Swedish Language - Dialects

Dialects

According to a traditional division of Swedish dialects, there are six main groups of dialects:

• North Swedish
• Finland Swedish
• Svealand Swedish
• Gotland Swedish
• Götaland Swedish
• South Swedish

The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Österbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmål (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.

This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 19th century onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.

The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.

1. Överkalix, Norrbotten; younger female

2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female

3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female

4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male

5. Älvdalen, Dalarna; older female (this is Elfdalian)

6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male

7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male

8. Köla, Värmland younger female

9. Viby, Närke; older male

10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female

11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female

12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male

13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male

14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male

15. Floby, Västergötland; older female

16. Rimforsa, Östergötland; older female

17. Årstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male

18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female

19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female

20. Bara, Scania; older male