Jutlandic Dialect

Jutlandic Dialect

Jutlandic or Jutish (Danish: jysk or, in old spelling, jydsk; ) is a term for the western dialects of Danish, spoken on the peninsula of Jutland.

Generally, the eastern dialects are the closest to Standard Danish, while the southern dialect (Sønderjysk) is the one that differs mostly from the others, therefore it is sometimes described as a distinct dialect, thus Jutlandic is by that definition actually two different dialects: general Jutlandic (nørrejysk; further divided into western and eastern) and Southern Jutlandic (sønderjysk). However, the linguistic variation is considerably more complicated and well over 20 separate minor dialects can be easily found on Jutland. This map shows 9 larger dialectal regions which will be discussed in this article. There are major phonological differences between the dialects, but also very noteworthy morphological, syntactic, and semantic variations.

The different subdialects of Jutlandic differ somewhat from each other, and are generally grouped in three main dialects:

1. southern (sønderjysk)
   • Sønderjysk is often seen as very difficult for other speakers of Danish, even other Jysk dialects to understand. Instead of the normal Danish stød, it has tonal accents like Swedish. Many of the phonemes are also different, including velar fricatives much like in German. It also has the definite article before the noun, as opposed to the standard Danish postclitic article.
2. eastern (østjysk)
   • Østjysk is the closest to the standard of the three jysk dialects, but still differs widely in the pronunciation of vowels and the voiced stops word initially or intervocallically. Some dialects of Østjysk also still have three genders, like the majority of Swedish and Norwegian dialects.
3. western (vestjysk)
   • Vestjysk is also well known for this enclictic article as well as a complete lack of gender distinction. It also can exhibit the stød in slightly different environments from the standard.

These are the abbreviations seen in the map linked above, which will be used throughout the rest of the article: NJy: Northern Jysk, NVJy: North Western Jysk, NØJy: North Eastern Jysk, MVJy: Mid Western Jysk, MØJy: Mid Eastern Jysk, Sy(d)Jy: Southern Jysk, SønJy: South Jysk, Djurs: Djurs-dialect, Sslesv: South Schleswig