New unique book about the grammar of Elvdal

Published 26 September 2024 at 13.47

Cultural news. Today the first Elvdalian grammar in English is released – “A Grammar of Elfdalian”.

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The book is the third Elvdalian grammar to be published, but the first in English and the first to use current grammatical tools. In addition, it is the first time a grammar of a so-called Swedish dialect has been released in English.

In this way, an international circle of readers can for the first time take part in the special nature of the river valley. The book focuses on the “late classic” Älvdalen spoken in Älvdalen by people born before 1900 and which is now used as a model when Älvdalen is revitalized. The book uses the standard orthography that was developed in 2005 by Råðdjärum, the Älvdal language council.

A Grammar of Elfdalian draws in part on Frost-Ander's diaries, an important corpus for this language form, written in the 1940s, but hidden and unknown until 2013. These diaries, now partially published, form a important source to get a more complete picture of the language, as this manuscript contains the longest written text in Late Classic Elvdalian.

– With the new grammar, Olof and I try to give a more exhaustive description of Late Classic Elvdalian, its structure, phonology and current conditions, says Yair Sapir, senior lecturer in Swedish at Kristianstad University.

He has written the book together with Olof Lundgren, doctoral student in linguistics at Lund University.

– Thanks to Frost-Ander's diaries, we now have better knowledge of this language form than until now. With the help of the standard orthography, the grammar can also 'communicate' with other, newer texts in Älvdal – dictionaries, newly published children's literature and more. In the past, this could have been challenging because different orthographies have been used in different Elvdalian texts, says Yair Sapir in a press release.

The hope with the new book is partly to shed light on a lesser-known Nordic language (which many want to consider Elvdalian ), and that it should be able to serve as a tool for anyone who wants to teach and learn Elvdal.