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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Why a Swedish politician is demanding the right to speak an ancient ‘forest language’ in parliament

Sweden's forest language Elfdalian is at risk of dying out, and this week a politician took the question of its survival to parliament.

Why a Swedish politician is demanding the right to speak an ancient 'forest language' in parliament
Centre Party MP Peter Helander said he would be speaking the ancient dialect in the parliamentary chamber in future. Photo: Janerik Henriksson/TT

Swedish MP Peter Helander, who belongs to the Centre Party and comes from the Dalarna region, asked Culture Minister Amanda Lind why the government had not chosen to investigate whether Elfdalian should be classified as a language, as the Council of Europe has proposed.

To make his point, he spoke a phrase in the language.

“This is Elfdalian, the remnant of Old Norse that we still have in Sweden. I have previously asked the minister to recognise Elfdalian as a minority language, and the Elfdalian language community have been working towards this for 15-20 years,” explained Helander.

“Even the Council of Europe has taken the position that Sweden should have an independent investigation into whether Elfdalian is a language or not. It is a language that is at risk of dying out and Sweden should take responsibility to protect this remnant of the Old Norse language.”

Before the minister could respond, the parliamentary speaker cut in to remind Helander that only Swedish may be spoken in the Chamber.

He responded: “Thank you, then perhaps we can have a debate on whether it was Swedish I was speaking or not, since the government says it is a Swedish dialect and not another language. In the future I intend to speak Elfdalian here, since the government thinks it is a dialect and we can speak dialect [in the Chamber].”

Elfdalian is mutually unintelligible with Swedish, bearing more resemblance to Icelandic and lacking the letters C, Q, X and Z.

The language was on the verge of dying out a few years ago, but has seen an uptick in interest – and speakers – thanks to efforts from the local community. That’s included courses for locals, a bilingual preschool teaching Elfdalian to youngsters, translating books into the language and even using the game Minecraft to make it appealing to the younger generation. As of 2017, only 60 people aged under 18 were believed to speak the language.

National recognition as a language would be an important step for Elfdalian, because it would give a boost to efforts to promote and protect it.

In 2016 it was assigned an ISO language code, which are used to help the internet classify what is or is not a language, but the Swedish government still classifies it as a dialect.

In response to Helander’s question, Culture Minister Amanda Lind said the government judged Elfdalian to be a dialect. Although she praised the work under way to preserve Elfdalian, she said it was not a priority.

Member comments

  1. I live in Alvdalen. Pixie hollow. ( clue in ELF). Many of my farming neighbors speak only the local language. My neighbor, from whom I buy my annual sheep, korv and what ever his wife makes, has hardly any Swedish. We have amusing conversations. But we communicate. Many of the road signs are a bit like driving in Wales. Weird to see. Ween for Vagen . Reading it is impossible.

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For members

SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

Swedish word of the day: jordgubbe

If there's one thing Swedes can't get enough of in summer, it's these.

Swedish word of the day: jordgubbe

Jordgubbe is made up of two words: jord and gubbe.

Jord means earth or soil, and it’s also used in Swedish for Planet Earth.

It’s easy to assume that jordgubbe means “earth man”, gubbe on its own being a common word for referring to a male person (usually gubbe refers to someone either very young or very old, and it can be either affectionate or derogatory, depending on the context).

But this is wrong.

  • Don’t miss any of The Local’s Swedish words and expressions of the day by downloading our app (available on Apple and Android) and then selecting the Swedish Word of the Day in your Notification options via the User button

Gubbe is also a Swedish dialect word used to refer to a small lump, so jordgubbe literally means “a small lump that grows in the earth” – more accurate, but less romantic than picturing strawberries as tiny little men who live in our garden and are to be picked and eaten with whipped cream… now that we think about it, “small lump” is probably better.

Strawberries were introduced to Sweden in the second half of the 18th century and were originally called ananassmultron due to their Latin name (Fragaria x ananassa).

The word jordgubbe has existed in the Swedish language since at least 1638, but was then the main name for musk strawberries, later known as parksmultron in Swedish.

Jordgubbar are one of the staple foods on Midsummer’s Eve and Swedes are convinced that they grow the best strawberries in the world.

Example sentences:

Polisen misstänker att gängkriminella har infiltrerat jordgubbsindustrin

Police suspect that gang criminals have infiltrated the strawberry industry

Goda jordgubbar! Är de svenska eller belgiska?

Yummy strawberries! Are they Swedish or Belgian?

Villa, Volvo, Vovve: The Local’s Word Guide to Swedish Life, written by The Local’s journalists, is available to order. Head to lysforlag.com/vvv to read more about it. It is also possible to buy your copy from Amazon USAmazon UKBokus or Adlibris.

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