>Public schooling, nationalism, and the decline of regional languages all coincided for a reason. Slightly tangential, but Sweden has decided to call the Westr

>Public schooling, nationalism, and the decline of regional languages all coincided for a reason. Slightly tangential, but Sweden has decided to call the Westrobothnian dialect of Swedish “Bondska” the direct translation of which is basically “Farmerish”. Now I don’t support the stigmatization of farmers, but it’s hard to deny that “bondig”/“farmerish” has been used as a derogative to separate them from “city people” or whatever they’re trying to suggest. As I understand it, Elfdalian is further removed from Swedish, but has been similarly classified as a rural dialect instead of its own language. Further complicated by the fact that the are other dialects in the area called Dalmål (direct translation “valleyspeak” maybe?), and as far as I can tell are related to both Swedish and Elfdalian.. (I just an interested amateur, so I’m absolutely open to corrections from people with first hand experience of speaking Elfdalian or Westrobothnian)