Westrobothnian
| Bondska | |
|---|---|
| måLe | |
| Västerbottnisk | |
| Pronunciation | [ˈmɔːɭɛ] |
| Native to | Sweden |
| Region | Westrobothnia |
|
Native speakers
|
5,000–100,000 (date missing) |
| Dialects |
|
| Westrobothnian alphabet (Latin script) | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
|
Linguist list
|
swe-vas |
| Glottolog | None |
Westrobothnian (måLe or bondska) is a number of closely related non-standardized Scandinavian dialects spoken natively along the coast of the historical province of Westrobothnia in co-existence with Finnish, Sami and in recent centuries, the national standard language Swedish. Westrobothnian is the northernmost dialect group of the North Germanic languages in Sweden and borders the traditional Sami-speaking Lapland to the west and Finnish-speaking Torne Valley to the north. Like all Scandinavian, the different varieties of Westrobothnian originate in Proto-Norse and dialects of Old Norse, spoken by immigrating Germanic settlers during the Viking Age.
Westrobothnian has three grammatical genders 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 be serially joined with nouns and some have two plural forms. A pleonastic article is always used before names when referring to someone. In the vocative, a name may instead be declined similarly to how words for near kin decline in the vocative.
A small population of Nordic tribes inhabited the area as early as the bronze age, evidence of this is supported by recent archeological findings in Backen and Jävre. While Sami cultures have been present around the inner parts of Westrobothnia for several thousand years, all forms of Westrobothnian are developments from Germanic-speaking settlers, arriving along the coast of the Scandinavian peninsula. Sami languages can be considered native to historical Sameland and Westrobothnian native to old Westrobothnia except for Torne Valley, where meänkieli Finnish traditionally has been the native tongue of the region; original Westrobothnia refers to the coastal areas of contemporary Västerbotten and Norrbotten. Westrobothnian dialects, in their different forms, have historically been the native tongues in Umeå and Skellefteå. In Kalix and Luleå, they co-existed with Kven language before gradually becoming the majority language of the region. These two cities are now part of Norrbotten county but before 1810 they belonged to Westrobothnia and therefore their dialects are included in the Westrobothnian dialect continuum. The different dialects of Westrobothnian are also present in southern and mid Lapland where it was introduced in the late 17th century as the colonization of traditional Sami lands begun. Each person was promised 15 tax-free years and other state privileges for settling what was then referred to as Lappmarkerna and many people from the coasts started moving up the river valleys to settle villages such as Arvidsjaur, Lycksele and as far north as eastern Jokkmokk municipality and thus bringing their different dialects of Westrobothnian to the previously Sami speaking region of Lapland.
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Wikipedia