Talk:Dalecarlian languages

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On 24 October 2021, it was proposed that this article be Dalecarlian. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

There is some explanation necessary here: Dalecarlian is not a language, it is a group of dialects, whereas Elfdalian is a language in the sense that it has a standard form (orthography and grammar) and a body of literature, whereas Dalecarlian is not standardized, except if you regard Elfdalian as a standardized form of Dalecarlian. It is a bit similar to Norwegian language that is not a standardized language, whereas Bokmål is. Ideally, this article should only list the dialects and their distribution and give a short outline of their common features, whereas the Elfdalian article should describe the language in more detail including phonology etc.  Andreas  ^(T) 12:39, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dalacarnian is more like the dalacarnian language, and Elfdalian, Orsamål, Moramål is different dialects of Dalacarnia. However, the different dialects sometimes have a hard time to understand each other. For example, a man that speaks orsamål does not always understand what a man who speaks elfdalian says. However, all of the Dalacarnian dialects have more in common with each other than compared to modern swedish.--Bamsejon (talk) 21:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A term that sidesteps this controversy is "lect," which can refer either to a language or a dialect. Could the article be named "Dalecarlian lects?" Jdm1991 (talk) 11:10, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Source on "having a single standardized form" as being the definition of a language? Sounds like Norwegian is a group of dialects and not a language then, since Nynorsk and Bokmål would be the languages. — Swedishpenguin | Talk 21:08, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Adding to this, English also has multiple standards.Atavoidturk (talk) 14:14, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed all references to the village of Rot and Rots skans, since Elfdalian is spoken north and upstream of these places, i.e. in Klitten, Brunnsberg, Åsen, Bunkris, Lövnäs, Nornäs etc. Luke (talk) 20:59, 10 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just 1,500 speaking dalecarlian dialects. Is this figure relevant and reliable? --Vedum (talk) 11:09, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Someone must have removed it. I also doubt the accuracy of that figure, especially after the time since this discussion was opened. Glades12 (talk) 09:27, 6 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The article says the dialects are mutually unintelligible with Swedish. That's not always the case. Elfdalian as a language of its own is definitely not mutually unintelligible with Swedish, just like Icelandic isn't either. --159.190.251.57 (talk) 16:10, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The current title of this article is inaccurate because what is being described is actually several dialects or languages,

I suggest merging this section with "Not a language, rather a group of dialects" above. Jdm1991 (talk) 11:13, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Since there doesn't seem to be a consensus either on or off Wikipedia on whether these varieties are dialects of Swedish or a distinct language with either its own dialects or surrounded by related dialects of Swedish, I suggest using the term "lect," which is ambiguous: Dalecarlian lects. Jdm1991 (talk) 11:19, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Our standard solution for that kind of situation is to leave any qualification off entirely if possible.

Dalecarlian redirects here anyway; it should be moved back to that title. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 08:45, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

One reason for the lack of consensus is simply that there is no consensus about what the difference between a dialect and a language is. From the top of my head, languages in China are often called Chinese dialects, seemingly on the qualification that they are (more or less related, at least often) languages spoken in China (and the attitude towards diverging cultural identities from the Chinese government might play a role in this), as far as I understand a bit like calling English and French and Polish different European dialects. The situation with Low Saxon vs. German is similar (where Low Saxon aka Low German is considered a dialect of German, afaik, while even ancient ancestors of Low Saxon was languages completely separate from German (aka High German)), and I think Arabic is many different languages too. While on the other hand Danish and Swedish ("da" and "sv", East Nordic languages, that with time has started diverging more) and Norwegian ("no", a West Nordic language that has transformed into being more similar to da and sv, so that you can now argue that no is closer to both da and sv than sv and da are to each other), that are not more different from each other than many dialects, most often are called languages. I guess that the "A language is a dialect with an army and navy" link above that I saw while writing conveys something similar, but my rant maybe still contributed something. :)

Regarding the initial claim in the thread, I guess one could actually argue that the Dalecarlian proper lects together are part of a (dia)lect continuum that forms a separate language, distinct from sv (and no), and then the current title would be appropriate. I guess that is an idea I haven't heard mentioned before, though (but it could make sense, if we see the distinct Elfdalian variety as qualified for being a language distinct from sv, then the other close-to-Elfdalian varieties could also as well qualify). (Though, that also means that talking about Dalecarlian language or languages would introduces a linguistic hypothesis – that Dalecarlian is in its own a language – that I don't think we can even yet find any sources for).

The solution suggested by Florian is completely sensible, in my opinion. I also think that any version with "language(s)" doesn't have support in any source, which leaves "dialects" (or possibly "dialect") as an option (the sv word uses mål ~/mohl/, which in an archaic usage can mean language too, so one could say it has an itty bitty of that sense, and is sometimes used in a way as though there is just one Dalarna/Dalecarlia mål ("mål" has the same form in both singular and plural)). Wiki greetings from Flinga (talk) 01:13, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I blanked a part of the morphology, as it seems to be either incorrectly translated or fully senseless: [1]. --OosWesThoesBes (talk) 14:08, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the automatically translated stuff entirely. There are so many mistakes it's sometimes unintelligible, and in a linguistic article, where precision is paramount, this amount of poor quality prose cannot be tolerated. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 08:47, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of gibberish, someone ought to delete the section of phonology, because that's what it is. 88.97.9.76 (talk) 17:11, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Feel like there should be a designated section for the history and origins of this dialect group. Perhaps where the writing system originated, related archaic languages it may/did stem from, and/or figured on speaking populations historically? Such as how long has it been spoken, where, by how many people. Falling-Cosmos (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 21:19, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The source from Guus Kroonen doesn't support that the Dalecarlian language(s) are West Scandinavian languages. When reading carefully Kroonen maintains that exactly Elfdalian – not the Dalecarlian languages – takes a middle position between East Norse and West Norse ('Norse' synonym with 'Scandinavian' in this context), the only point where he stresses a West Norse feature, is when claiming that Elfdalian cannot have originated from Old Swedish. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 08:37, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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