Gutnish ( ), or rarely Gutnic ( sv, gutniska or ), refers to the original language spoken on parts of the islands of Gotland and

Fårö Fårö () or Fåre in Gutnish is a Baltic Sea island just north of the island of Gotland, itself off mainland Sweden's southeastern coast. It is the second-largest island in the province and it is a popular summer resort. It has its own language ...

. The different dialects of Gutnish, while stemming from the

Old Gutnish Old Gutnish or Old Gotlandic was a North Germanic language spoken on the Baltic Sea, Baltic island of Gotland. It shows sufficient differences from the Old West Norse and Old East Norse dialects that it is considered to be a separate branch. ...

( sv, Forngutniska) variety of

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...

, are sometimes considered part of modern Swedish. Gutnish exists in two variants, Mainland Gutnish (''Storlandsgutamål'' or ''Storlandsmål''), mostly spoken in the southern and southeastern portion of Gotland, where the dialect of

Lau Lau or LAU may refer to: People * Lau (surname) * Liu (劉/刘), a common Chinese family name transliterated Lau in Cantonese and Hokkien * Lau clan, one of the Saraswat Brahmin clans of Punjab * LAU (musician): Laura Fares Places * Lebane ...

became the standard form on the Main Island (''Lau Gutnish'' → ''Laumål''), and Fårö Gutnish (Gutnish: ''Faroymal''; sv, Fårömål), spoken on the island of

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

defines Gutnish as a "

definitely endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead langu ...

" as of 2010. Some features of Gutnish include the preservation of Old Norse diphthongs like ''ai'' in for instance ( sv, sten; English: ''stone'') and ''oy'' in for example ( sv, dö; English: ''die''). There is also a

triphthong In phonetics, a triphthong (, ) (from Greek τρίφθογγος, "triphthongos", literally "with three sounds," or "with three tones") is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement of the articulator from one vowel q ...

that exists in no other Norse languages: ''iau'' as in / ( sv, skjuta; English: ''shoot''). Many Gotlanders do not understand Gutnish, and speak

Gotlandic Gotlandic ( sv, gotländska) is the form of Swedish spoken on the islands of Gotland and Fårö in the Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland ...

( sv, gotländska), a Gutnish-influenced Swedish dialect. There are major efforts to revive the traditional version of Modern Gutnish and , the Gutnish Language Guild, organizes classes and meetings for speakers of traditional Gutnish. According to the guild's webpage, there are now 1,500 people using Gutnish on Facebook.

Phonology

the following contrastive vowels in Modern Gutnish: /ɪ/, /ʏ/, /e/, /œ/, /a/, /ɔ/, /u/ Of these all but /u/ have a short and a long version. with /u/ which is expected since what is etymologically a long /uː/ has been broken into the sequence �u A distinctive feature of Gutnish is the existence of a large number of sequences of vowel plus �or which form vocalic phonemes of their own. These sequences are the following: /eɪ/, /ɛɪ/, /œʏ/, /aɪ/, /ɔɪ/, /ʉu/, /eu/, /au/, /ɔu/ * Sounds /e, eː/ when preceding other vowels, /r/ or post-alveolar sounds have a tendency to be more open as �, æː * In Fårö Gutnish, sounds /a, aː/ are pronounced further back as �, ɑː * /ɔ, ɔː/ can also be realized as more close , oːwhen preceding sonorant sounds. * /u/ can be heard as �when is unstressed position. Some of these sequences alternate with short vowels between different morphological forms of the same lexeme, cf. such pairs as "veit" /vɛɪt̪ʰ/ ‘white’(f.) ∼ /vɪt̪ʰ:/ ‘white’(n) BS. * Stops /p, t̪, k/ can also be heard as aspirated ʰ, t̪ʰ, kʰ

Lexicon

Gutnish has many words of its own that make it different from Swedish. The following is a small selection of Gutnish's everyday vocabulary:

Status

Gutnish is now under pressured influence of the Swedish standard language, both through speaker contact and through media and (perhaps most importantly) written language. As a result, Gutnish has become much closer to the Swedish standard language. Due to the island's Danish and Hanseatic period there were also influences from

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

. There are also many Gotlanders who do not learn the language, but speak a regionally colored variant of the standard Swedish (Gotlandic). This is characterized mainly by its intonation, but also by diphthongs and triphthongs, some lexical peculiarities as well as the infinitive ending ''-ä.'' The ''Gutamålsgillet'' association, which has been working for the preservation and revitalization of Gutnish since 1945, estimates that Gutnish is spoken today by 2,000 to 5,000 people. How many are still passive, is not specified. However, an interest in Gutnish seems to be present: From 1989 to 2011, the radio show ''Gutamål'' ran in Radio Gotland, which regularly reached about 15,000 to 20,000 listeners, and in 2008 Gotland University offered their first course in Gutnish. Gutamålsgillet collects writings of authors and poets who write their texts in Gutnish, and maintains a Swedish-Gutnish dictionary and an ever-growing list of Gotlandic neologisms.

Examples

Notes

References

External links

Official site of the Modern Gutnish Guild
{{Authority control Gotland North Germanic languages Endangered Germanic languages Languages of Sweden Scandinavian culture Germanic languages