write most northern dialects, while the most widely used informal form of writing is based on the Latin alphabet with a few added symbols, including the letters å, ä, ö, a capitalised L or bolded l, apostrophe for marking long or diacritic accents, etc. Since no formal standard has been developed, slight differences can be found among different writers.
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
, North Germanic
North Germanic languages
The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages, the languages of Scandinavians, make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages...
languages spoken in Westrobothnia along with Sami
Sami languages
Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe. Sami is frequently and erroneously believed to be a single language. Several names are used for the Sami...
, Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
and the national standard language Swedish
Standard Swedish
Standard Swedish denotes Swedish as a spoken and written standard language. While Swedish as a written language is uniform and standardized, the spoken standard may vary considerably from region to region...
. Like other Scandinavian languages, all different forms of Westrobothnian originate in Proto-Norse
Proto-Norse language
Proto-Norse was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic over the first centuries AD...
and dialects of Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
, spoken by immigrating Germanic settlers during the Viking Age
Viking Age
Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...
. It has three grammatical gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
s in most dialects, two plural forms of indefinite
Definiteness
In grammatical theory, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context and entities which are not ....
nouns, and broad usage of definite nouns. Nouns are also inflected differently in the dative
Dative case
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
and accusative
Accusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
case. Some adjectives can though be serially joined with nouns and some have two plural forms. A pleonastic article is always used before people's and pet's names in the vocative and when referring to a person.
History
While SamiSami people
The Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sámi are Europe’s northernmost...
cultures have been present around Westrobothnia for several thousand years, all forms of Westrobothnian are developments from Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
speaking settlers, arriving along the coast of the Scandinavian peninsula
Scandinavian Peninsula
The Scandinavian Peninsula is a peninsula in Northern Europe, which today covers Norway, Sweden, and most of northern Finland. Prior to the 17th and 18th centuries, large parts of the southern peninsula—including the core region of Scania from which the peninsula takes its name—were part of...
.
Germanic settlement
The Vikings are known for their shipsViking ship
Viking ships were vessels used during the Viking Age in Northern Europe. Scandinavian tradition of shipbuilding during the Viking Age was characterized by slender and flexible boats, with symmetrical ends with true keel. They were clinker built, which is the overlapping of planks riveted together...
and most likely visited the Bothnian Bay
Bothnian Bay
The Bothnian Bay or Bay of Bothnia is the most northern part of the Gulf of Bothnia, the northern part of the Baltic Sea. Its northernmost point is situated in Töre...
, but there is no clear evidence of Norsemen
Norsemen
Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...
/Germanic settlement along the river valleys in the area. The first Germanic settlers were probably a combination of farmers, hunters and fishermen, arriving around 1100 AD, in the late stages of the Viking age
Viking Age
Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...
. Different theories exist as of how exactly Westrobothnia came to be settled by Germanic speakers, as in e.g. Umeå
Umeå
- Transport :The road infrastructure in Umeå is well-developed, with two European highways passing through the city. About 4 km from the city centre is the Umeå City Airport...
, Luleå
Luleå
- Transportation :Local buses are run by .A passenger train service is available from Luleå Centralstation on Sweden's national SJ railway service northbound to Narvik on the Norwegian coast, or southbound to Stockholm. See Rail transport in Sweden....
and Piteå
Piteå
Piteå is a locality and the seat of Piteå Municipality in Norrbotten County, Sweden. The town has 22,650 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 41,000 in 2008.- Geography :...
, but they were probably using small boats to move along the coast and up along river valleys, generation after generation settling river by river.
The Germanic settlers spoke a north dialectal development of proto-Norse
Proto-Norse language
Proto-Norse was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic over the first centuries AD...
, related to, but not equal to the Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
spoken by Vikings many hundred kilometers down the Scandinavian coast. Old Norse is rather well preserved in runestones and later also in a Bible translation. But few runic inscriptions have been found north of Svealand
Svealand
Svealand , Swealand or Sweden proper is the historical core region of Sweden. It is located in south central Sweden and is one of three lands of Sweden, bounded to the north by Norrland and to the south by Götaland. Deep forests, Tiveden, Tylöskog, Kolmården, separated Svealand from Götaland...
