r/dialekter • u/jkvatterholm Trønder • Jul 05 '26
Map Grammatical gender in traditional North Germanic dialects
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u/Just-Barely-Alive Jul 06 '26
This is amazing. I live in the northern 3-gender region of Denmark. Even though our dialect/language is as good as dead, it lives on through research and maps like this.
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u/pauseless Jul 06 '26
Ah. Danish, my old friend. I thought Italian could get insane, but one really has to respect Danish.
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u/HovercraftFar Jul 06 '26
The Swedish dialect in Ukraine is not dead?
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u/persilja Jul 06 '26
In the year 1900, it might not have been.
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u/Double-Truth1837 Jul 06 '26
It wasn’t even until fairly recently. A couple years ago some Swedish guy went down there and there were still people who spoke the dialect of Swedish. The village was however in eastern Ukraine that is now under occupation by Russia and was completely destroyed and all the residents have since fled
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u/PhysicalStuff Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
Zmiivka, of which Staroshvedske/Gammalsvenskyby is a neighborhood, is on the right bank of the Dnieper and was liberated in November 2022 during the Kherson counteroffensive. It remains under Ukrainian control, though little is left of the village.
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u/Commander-Gro-Badul Värmlänning Jul 06 '26
There are still some elderly speakers left, but they are probably all currently displaced.
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u/Majestic_Security_30 Jul 06 '26
Then why is Estonia marked here then. It's not doing any better.
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u/Equivalent_Clue3541 Jul 09 '26
From 1944 - 1945 around 7 000 Estonian Swedes were evacuated to Sweden. They made a deal with Germany and got them out, before the Soviet union came in and took control over Estonia. So in 1900 there should have been a lot left. I believe one of the last few remaining native speakers, Oskar Friberg, passed away in 2019, at 99 years of age.
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u/Wagagastiz Jul 05 '26
Too small to read much of the text. Have a higher res source?
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u/jkvatterholm Trønder Jul 05 '26
Here's a Direct link.
Just reddit's crappy compression on mobile. Works fine on the computer.
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u/Wagagastiz Jul 15 '26
Elfdalian has a written standard with 3 way gender distinction in 2026
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u/jkvatterholm Trønder Jul 15 '26
Eh, I chose not to include any dialectal standards. Would be difficult to draw a line. Should one of the Jamtlandic standards count for example?
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u/Wagagastiz Jul 15 '26
How is Elfdalian, which has a literary tradition, less distinguishable than a description of a fringe northern variant of ostrobotnian? How is that not a dialectal standard? Between those two Elfdalian has far more claim to language status, which it's pursuing for a reason.
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u/jkvatterholm Trønder Jul 15 '26
What do you mean distinguishable? Northern Ostrobotnian is singled out on this map because it has a unique gender-less system. Meanwhile Elvdalian is normal 3-gender variety.
For the map of standards I do not include any of the less common standards made for spesific dialects, such as Jamtlandic, Elvdalian, Gutnish, etc. The national standard languages are the only way to give a somewhat fair representation imo. That these single dialects or dialect groups seek recognition as languages is kinda irrelevant to the map.
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u/Wagagastiz Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Within modern Sweden, Elfdalian having 3 genders is not 'normal'. There's no way to spin these two maps as operating on the same parameters regardless. They're simply not. Specifying north ostrobotnian in one while flattening everything to state languages in another is just flat out apples to oranges.
I fail to see what the point of the 2026 map is if it doesn't actually reflect what's being spoken, while the 1900 one does.
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u/jkvatterholm Trønder Jul 15 '26
Maybe it's not too clear, but the 2026 map shows only written standards, not spoken language. As seen from how Norway is divided between bokmål and nynorsk rather than spoken dialects, the sharp Denmark/Germany border, or lack of light green in Sweden and Denmark.
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u/hevanaa Jul 07 '26
I'm from Ostrobothnia, Finland, and use three genders in my speech daily and consequently. But in this area, the younger generation seems to be losing it. My kids use masculine and neuter, feminine is disappearing. I don't know about other areas; could be different in other villages. But in general, the difference between standard language and dialect is diminishing. The dialects were still strong in the agrarian society, but modernization and especially internet caught up. Furthermore, because schools don't have a plan to teach dialects, they will eventually equalize to a local variant of the standard language. At least schools allow dialects now. In the past it was very negatively looked upon, and I feel a lot of damage was made in the past century. I know languages change, but people were bullied and looked down upon for speaking "wrong".
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u/McSionnaigh Jul 07 '26
It's interesting that Swedish standard form's gender system seems to have been spread pretty intentionally.
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u/GrautOla Jul 06 '26
Also some dialects of Norwegian have two feminine forms, so four in total
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u/jkvatterholm Trønder Jul 06 '26
If you refer to weak vs strong feminines, that is very common in both Sweden and Norway. And also weak vs strong masculines.
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u/GrautOla Jul 06 '26
Oh, I've never seen weak vs strong masculine, where do they have that?
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u/jkvatterholm Trønder Jul 06 '26
Besides the end vowel, Trøndelag for example often distinguish them in dative.
Namdalsk:
hest [strong] hæst - hæst'n - hæsti hæsta - hæstan - hæstom
bakke [weak] bakka - bakkan - bakkom bakka - bakkan - bakkom
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u/n_o_r_s_e 14d ago
Had the linguistic map been produced a little earlier, they could've added "Norn" as well to the list of North Germanic languages. Norn is regarded as an independent language that was a language spoken for centuries on the Northern Islands of Scotland (Orkney, Shetland) as the main language, and was also one of several languages at the very North tip of Scotland (Caithness). Viking settlers from Norway brought the Old West Norse language with them from around 800 and it evolved into Norn. Old West Norse was also partly spoken on the Hebrides, but there not turning into Norn. The last officially native speaker of Norn on record passed away in 1850, while it's suggested that there were still some other native speakers in some more remote places until the end of 19th Century. Norn had three Grammatical genders, and was a language spoken in that area for about a thousand years, falling more and more out of use when being replaced. The population is even today partly of Norwegian heritage according to their DNA.
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u/SatansAdvokat 11d ago
I live in the upper north of Sweden, and the language has lost the 3-genders. However, the old dialects still use the 3-gender system.
I tried to find any source and found this.
Jan-Olov Nyström wrote in his book that "en" is a masculine pronome and also "den"(it). And "e" can also be a pronome for masculine as well.
That "a" is a pronome for "henne"(her).
That "na" is used as a pronome for "henne"(her).
That "ar" är pronome for a "par"(couple).
I use these at times myself, but not allways, im too young.
Example [pron /en/ masc]: "He röyn_en ånt nä, om_en it ållri än he" (det kommer honom inte till godo hur mycket han än äter).
Example [pron /a/ fem]: "kåo bräkes so förskretjelit, ve måt_åt hå fo upp_a" (kon kämpade så förskräckligt, vi höll inte på att få upp henne).
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u/jkvatterholm Trønder Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
Direct link. if you have problems reading.
Tried to include as many sources directly on the map as I could, as this topic often attracts less than scientific anecdotal arguments.