A Grammar of Elfdalian

This talk will be introduced by Lily Kahn and Riitta Valijärvi, the editors of the UCL Press series Grammars of World and Minority Languages. Sapir and Lundgren’s book can be found here: https://uclpress.co.uk/book/a-grammar-of-elfdalian/]

In my talk, I will present the newly published A Grammar of Elfdalian (UCL Press) by Sapir and Lundgren, and discuss the current status of Elfdalian and the efforts to revitalise it.  

Furthermore, I will address the two hypotheses introduced in the book: the first one is concerned with how and when Elfdalian (and the larger Dalecarlian group) emerged, and the second one is concerned with the position of Elfdalian and Dalecarlian within the North Germanic group. According to the first hypothesis, Dalecarlian emerged through an 'import' of Ancient Nordic from the Uppland region between the 6th and the 8th centuries by means of a language shift among the local population. According to the second hypothesis, Dalecarlian/Elfdalian does not fit into the division of West and East Nordic and should be included in a North Scandinavian branch comprising the Nordic varieties spoken in Norway, Sweden and Swedish-speaking Finland.

About the speaker

Yair Sapir is Senior Lecture of Swedish Language at Kristianstad University in Sweden. He defended his PhD thesis Modern Icelandic Word Formation at Uppsala University and has since then been doing research on, for example, Elfdalian language and language revitalisation, and the vitality and revitalisation of the Sámi languages in Sweden. As a member of Råðdjärum, the Elfdalian Language Council, Dr Sapir also took an active part in creating a standard orthography for Elfdalian in 2005. Dr Sapir has been consulting Elfdalian-speakers concerning language revitalisation, has delivered several courses in Elfdalian, and published learning materials for Elfdalian.