Latgalistikys kongresu materiali, III. 2011. - Latvijas Universitāte

Övdalian in the light of the European Charter
Swedish Minority Policy was established in 2000, when Sweden ratified
the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Since
2009 minority rights have been further described in Språklagen ‘The Language
Law’ and since 1 st January 2010 in Lag om nationella minoriteter
och minoritetsspråk ‘Law on national minorities and minority languages’.
According to those acts there are five minority languages in Sweden: Finnish,
Yiddish, Meänkieli (Tornedal Finnish), Romani and Sami languages.
Övdalian, which is so unique and severely threatened, has not yet been included
in this list.
A fierce debate whether Övdalian should be acknowledged as a minority
or a regional language has been held for the past years. According to
the definition, regional or minority languages are:
— traditionally used within a given territory of a State by nationals of that
State who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the State's
population; and
— different from the official language(s) of that State;
it does not include either dialects of the official language(s) of the State or
the languages of migrants. (Charter 1992: 2)
Övdalian seems to satisfy the Charter’s criteria as it has been spoken
within Sweden since at least the 16 th century by a group which is numerically
smaller than the rest of the population and it is unintelligible to
speakers of standard Swedish. Inhabitants of Älvdalen have a long history
and common traditions but still they have not been acknowledged as a minority
group. The final criterion, which is probably taken into consideration
although not stated explicitly in the Charter, is the problem of ethnicity.
People in Älvdalen have never had aspirations to form a separate nation
and have never considered themselves as non-Swedes. The only feature
that distinguishes them from Swedes seems to be their language,
Övdalian, which allows us to consider them a language group rather than
an ethnic group.
For and against Övdalian’s recognition
In debates about Övdalian’s status in Sweden some arguments for
and against are constantly being repeated. The opponents of uprising the
status of Övdalian claim that its speakers constitute a small group, and
they inhabit a very small area. Besides there is no common Övdalian, as
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