Gutnisk

The gutnisk , the gutniska or the gutamål are the Langue of the island of Gotland. It is a language of the family of the Germanic languages. Us days, the majority of the inhabitants of the island speak however the gotländska (the gotlandais ) very influenced by the Swedish and which is rather to regard as a dialect of the Swedish language.

The forngutnisk (in French the old gutnisk or old gutnisk ), on the other hand, account normally for the third of the Eastern Scandinavian languages after the Old Danish and the Old Swedish. These three languages were constituted starting from a common dialect of the Vieux norrois to form, with the XIIe century, three distinct languages. Sometimes one considers even the old man gutnisk as a branch distinct at the same time from the Eastern Scandinave and Scandinave Westerner.

The gutnisk is characterized as of the Middle Ages by a certain number of antiquated features. In particular, just like the Western Scandinavian, it preserved the Diphtongue S of the Vieux norrois, the have (become E in Swedish and Danish), the with the (become ö in Swedish and Danish) and OY (become Danish and Swedish ö). Following the example Western Scandinavian - and of a very great number of dialects of Swedish - it also kept the distinction between names male S and names female S (disappeared in standard Swedish and Danish who preserved only the distinction common kind (Utrum)/neutral kind (Neutre). And, like Danish (but with the difference of Swedish and Norwegian), it kept the original pronunciation in Occlusive S of G , K in front of the former vowels E , I , there , ä and ö . To these characteristics are added, in the modern gutnisk, a certain number of features developed during centuries, like many Diphtongue S and Triphtongue S known as " secondaires" as well as a vocabulary sometimes different from Swedish, often influenced by Danish or German (the island was Danish of 1361 to 1645, and all along the Middle Ages, Visby was one of the most important cities of the Hanse, commercial guild dominated by German.

In Gotland, the gutnisk remained spoken and written during all the Moyen-âge until the annexation of the province by Sweden, in 1645, by the Traité of Brömsebro. In its modern version there remains spoken by a number limited enough inhabitants, especially in the villages of När and Lau and on the small island of Fårö, just in the north of the principal island of Gotland. At the XXe century the modern gutnisk was used by the poet gotlandais Gustaf Larsson and by some other personalities of the island; the diffuse local radio station, each week, some programs in gutnisk.

The primary source of our knowledge on the old man gutnisk is the Gutasaga (france Saga of gotlandais ) and the Gutalag (france the Law of gotlandais ) noted in XIIIe (before 1285) in the same manuscript.

The root gut (one can also call gotlandais them the " Guts" (in suéd. Gutar ) is probably the same one as that of the name of the historical area of southernmost continental Sweden, the Götaland, as well as that of the name of the one of the most famous Germanic tribes: the Goths. Certain resemblances between the old man gutnisk and the language Gotique even seem to indicate that the Gutar of Gotland would have been closer to Goths than the other Scandinavians. But exact relations between these Germanic people forever been able to be clarified.

See too

External bond

Information on the language (in gutnisk and Swedish)

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