Elfdalian is the language traditionally spoken in Övdaln (Älvdalen), central Sweden. Due to its linguistic differences to Swedish, coupled with the determination of the speech community, several attempts have been made to acquire an official recognition of Elfdalian as a minority language in Sweden. However, despite growing interest in documenting and revitalising Elfdalian, it is still regarded as a dialect. As one of the best-preserved members of a larger but lesser-known Dalecarlian (or Dalmål) sub-branch of the Scandinavian languages, Elfdalian is a unique language to study. The purpose of the grammar is to account for Late Classical, or 'Preserved', Elfdalian from linguistic, historical and sociolinguistic angles, and to make the language, including both its archaic and innovative features, accessible to a wider audience. The grammar has multiple target groups: people in Övdaln who wish to revitalise or reclaim their language in a more original form than the one it was transferred into through language decline and Swedish influence since the beginning of the twentieth century; those who wish to transmit the language to others through preschool, school or adult instruction; and likewise others who wish to study a lesser-known North Germanic language. Linguists may find Elfdalian interesting from the angles of comparative historical linguistics, language structure, as well as sociolinguistics and language planning.

This book looks at some phenomena within the grammar of the noun phrase in a group of traditional North Germanic varieties mainly spoken in Sweden and Finland, usually seen as Swedish dialects, although the differences between them and Standard Swedish are often larger than between the latter and the other standard Mainland Scandinavian languages. In addition to being conservative in many respects – e.g. in preserving nominal cases and subject-verb agreement – these varieties also display many innovative features. These include extended uses of definite articles, incorporation of attributive adjectives, and a variety of possessive constructions. Although considerable attention has been given to these phenomena in earlier literature, this book is the first to put them in the perspective of typology and grammaticalization processes. It also looks for a plausible account of the historical origin of the changes involved, arguing that many of them spread from central Sweden, where they were later reverted due to the influence from prestige varieties coming from southern Scandinavia.

This book presents a challenge to the widely-held assumption that human languages are both similar and constant in their degree of complexity. For a hundred years or more the universal equality of languages has been a tenet of faith among most anthropologists and linguists. It has been frequently advanced as a corrective to the idea that some languages are at a later stage of evolution than others. It also appears to be an inevitable outcome of one of the central axioms of generative linguistic theory: that the mental architecture of language is fixed and is thus identical in all languages and that whereas genes evolve languages do not. Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable reopens the debate. Geoffrey Sampson's introductory chapter re-examines and clarifies the notion and theoretical importance of complexity in language, linguistics, cognitive science, and evolution. Eighteen distinguished scholars from all over the world then look at evidence gleaned from their own research in order to reconsider whether languages do or do not exhibit the same degrees and kinds of complexity. They examine data from a wide range of times and places. They consider the links between linguistic structure and social complexity and relate their findings to the causes and processes of language change. Their arguments are frequently controversial and provocative; their conclusions add up to an important challenge to conventional ideas about the nature of language. The authors write readably and accessibly with no recourse to unnecessary jargon. This fascinating book will appeal to all those interested in the interrelations between human nature, culture, and language.

A definitive guide to an almost extinct North Andamanese language. Originally spoken across the northern Andamanese Islands in the Bay of Bengal, the Akajeru language is spoken today by only three people. A Grammar of Akajeru describes this unique grammatical system as it was reported at the turn of the twentieth century. Based primarily on research conducted by Victorian anthropologists Alfred R. Radcliffe-Brown and Edward Horace Man, this book offers a linguistic analysis of all extant Akajeru material as well as the scant documentation of adjacent dialects Akabo and Akakhora. This volume includes a grammatical sketch of Akajeru, an English-Akajeru lexicon, and a comparison between Akajeru and present-day Andamanese.

The history of Guarani is a history of resilience. Paraguayan Guarani is a vibrant, modern language, mother tongue to millions of people in South America. It is the only indigenous language in the Americas spoken by a non-ethnically-indigenous majority, and since 1992, it is also an official language of Paraguay alongside Spanish. This book provides the first comprehensive reference grammar of Modern Paraguayan Guarani written for an English-language audience. It is an accessible yet thorough and carefully substantiated description of the language's phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics. It also includes information about its centuries of documented history and its current sociolinguistic situation.

Övdalian is spoken in central Sweden by about 2000 speakers. Traditionally categorized as a dialect of Swedish, it has not received much international attention. However, Övdalian is typologically closer to Faroese or Icelandic than it is to Swedish, and since it has been spoken in relative isolation for about 1000 years, a number of interesting linguistic archaisms have been preserved and innovations have developed. This volume provides seven papers about Övdalian morphology and syntax. The papers, all based on extensive fieldwork, cover topics such as verb movement, subject doubling, wh-words and case in Övdalian. Constituting the first comprehensive linguistic description of Övdalian in English, this volume is of interest for linguists in the fields of Scandinavian and Germanic linguistics, and also historical linguists will be thrilled by some of the presented data. The data and the analyses presented here furthermore challenge our view of the morphosyntax of the Scandinavian languages in some cases – as could be expected when a new language enters the linguistic arena.

The first comprehensive overview of the structure of modern Germanic languages. Written by a team of internationally-renowned experts, it is a vital resource for students and researchers investigating the Germanic family of languages and dialects, covering key topics such as phonology, morphology, syntax, heritage and minority languages.

In the heart of the tranquil countryside, a young puppy leaves his home to eagerly follow his mother and master. But away from the safe haven of the farm, the puppy soon becomes lost and is left to struggle for survival in the wild. Suddenly, he must find food and a safe place to sleep, and outwit his competitor, the fox. The puppy becomes wild himself, trusting no human and furiously fighting the hunting dogs that enter his domain. But one man is intrigued by the now-unruly dog and very slowly begins to gain his trust. Each day he visits the dog, bringing food and awakening memories of his distant domestic past. The lost relationship between man and dog is rebuilt in this sensitive and intelligent story about the true nature of trust and friendship.

Scandoromani: Remnants of a Mixed Language is the first, comprehensive, international description of the language of the Swedish and Norwegian Romano, also labeled resande/reisende. The language, an official minority language in Sweden and Norway, has a history in Scandinavia going back to the early 16th century. A mixed language of Romani and Scandinavian, it is spoken today by a vanishingly small population of mainly elderly people. This book is based on in-depth linguistic interviews with two native speakers of different families (one of whom is the co-author) as well as reviews of earlier sources on Scandoromani. The study reveals a number of interesting features of the language, as well as of mixed languages in general. In particular, the study gives support to the model of autonomy of mixed languages.