Jämtland dialects
Jämtland dialects ("jamska" ; ) constitute a group of closely related dialects spoken in the Swedish province of Jämtland. They are commonly used in the entire region, with the exception of Frostviken in the northernmost part of the province, where the local dialect is of Trøndersk origin, due to its later settlement from Norway. In the eastern part of Jämtland the dialects are transitional to those of Ångermanland. The dialect group is commonly regarded and treated as a single entity. Some people consider it a language separate from Swedish. Jamtlandic shares many characteristics with both Trøndersk—the dialect spoken in  Trøndelag, Norway—and with the dialects spoken along the coast of Norrland, Sweden. Due to this ambiguous position, there has been a debate since the early 20th century whether Jamtlandic belongs to the West Norse or the East Norse language group. Jamtlandic cannot be uniquely defined belonging to either of these groups. Prior to, and around, the time of the dissolution of the Swedish–Norwegian union, Jamtlandic was undisputedly considered a dialect of Norwegian. See, e.g., p. 112 in part one of Adolf Noreen's "Vårt språk" (translated from Swedish): Name. The local name for the dialects is "jamska , whose literal equivalent in English would be Jamtish" or "Jämtish". There is, however, no common term for the dialects in English, and academic sources call them by various names, such as "jamska", "jämtska", "Jämtish dialect", "Jämtlandic dialect", "Jämtland dialects" or "dialects of Jämtland". The endonym "jamska" is technically a definite form; the indefinite form "jaamsk/jamske" is rarely used. Language. Since the early 20th century, whether Jamtlandic is a dialect or a language has been hotly debated. Proponents of Jamtlandic as a language point to the differences in vocabulary and pronunciation. A great percentage of the Jamtish speakers recognise Jamtish  as a language rather than a Swedish dialect. There have been efforts to make the Swedish government recognise it as a minority language just as Yiddish and Sami. One of the more prominent people that have been active in the effort to make Jamtish a recognised language is Bo Oscarsson. Oscarsson has written books about the Jamtish language/dialect and even compiled dictionaries. History. According to the sagas, the region called Jämtland was originally settled by fugitives from Trøndelag after Harald Fairhair united Norway in the 9th century. It became part of Norway during the reign of Haakon I in  the 10th century and remained part of Norway until the 17th century. At that point it became part of Sweden. The history of the region accounts for many of the dialect's features. It is difficult to the trace the history of Jamtlandic dialects because written sources only exist from the early 18th century, if not including the early 11th-century Frösö runestone or the 14th-century legal documents which can not be confirmed to have been written in Old Jamtlandic, the assumed distinct Jamtlandic dialect of Old West Norse. Characteristics. Vowel balance. Like all other central Scandinavian dialects (Trønder  dialects, east Norwegian dialects, Norrland dialects, some Finland Swedish dialects), the most characteristic feature of Jamtlandic is vowel balance, an event that caused the vowel endings after heavy syllables to weaken and later even drop entirely in some dialects (moving the tone over from ending to the root syllable, example Old Norse "kasta" > (> "to throw"), while the endings after light syllables instead where reinforced, and even caused a type of umlaut or vowel harmony on the root vowel (example Old Norse "lifa" > > > "to live"). According to one theory, this phenomenon has its roots in influence  from the neighbouring Saami languages in medieval times. Prosody. The old norse phonemic contrast of light and heavy syllables is partly preserved in eastern Jamtlandic, and to some degree in Western Jamtlandic and in the Oviken parish in southwestern Jämtland. In eastern Jämtland and in Oviken parish, short stressed syllables are preserved from Old Norse words like "hǫku" 'chin', "lifa" 'to live', which have evolved to in Fors parish, in Ragunda and Stugun parishes, in Hällesjö parish, and in Oviken parish, while "lifa" has become [læ̂ʋa᷈] or similar in all of the parishes. In western Jämtland, the short syllables are  less stable, and are often lengthened to long or half-long in accent 2 words, but is preserved in accent 1 words: Old Norse "svið" 'burned' has become [sʋɛ̂] in Åre parish, while accent 2 words like Old Norse "lofa" 'to promise', "duna" 'to make noise', which have evolved to or , and in Undersåker, Kall and Åre parishes. Primary and secondary diphthongs. Central- and southwestern Jamtlandic has preserved the Old Norse primay diphthongs "ai", "au", "ey", usually with pronunciations like , , . In th Offerdal parish in western Jämtland, "ai" and "ey" have monophthongized to and , while "au" is preserved as [æɵ̯ ]. Eastern Jamtlandic (spoken in the parishes Borgvattnet, Ragunda, Fors, Stugun, Håsjö, Hällesjö) has no diphthongs, but has monophthongized "ai" to , "ey" to , and "au" to , , or . Southwestern Jamtlandic has not only preserved the original diphthongs, but also, similar to Icelandic and some dialects in norway, diphthongized Old Norse "á" to in Myssjö parish, in Hackås and Oviken parishes, and in Berg and Rätan parishes. Voiceless L. Jamtlandic, like Icelandic, Faroese, and other northern Scandinavian dialects, has both a voiced and voiceless l-sound. This sound comes from a voiced l that has been partly assimilated by either a preceding "s  or t", or a following "t": Old Norse "kirtilinn" 'gland' has become , or similar, Old Norse "slíta" 'to struggle, to pull' has become , or similar, and Old Norse "allt" 'all' has become or similar. Orthography. There have been attempts to standardize the orthography of Jamtlandic. The attempt that has been the most popular is "Vägledning för stavning av jamska" (1994 and 1995) which is the work of the committee "Akademien för jamska" consisting of Bodil Bergner, Berta Magnusson and Bo Oscarsson. The most prominent application of this orthography has been to prepare translations of parts of the Bible into Jamtlandic  resulting in the book "Nagur Bibelteksta på jamska". An excerpt: Genesis 1:26–27: The book does not fully follow "Vägledning för stavning av jamska". For example, using "Vägledning för stavning av jamska" one would spell "gjæra" v. 'do; make', not "gjära". Another spelling convention in "Nagur Bibelteksta på jamska" is the use of the digraph "sh", in e.g. "mänish" n. 'human being' and "fishn" n. 'the fish', with the same pronunciation as English 'sh' in 'shoe'. Properly using "Vägledning för stavning av jamska", this would be spelled "sch"; see § 26 in the external link below. Jamtlandic uses the letters of the  Swedish alphabet, with the addition of æ and ô. The letters c, q, w, x, and z are not used in the Jamtlandic alphabet.