, and none at all in what is now the administrative areas Västerbotten
Västerbotten
', English exonym: West Bothnia, is a province or landskap in the north of Sweden. It borders Ångermanland, Lapland, Norrbotten and the Gulf of Bothnia. It is famous for the cheese with the same name as the province.- Administration :...
and Norrbotten
Norrbotten
Norrbotten is a Swedish province in northernmost Sweden. It borders south to Västerbotten, west to Swedish Lapland, and east to Finland.- Administration :...
. This suggests that the farming settlers finally reaching Westrobothnia had little or no contact with Vikings during the Viking age, and most probably already by then had developed different lingual features, some of which are still preserved in some Westrobothnian dialects, particularly in the dialects spoken in Skellefteå
Skellefteå
-Industry:*Boliden AB, a big mining and smelting company*Alimak*Natural User Interface Technologies AB - NUITEQ, a promising emerging technology start-up company-Sports:*Skellefteå AIK, an ice hockey team in the highest Swedish league, Elitserien....
and Bureå
Bureå
Bureå is a locality situated in Skellefteå Municipality, Västerbotten County, Sweden with 2,345 inhabitants in 2005. The famous Bure kinship is associated with the locality....
.
Trade and colonization
During the 1300s, the Hanseatic LeagueHanseatic League
The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
started dominating trade in the Baltic sea, mostly speaking an earlier form of low German languages
Low German
Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...
. Trade routes might have gone as far up north as to the Bothnian bay, and this might have influenced the languages in the region. After the Consolidation of Sweden
Consolidation of Sweden
The consolidation of Sweden was a long process during which the loosely organized social system consolidated under the power of the king. The actual age of the Swedish kingdom is unknown...
, this uprising power started to take control of trade along the coast, and exploit what was named lappmarken
Lappmarken
Lappmarken was an earlier Swedish name for the northern part of the old Kingdom of Sweden specifically inhabited by the Sami people. In addition to the present-day Swedish Lapland, it also covered Västerbotten, Jämtland and Härjedalen, as well as the Finnish Lapland. As a name, it is related to...
(the Sami lands), by using birkarls
Birkarls
Birkarls were a small, unofficially organized Finnish group that controlled taxing and commerce in central Lappmarken in Sweden during the 13th to 17th centuries.-Background:The most probable assumption is that Birkarls were originally...
(trade men).
Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
also came to the relatively non-organized and free Germanic settlers, who by then might have been practicising variants of Norse mythology
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
. A monastery was built in Bureå in the early 15th century, and with the arrival of Christianity, priests began registering all family relationships in the villages, and since this new era we have better knowledge of the local history, also from preserved documents and maps used for taxation.
Colonisation escalated under the Swedish Empire
Swedish Empire
The Swedish Empire refers to the Kingdom of Sweden between 1561 and 1721 . During this time, Sweden was one of the great European powers. In Swedish, the period is called Stormaktstiden, literally meaning "the Great Power Era"...
, and while Österland
Österland
Österland or Österlanden , one of the four traditional lands of Sweden, was a medieval term used for the southern part of Finland. It gradually fell out of use by the 15th century...
received independence in the Treaty of Fredrikshamn 1809, Swedish colonialism still remains in terminology like Norrland
Norrland
Norrland is one of the three lands of Sweden , the northern part, consisting of nine provinces. The term Norrland is not used for any administrative purpose, but it is common in everyday language, e.g...
.
Modern history
The Swedish school came to Westrobothnia in the 1850s, with the goal of teaching everyone to read, write, speak and understand standard Swedish with its grammarSwedish grammar
Swedish is descended from Old Norse. Compared to its progenitor, Swedish grammar is much less characterized by inflection. Modern Swedish has two genders and no longer conjugates verbs based on person or number...
. This was, at first, a rather peaceful form of language education
Language education
Language education is the teaching and learning of a foreign or second language. Language education is a branch of applied linguistics.- Need for language education :...
, but escalated under the early 1930s into a system where students were forbidden to speak all forms of local languages in the classrooms throughout Sweden. Similar laws existed in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
were speakers of Scottish Gaelic were forbidden to use their language in schools as a result of the 1872 Education Act. In Westrobothnia, parents were informed that "the Swedish standard language was the future", and that "children can only learn one language properly", and therefore local languages "will handicap them in a future society based solely on standard Swedish". These ideas have been proven well and truly wrong by later research into the field of Multilingualism
Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...
