4 ms·

The small town in question is Älvdalen, which gives the name to the language (Älvdal-ian). I wonder why it's not spelled that way in English; or, for that matt

The small town in question is Älvdalen, which gives the name to the language (Älvdal-ian). I wonder why it's not spelled that way in English; or, for that matter, why it's not called övdalsk (after Övdaln, which is what the locality is called in that language).

Clewza313 5y ago
Because Elfdalian sounds way more sexy than Övdalsk.
- vesinisa 5y ago
  Indeed, it makes it sound like some elf language while it's actually just "river valley" language (älv=river, dal(en)=valley).
  - jeofken 5y ago
    “Älv” can mean either river or elf, I think depending on tone? En älva = one “elf” (Not like elves in Anglo fantasy novels) When conjoining the a can be removed depending on dialect, thus älvdalen could mean elf valley. I don’t know the true history of the word though!
    - gerikson 5y ago
      No, they are distinct words. En älv - a river. En älva - an elf or fairy. Älvens strand - the side of the river. Älvans öron - the ears of the elf. Älvdalen - the valley of the river Älvans dal - the valley of the elf. Although they do seem to have similar Latin-Germanic roots, if one can decipher the ancient etymological book here: http://runeberg.org/svetym/1298.html http://runeberg.org/svetym/1298.html
      - jeofken 5y ago
        I disagree that “älvdalen” could not mean valley of the älvor.
        gerikson 5y ago
        Grammatically, yes but practically, no. There are multiple rivers with "älv" as a suffix in Sweden, among them the biggest and most economically/historically significant. This means that any possessive formed by "älv-" automatically would refer to a river. If you'd set your Swedish language fantasy world where there's a place called "Älvdalen", readers would be confused. It would be like calling Minas Tirith Stockholm.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
Both those spellings have letters not actually standard for English. Presumably, it was anglicized. The umlaut is not a thing for standard English.
- romwell 5y ago
  >The umlaut is not a thing for standard English. Pardon me, but that sounds a bit naïve (sorry, couldn't resist!). We seem to do it often enough to have a Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_terms_with_diacritical_marks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_terms_with_diacritical...
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    As the intro states, most such words are loan words. And my phone doesn't prompt me with an autocorrect adding the diacritical marks if I type naive. It's becoming increasingly acceptable to just leave it off and English language keyboards tend to lack the ability to type such marks. When I try to type in French, I can copy-paste from something if I want it written correctly or make my apologies for the deficiencies of my American keyboard.
  - _moof 5y ago
    That's a diaeresis, not an umlaut. Same symbol but different phenomena. An umlaut is a sound shift in a vowel to make it more like another vowel. For example in Icelandic a word like "Katla" will decline the final "a" to "u," which then causes the first "a" to become "ö". The a -> ö shift is umlaut. A diaeresis, however, marks a vowel that is pronounced separately from an adjacent vowel instead of as a diphthong.
    - frosted-flakes 5y ago
      For example, some style guides still call for cooperate to be spelt as coöperate (most notably, The New Yorker), but this has largely fallen out of fashion.
    - rags2riches 5y ago

Clewza313 5y ago

Because Elfdalian sounds way more sexy than Övdalsk.

vesinisa 5y ago
Indeed, it makes it sound like some elf language while it's actually just "river valley" language (älv=river, dal(en)=valley).
- jeofken 5y ago
  “Älv” can mean either river or elf, I think depending on tone? En älva = one “elf” (Not like elves in Anglo fantasy novels) When conjoining the a can be removed depending on dialect, thus älvdalen could mean elf valley. I don’t know the true history of the word though!
  - gerikson 5y ago
    No, they are distinct words. En älv - a river. En älva - an elf or fairy. Älvens strand - the side of the river. Älvans öron - the ears of the elf. Älvdalen - the valley of the river Älvans dal - the valley of the elf. Although they do seem to have similar Latin-Germanic roots, if one can decipher the ancient etymological book here: http://runeberg.org/svetym/1298.html http://runeberg.org/svetym/1298.html
    - jeofken 5y ago
      I disagree that “älvdalen” could not mean valley of the älvor.
      - gerikson 5y ago
        Grammatically, yes but practically, no. There are multiple rivers with "älv" as a suffix in Sweden, among them the biggest and most economically/historically significant. This means that any possessive formed by "älv-" automatically would refer to a river. If you'd set your Swedish language fantasy world where there's a place called "Älvdalen", readers would be confused. It would be like calling Minas Tirith Stockholm.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

Both those spellings have letters not actually standard for English. Presumably, it was anglicized. The umlaut is not a thing for standard English.

romwell 5y ago
>The umlaut is not a thing for standard English. Pardon me, but that sounds a bit naïve (sorry, couldn't resist!). We seem to do it often enough to have a Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_terms_with_diacritical_marks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_terms_with_diacritical...
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  As the intro states, most such words are loan words. And my phone doesn't prompt me with an autocorrect adding the diacritical marks if I type naive. It's becoming increasingly acceptable to just leave it off and English language keyboards tend to lack the ability to type such marks. When I try to type in French, I can copy-paste from something if I want it written correctly or make my apologies for the deficiencies of my American keyboard.
- _moof 5y ago
  That's a diaeresis, not an umlaut. Same symbol but different phenomena. An umlaut is a sound shift in a vowel to make it more like another vowel. For example in Icelandic a word like "Katla" will decline the final "a" to "u," which then causes the first "a" to become "ö". The a -> ö shift is umlaut. A diaeresis, however, marks a vowel that is pronounced separately from an adjacent vowel instead of as a diphthong.
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    For example, some style guides still call for cooperate to be spelt as coöperate (most notably, The New Yorker), but this has largely fallen out of fashion.
  - rags2riches 5y ago