Värmländska

Värmländska refers to the indigenous speech varieties of the traditional Swedish province of Värmland. It is one of the dialects that form the group Götamål, as opposed to Sveamål, South Swedish dialects, Norrland dialects, Gutnish and Finland-Swedish dialects, in an often used classification of Swedish dialects.

The traditional province of Värmland, defined as Värmland County plus the two adjacent municipalities Karlskoga and Degerfors, in March 2017 had a population of 319,675. However, any attempt to put a number on speakers of a Swedish dialect in the modern situation is likely to be contested. What counts as Värmländska is a matter of definition. If we were to define it as a speech variety that has a grammatical system clearly distinct from Standard Swedish — such as for example a consistently made distinction between the three grammatical genders (see below) — the number will be relatively small and mostly consisting of elderly speakers. On the other hand, if we define it on more phonological grounds — such as having a vowel sound [ɶ] and having a reduced schwa-like vowel sound in many word endings which in Standard Swedish have 'a' — we will in all likelihood include a majority of people living in Värmland, i.e. more than 150,000 people.