Written by Linden Alexander Pentecost. Written and published in the UK, like all of my publications. No AI was used in the creation of any part of this article, nor has it been used for any of my other publications. Finally completed on the 8th of March 2025. No AI is used in this or in any of my other publications. The two photos are also by Linden Alexander Pentecost. This article on this page is part 1 (1-n.) in the Nordic and pre-Nordic language articles 1-n. to 20-n series only published on www.clwaideac-na-cuinne.co.uk . A tiny part of the text in this article, literally, a few lines, was originally published in a separate article, which was deleted and not archived. The material from that article, apart from the tiny bit of it in this article, will be edited and published again in different places, with even more content in each place. This article since grew into something more complex, covering an introduction to Bondska, a discussion on the two Kalix Bondska languages, the Kirunamål dialect of Norrland Swedish, and the Borgarmål language. This article has topics that somewhat cross over with things I have published in the past, but this is article is not a re-doing of any of that work, and is entirely separate from my other publications. The photos have also not been published previously, even though different photos of these places have been by the author in other publications. This is titled as a "re-introduction" because I have introduced Bondska, and also the Kalix language, in other publications, but the information presented in this article is different from that in other publications. This article was also renamed as it developed, although the version under the earlier name was only half as long (this does not refer to the previous, deleted article). This article was completed on the 8th of March 2025. This article contains 4786 words as measured on Libreoffice (I copied the text from this page to Libreoffice to check word count). This article uses footnotes, a main title above and smaller titles. Apart from the title, this paragraph & the contents below, this article contains the following six sub sections, numbered with Roman numerals. Below is the contents. The rest of the article is after the paragraph below the contents.

I. A re-introduction to the Bondska languages
II. Re-introducing the Lower Kalix language
III. The Upper Kalix language
IV. The Kiruna Swedish dialect (with a landscape photo from Luossavaara mountain, and description).
V. The Borgarmål Language (with a photo of the Abisko Älv river, and a longer more poetic description).
VI: References and notes

The first section of the article (the part you are currently looking at) before the main sections numbered with Roman numerals, should be referenced as 1-n.0 Re-Introducing Bondska, The two Kalix languages, the Kiruna dialect & Borgarmål. The parts after this should be referenced as 1-n. I., 1-n. II. etc, the article title and title of the section should also be included. This article is academic but includes personal comments (including regarding a lady with golden-moonlight hair in Kiruna), and other comments from being in the respective areas where these languages are spoken, and the use of creativity. This article in front of you is unrelated to other pages on this website I have published recently, and to pages on other websites I have published recently. Only one of the other pages on this website (www.clwaideac-na-cuinne.co.uk) is complete (apart from the page you are on, which is also complete), as of the 8th of March 2025. The other completed page/article is titled: 1-f. On the Finnish language with trees, flowers, moths and butterflies (the aforementioned page was completed on March the 6th 2025, whereas the page you are on was completed on March the 8th 2025).

I. A re-introduction to the Bondska languages

The Bondska languages, which can also be called dialects, are traditional Norse dialect groups of northern Sweden, that are distinguished from each other, but which are all essentially a part of the same larger "language", although am one of those who believes that these traditional dialect areas within Bondska can also be called individual Bondska languages. These individual Bondska languages or traditional dialect groups can be rather different from each other, but after some exposure to another Bondska language, the speaker of one can generally understand the other.

Sometimes these languages are erroneously referred to as Swedish dialects. This is, for all intensive purposes, not the case. Standard varieties of Swedish came primarily from the Norse dialects, or languages, of Svealand, which bares the root *Svea-, being the same root in Swedish Sverige - "Sweden", and Svenska - "Swedish". But originally this root only referred to a small part of what is now Sweden, and so whilst it can be said that Bondska is related to Swedish, Bondska was already separate from the dialects of Svealand and from the ancestor to modern Swedish, long before the Swedish language spread up into what is now Northern Sweden. Sweden was originally a land of many kingdoms and regions, with their own, already diffrentiated Nordic languages. It was only when more standard forms of Swedish, primarily from Svealand originally, began to expand into other parts of what became Sweden, that these other traditional Nordic languages began to be more influenced by Swedish.
The precise origin of Bondska is an uncertainty, owing to the clearly very old diffrentiations between say, Bondska and Swedish, I personally think that the two languages may have been already diffrentiated in the Proto-Norse, Iron Age period, and that perhaps some Germanic or pre-Germanic language was spoken in the area even prior to that.

