request for subtag for Elfdalian

[Kent Karlsson]

Den 2014-11-18 18:59, skrev "Michael Everson" <everson at evertype.com>:

> I think Skånsk is indeed a dialect of Swedish,

Definitely so. The talk about skånska ("Scanian") being "East Danish" (in
English Wikipedia) is pure bull. It was true a few hundred years ago, but
not now.

> but given the case inflections
> of Elfdalian/Dalecarlian, it seems clear that it is not ³just² a
> dialect.

I would tend to agree. But there are also other dialects/languages
in Sweden that are sufficiently distand from "standard" Swedish to
be near impossible to understand (Scanian NOT among them) for those not
very familiar with what is spoken locally. Some "famous", like elvdalsk
(see below), most not so famous (like nolhötte, the old Skee dialect,
http://www.stromgen.se/dialekter/skeedialekt.pdf).

But Dalecarlian (dalmål), hmm. IIUC, älvdalska is quite different from
other dalmål. And the request is for älvdalska, not dalmål.

B.t.w. I think "elvdalsk" would be a better subtag. "alvdal" gives
the wrong connotation (there is no alv (elf), but there is "älv" (river),
most closely phonetically in English would be elv. Ölvdalsk cannot
be used since there is an ö there, and olvdalsk both sounds strange
and may give the wrong connotation (olv-ulv, wolf).

So, though it is a compromise, "elvdalsk" would be better than "alvdal".

Then again, as a non-primary subtag, this would indicate a dialect
rather than language. Is someone (Mats?) going to submit a request
to the ISO 639 RA?


/Kent Karlsson