, but they had a huge influence on many relatively small societies like Umeå and Skellefteå where those living in Umeå today could be accused of speaking a Westrobothnian dialect which is far more influenced by Standard Swedish than the by far purer Skellefteå Westrobothnian, the Westrobothnian dialect spoken in Skellefteå
Skellefteå
-Industry:*Boliden AB, a big mining and smelting company*Alimak*Natural User Interface Technologies AB - NUITEQ, a promising emerging technology start-up company-Sports:*Skellefteå AIK, an ice hockey team in the highest Swedish league, Elitserien....
. Nowadays however people are encouraged to use Westrobothnian as much as possible, and students are encouraged to study whatever local form of Westrobothnian that is spoken in their home-town.
Documentation
While Westrobothnian was made a taboo subject in many ways by the Swedish educational system, and it thus lack the historical documentation that the Kalix languageKalix language
The Kalix Language, , is a Germanic, North Germanic language spoken in the Kalix Municipality along with Sami, Finnish, Meänkieli and the national standard language Swedish. Like other Scandinavian languages, Kalix Language originates in Proto-Norse and dialects of Old Norse, spoken by immigrating...
can boast with, a large number of modern writers, artists and musicians use different forms of Westrobothnian on a daily basis. Several prominent Swedish writers have used Westrobothnian in their novels, among them Sara Lidman
Sara Lidman
Sara Lidman was a Swedish writer.Born in the village Missenträsk in the northern parts of Skellefteå Municipality, Lidman was raised in the Västerbotten region of northern Sweden. She studied at the University of Uppsala where her studies were interrupted by her receiving tuberculosis...
, Niclas Lundgren ( Nikanor Teratologen) and Torgny Lindgren
Torgny Lindgren
Gustav Torgny Lindgren is a Swedish writer.Lindgren is the son of Andreas Lindgren and Helga Björk. He studied in Umeå to become a teacher and worked as a teacher until the middle of the 1970s. He was for several years active as a local politician for the Swedish Social Democratic Party...
and a number of short stories and collections of idioms have been written.
Furthermore, it is worth noting that several different scholarly studies into different forms of Westrobothnian have been published over the years, among them a study of Norsjö
Norsjö
Norsjö is a locality and the seat of Norsjö Municipality in Västerbotten County, Sweden with 2,102 inhabitants in 2005. It is the birthplace of Swedish writer Torgny Lindgren and American author Charlotte Agell, who currently resides in Maine....
Westrobothnian.
A number of dictionaries exist to aid the speakers and learners of Westrobothnian as well. A dictionary documenting the language spoken in Vännäs
Vännäs
Vännäs, from Wendenäs, ‘where the river changes it path’ is a locality that have existed since 1539. Vännäs is the seat of Vännäs Municipality in Västerbotten County, Sweden and had roughly 4,100 inhabitants in 2005....
, a municipality
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...
in southern Westrobothnia was published in 1995 after 8 years of studies and the speakers of Skellefteå Westrobothnian have published a number of different grammars and dictionaries.
Germanic dialect continuum
Westrobothnian is part of a Germanic and Nordic dialect continuumDialect continuum
A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
on the Scandinavian Peninsula
Scandinavian Peninsula
The Scandinavian Peninsula is a peninsula in Northern Europe, which today covers Norway, Sweden, and most of northern Finland. Prior to the 17th and 18th centuries, large parts of the southern peninsula—including the core region of Scania from which the peninsula takes its name—were part of...
, and more locally along the coastline of the Bothnian Bay
Bothnian Bay
The Bothnian Bay or Bay of Bothnia is the most northern part of the Gulf of Bothnia, the northern part of the Baltic Sea. Its northernmost point is situated in Töre...
. As such all forms of Westrobothnian are more or less related to the languages spoken in Jämtland
Jämtland
Jämtland or Jamtland is a historical province or landskap in the center of Sweden in northern Europe. It borders to Härjedalen and Medelpad in the south, Ångermanland in the east, Lapland in the north and Trøndelag and Norway in the west...