Bondska developed into several distinct "languages", often following the contours of the major rivers coming from Norrbotten into the Baltic Sea. In the north of the Bondska language region this is arguably especially so, where for example the different language varieites along the Pite, Lule and Kalix rivers are clearly very diffrentiated from each other. In a general sense, Bondska has a more coastal and lower valley orientation in northern Norrbotten, whilst areas further inland and outside of the lower parts of the major valleys, were historically Sámi and sometimes Kainu (Meänkieli)-speaking. I feel particularly drawn to this part of the north, to its linguistic diversity, and its lush, forested, immense landscapes, that speak to me of something truly ancient, spiritual and holy.

II. Re-introducing the Lower Kalix language

Lower Kalix Bondska, in Swedish: Nederkalixmål, is a Nordic language spoken near the Finnish border in the north of Sweden. It is distinct from the Upper Kalix Bondska language, known as Överkalixmål in Swedish. The upper and lower Kalix languages are distinct enough from each other to perhaps be considered as separate languages themselves. Kalix is the name of a town on the northern coast of the Baltic, and also of the immediate region around it. As well as the Lower Kalix Bondska, and Upper Kalix Bondska languages, two other indigenous languages are also spoken in this area, namely Northern Sámi and Meänkieli. The Lower Kalix Bondska language is known as KöLismå:Le in that language. If the language is being referred to as Bondska, the form båonska is a correct form in the Lower Kalix language. This diphthong has a somewhat unpredictable occurrence in Lower Kalix Bondska; it occurs in for example the word såoLa - "the sun", Swedish: solen ,and båoka - "the book", Swedish: boken; but is not present for example in the word fåLk - "people", Swedish: folk. The capital L is used to write the "retroflex flap" sound, which can be described as being closer to an "r" than to the "l" sounds in English.

In the Lower Kalix language, "what are you called?" would be wå het do? and "I am called..." would be: je het. In standard Swedish "what are you called?" is vad heter du? and "I am called" is: jag heter... Even though it is clear from these examples that Swedish and Lower Kalix Bondska are related. The pronouns differ, (Swedish: jag, Lower Kalix Bondska: je, English "I"), (Swedish: du, Lower Kalix Bondska: do, English "you (sinular) "thou"). Although the forms heter - "called", and het - "called" are similar, they demonstrate briefly how verb conjugation is actually quite different in Bondska to what it is in Swedish. The word vad in Swedish means "what", in Lower Kalix Bondska the word is wå. This difference demonstrates one example of how Swedish and Bondska phonology also differ significantly, the Bondska languages very frequently containing the [w] sound found in English, whilst the sound is absent in Swedish. As an example of another phrase (not one in any other article either), in Lower Kalix Bondska "she is not Swedish" would be: hö jär ät Schwensk, whereas in Swedish this phrase would be: hon är inte Svensk. Note that in this example hö means "she", which is correct Lower Kalix language, but often the pronoun for "she" in the Upper Kalix language can also be o or ho. One of the things one can see from this example, is that, unlike in Swedish, there is a tendency in many Bondska languages to turn a [sw] into a [ʃw] sound, similarly to how German has developed a [ʃv], e.g. German Schweden - "Sweden". The example also demonstrates how the word for "is", Swedish är is jär in Kalix Bondska. Many other Bondska languages also possess a similar form, such as jär or jer. In the plural, the form is jåra, e.g. ve jåra - "we are", and di jåra - "they are", Swedish: vi är, dom är.

