PECULIARITIES OF SWEDISH DIALECTS

References: [1] Фабіан, М. П. (1998). Етикетна лексика в українській, англійській та угорській мовах: монографія. Ужгород: “ІВА”. [2] Goddard, C. & Wiezbicka A. (2014). Words and Meanings: Lexical Semantics across Domains, Languages and Cultures. UK: Oxford Uniersity Press. [3] Murphy, M. L. & Koskela A. Key Terms in Semantics. London / New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. [4] Murray, J. (1963). Oxford English Dictionary. (V. 1-12). London: Oxford University Press.

Svealand dialects are divided into two groups according to their location. They are mid-Swedish and high-Swedish dialects. People, who reside on the island Öland, in northwestern Småland, Östergötland except for its southern part, southern and western parts of Södermanland, Närke and western Västmanland, speak mid-Swedish type of dialect. High-Swedish dialect is widely spoken in the northern and southern parts of Södermanland, Uppland, southern Västmanland, southern and eastern Dalarna, Gästrikland, and southern Hälsingland [3]. Among the peculiarities of these dialects, you may see the following: "T" disappears at the end of the word, e.g. "huset" (the house) becomes "huse", "barnet" (the child) becomes "barne" and "take" instead of "taket" (ceiling). "H" disappears at the beginning of words (popular in the Roslagen district), where, for example, "häst" (horse) becomes "`äst" [4]. When there is "R" in words, it is not pronounced clearly, e.g. words ending in the letter "R" are merged with the next word. It may be seen in the following example: "får dom" (get them) is usually pronounced as "få'rom" or "hard om" pronounced as "har`om". Furthermore, "E" is usually pronounced as "Ä", and "U" is used in speech, when it should be pronounced as "Ö" [2].
Norrland dialects are spoken in northern Hälsingland, Medelpad, Jämtland, Ångermanland, Västerbotten, Norrbotten and Lappland. These dialects differ from other ones having their way of pronouncing and writing. "G" and "K" become softened within words, e.g. "skojin" is used instead of "skogen" (the forest), "ryddjin" instead of "ryggen" (the back) or "bäntjin" instead of "bänken" (the bench). "B" at the beginning of words will have "P" pronunciation, e.g. "bruten" (broken) will be pronounced as "pruten", while "O" will have "Å" pronunciation, e.g. "kommer" (come) will be pronounced as "kåmer" [1]. Moreover, the stress in the words in these dialects usually falls on the first vowel, for instance in such words as "Rhodos" and "Umeå". It is also important to mention that the last letter in words, which refer to Norrland dialects, usually drops out. For example, such words as "Luleå", "Umeå" and "Piteå" won`t have the letter "Å" at the end, which will, after all, influence the pronunciation. Furthermore, the ending "ER" disappears at the end of certain verbs, which is the last but not least feature in this type of dialect, e.g. the verb "springer" will be used as "spring" [2].
The next dialects, which are going to be described in detail, are Finland dialects, which are also known as Swedish Eastern dialects. They are especially widespread over Finland, for example on Åland Islands, in Turku, Uusimaa, and Ostrobothniain [3]. The peculiarities of these dialects are the following: "D" at the beginning of words is pronounced as "T", e.g. "Tär" instead of "Där". In these dialects the last letter of the words is often omitted, e.g. "tror" (believe) becomes "tro", "inte" becomes "int", etc., but the word "skulle" (would) is an exception because in this word is omitted more than one letter so that the word is going to be "sku". Moreover, the combinations of such letters as "DJ", "GJ", "LJ" should be pronounced distinctly in such words as "djur" (animal), "gjorde" (did), "ljus" (light), etc [2].
The sixth type of dialect, which is important to take into consideration, is going to be the Gotland dialect, which is used by people, who live on Fårö and Gotland islands. There are the following marked out features: "U" is usually pronounced as "O", e.g. "skolle" instead of "skulle" (would), "kosin" instead of "kusin" (cousin) or "konde" instead of "kunde" (could). Some of the words are taken from the old northern Swedish and are pronounced the same way as it had been before. For example, the word "öga" (eye) is said as "auge", and "kåire" is used instead of "köra" (drive) that indicates the old-fashioned language. Moreover, some words tend to be written and pronounced differently compared to Standard Swedish. For example, the word "också" (also) is used as "eu" or "nej" (no) as "naj". It is also important to mention that the letter "E" inside of words becomes "EI", e.g. "blev" (became) becomes "bleiv", "skrev" (wrote) becomes "skreiv", etc. There is another feature of Gotland dialects, where the letter "E" at the end of words is used instead of "A", e.g. "tala" (speak) becomes "tale", "sjunga" (sing) becomes "sjunge", etc [4].
To sum up, in the Swedish language there are found a lot of dialects and many of them are still not delimited because of its territory borders, but despite that scientists have managed to relatively distinguish six main areas of the dialects with its peculiarities.