Dalecarlian dialects

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Native to Sweden
Region Dalarna County
Native speakers
unknown (undated figure of 1,500)[1]
Official status
Regulated by Swedish Language Council
Language codes
ISO 639-3 None (mis)
Linguist list
dlc (retired ISO code)
Glottolog dale1238[2]

Dalecarlian (Dalmål in vernacular and Swedish) is a group of dialects or unofficial languages spoken in Dalecarlia, Sweden. The most well known outside the area is Elfdalian.

The group is:

Historical and geographic context[edit]

Dalecarlian is a North Germanic language that has existed since the Swedish language separated from Norwegian. Upper Dalecarlia is divided into three geographical areas; Västerdalarna, Uvosiljan (Upper Siljan) and Nidåsiljan (Lower Siljan), each parish having its own Dalecarlian dialect(s). Uvosiljan is then divided into seven dialects; Evmol or Övmål, Orsmol, Vuomusmål or Wåmusmol, Wänåsmål, Mormål, Sooldmol and Örmol. Sooldmål, Wänåsmål and Vuomusmål often used to be included in Mormål, even if Vuomusmål is more reminiscent of Elfdalian (Övmål). Probably due to historical summer pasture culture, Örmål is more closely related to Mormål rather than Orsmol, even though Ore is geographically closer to Orsa.

The three main dialects of the Dalecarlian language, Övkallmål or Övdalską Elfdalian, Mormål and Orsmol are closely related to each other, but usually not mutually intelligible. Mutual intelligibity diminishes as one goes furth to the surrounding dialects of Rettvik, Leksand, Särna or neighbouring province Hälsingland. It is therefore more correct to specify these three together to constitute the language Dalecarlian, whilst Elfdalian or Övmål is one of the three main dialects and traditionally all three may be divided into village dialects. Traditionally, in some of the major Mora villages such as Östnor, Bonäs or Vika, several different dialects were discernible within the same village, the differences between these internal dialects surviving for generations.

The closest form to the old Dalecarlian dialects is spoken only in the Upper Siljan area and most remarkably in Älvdalen. The lower Dalecarlian dialects are intermediates between this language and standard Swedish.

It should be noted that Dalecarlian is not spoken upstream from the village of Rot. The defence fort Rots Skans was an outpost on the Norwegian border until the peace treaty of Brömsebro in 1645. Thus, the local language spoken in the northern two-thirds of Älvdalen municipality, i.e. the parishes Särna and Idre, is a dialect of eastern Norwegian.


This was written in Dalecarlian runes until c. 1800.


  1. ^ Linguist List
  2. ^ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Dalecarlian". Glottolog 2.2. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.