, Ångermanland
Ångermanland
' is a historical province or landskap in the north of Sweden. It borders to Medelpad, Jämtland, Lapland, Västerbotten and the Gulf of Bothnia. The name "Ångermanland" comes from the Old Norse "anger", which means "deep fjord" and refers to the deep mouth of the river Ångermanälven...
and Norrbotten
Norrbotten
Norrbotten is a Swedish province in northernmost Sweden. It borders south to Västerbotten, west to Swedish Lapland, and east to Finland.- Administration :...
.
Grammar
Most forms of Westrobothnian have an extensive inflectionInflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
, with many characteristics similar to the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, but seeing as differences exist between different parts of Westrobothnia, it is hard to describe the Westrobothnian grammar as such. In the examples that follow, Skellefteå Westrobothnian is the dialect used.
Noun gender
Three Grammatical genderGrammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
s exists and all words have an indefinite and a definite singular and plural form. The plural is formed by elongating the central vowel of a word, so that e.g.stoL/stoL (chair) becomes stooL/stooLa in the plural.
- Feminine: bjerk, bjerka, bjeerk, bjerk`ern 'birch tree'
- Masculine: dag, dagen, daga, dag`arn 'day'
- Neuter: hus, huse, huus, husa 'house'
Definite and indefinite nouns
The definite noun form is used in a broader sense than in other Scandinavian languages, widespread in all dialects spoken in northern Scandinavia, and in particular in the related Kalix languageKalix language
The Kalix Language, , is a Germanic, North Germanic language spoken in the Kalix Municipality along with Sami, Finnish, Meänkieli and the national standard language Swedish. Like other Scandinavian languages, Kalix Language originates in Proto-Norse and dialects of Old Norse, spoken by immigrating...
.
Case
DativeDative case
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
is separated from the Accusative
Accusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
and Nominative case
Nominative case
The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
, in that it differs from the two others, whom are identical to each other. Whenever a dative is used, the dative -suffix -åm is added to masculine nouns, whereas the suffix -e is added to a feminine noun.
Verbs
Verbs are conjugated in singular, and the prefix o- is placed in front of a verb to create a negation. Imperative is created by the addition of a suffix to the verb, i.e. köm (to come) which becomes kömen! (come!).Adjectives
Adjectives and adverbs can be joined with nouns, e.g. fleenonga – the crying children and liilpajk’n – the little boy.Pleonastic article
The pleonastic article is widespread among languages in the area, as far north as Troms. A pleonastic article, similar to the vocative is always put before people's names, pet's names, and words like e.g. father and mother. e.g. "‘n far å a’ mor" (mum and dad). The pleonastic article differs between feminine (a’) and masculine (‘n) nouns.Writing systems, orthography
In early scientific literature, a phonetic alphabet landsmålsalfabetetLandsmålsalfabetet
The Swedish Dialect Alphabet is a phonetic alphabet created in 1878 by Johan August Lundell and used for the narrow transcription of Swedish dialects...
(LMA), developed by Johan August Lundell
Johan August Lundell
Johan August Lundell was a Swedish linguist, professor of Slavic languages at Uppsala University. He is known for his work on Swedish dialects and for developing Landsmålsalfabetet, a phonetic alphabet used in dialect research.-Biography:Lundell's parents were Anders Andersson and Carolina Olsdotter...
was used to write most northern dialects, while the most widely used informal form of writing is based on the Latin alphabet with a few added symbols, including the letters å, ä, ö, a capitalised L or bolded l, apostrophe for marking long or diacritic accents, etc. Since no formal standard has been developed, slight differences can be found among different writers.
External links
- http://www.kalle.mbps.se/Skellefte/Guldstan/Bondska.htm A number of Westrobothnian songs.
- http://swedia.ling.gu.se/Norrland/Vasterbotten/ Listen to a number of Westrobothnian dialects.
- http://www.sofi.se/1625#item101200 Some other examples of spoken Westrobothnian.
- http://bondska.bloggsida.se/ A blog written in Skellefteå Westrobothnian.
- http://www.v8biblioteken.se/default.aspx?id=57284 A number of books in Westrobothnian.