Another example of Lower Kalix Bondska which I thought up, is: nö jär hån ållti ini KöLis - "now he is always in Kalix", the Swedish equivalent of which would be: nu är han alltid i Kalix. We see here some vowel changes, including in the word hån - "he". A similar form is also found in parts of Northern Norway, where the form of "he" is hån in the Salten dialect for example (which I have discussed elsewhere); (Salten is an area of Nordland in Northern Norway). We also see from the aforementioned example that the shorter Swedish preposition i - "in", tends to ini in the Lower Kalix language, which more closely resembles West Germanic forms. Similar forms are found in various Bondska languages.
Like other varieties of Bondska, diphthongs are frequent, so Swedish ut - "out", and hus - "house", would be öut and höus in Lower Kalix Bondska. Similar diphthongisations are found in other Bondska languages, although their precise form and the occurance of diphthongisation varies. One aspect to Lower Kalix Bondska which sets it apart from most other varieties, is the replacement of the "ng" in Swedish with a k. For example, Swedish lång - "long", is la:k in the Lower Kalix language. This loss of the "n" can also be seen for example in the words: sa:t - "sand" (1), la:t - "land" (1) and sa:k - "sand" (1), of which the Swedish equivalents are: sand, land and: sång. The semi-colon : in the Lower Kalix forms of those words, indicates that the vowel is long, also in for example the word må:L - "language", Swedish: mål. This is also, to some extent, a common writing practice in Lule and Pite Bondska varieties as well. I have only discussed a small number of the features of Lower Kalix Bondska.

I originally started learning about this language from a native speaker. I have since done my own research over the years, but have asked for his advice on several occasions. This speaker also advised me on writing "I am called" as je het rather than "je heet", as the double ee spelling is sometimes written in this language to represent a circumflex tone, which occurs in the plural of this word, e.g. je het - "I am called", do het - "you (singular) are called, but i heet - "you (plural) are called". This is something I have previously encountered with other varities of Bondska, but how this is written varies. This also demonstrates an important difference between Bondska and Swedish, as in Swedish the singular and plural conjugations of verbs are the same, e.g. du heter - "you (singular) are called", and ni heter - "you (plural) are called" (also demonstrated with the jär "is" and jåra "are" example).
Another example of the circumflex tone being used in Lower Kalix Bondska is found in the word for "star", which is: stşään (1) in Lower Kalix Bondska, compare Swedish: stjärna. The word tşöörk - "church", is another example, compare Swedish: kyrka. I give the Upper Kalix form of this word in the next section.

III. The Upper Kalix language

I know far less about the Upper Kalix language, which is known as Köḷisma:ḷe as opposed to the Lower Kalix language being known as KöLismå:Le. The upper Kalix language as can be seen has the form ma:Le meaning "language", which shows a long "a" vowel, as opposed to the "å" found in this word in the Lower Kalix language. This is similar to the Lule Bondska form: maLe. From what I understand, the first person singular pronoun in the Upper Kalix Language is also ji rather than the form je which is found in the Lower Kalix language. In the Lule Bondska language, the form is jö or jög. The Upper Kalix language also has prosodic, and perhaps other similarities to the Sámi, Kainu (and Finnish) languages, although I do not know to what extent the Upper Kalix Language might share vocabulary with Uralic languages.

There are many quite major differences more generally between the Upper and Lower Kalix languages. For example, the word for "long" in the Upper Kalix language is leeng (3), but in the Lower Kalix language it is la:k, with the disappearance of the nasal. In Swedish the word for "long" is: lång. Several vowel changes can also be seen in how the Lower Kalix je jär - "I am", differs from Upper Kalix ji jer, Swedish: jag är. "We are" with the plural form is ve jåra in the Lower Kalix language, but ve jera (2) in the Upper Kalix language. The negative particle, "not" in English, is: äint in the Upper Kalix language, but ät in the Lower Kalix language, and inte in Swedish. The verb "to do" in the Upper Kalix language is dz̧era (2), which is equivalent to Lower Kalix language: dz̧åra. This appears to show the same å-e vowel variation that we see in the difference between Upper Kalix ve jera - "we are", and Lower Kalix: ve jåra - "we are". A difference can also be seen in the word for "house", which can be written häus (2) in the Upper Kalix language, whilst höus is the form in the Lower Kalix language. A rather unusual change can be seen in the form gär - "goes" (2), compare Swedish: går. A form like *gar in this case has become gär as a result of the å-a difference I have already discussed. An a-ä change like this does also however occur in the Lule Bondska language, although not always in the same positions. 

Another form of diphthongisation can be seen in how Swedish köpa - "to buy" is etymologically equivalent to Upper Kalix tşöip - "to buy". No diphthongisation occurs in the word tşö̂rk - "church" (3). In the Lower Kalix language I have spelled this as tşöörk in this article, although the form tşörka for "the church" seems to show no circumflex tone (in Swedish: kyrkan - "the church".) The Upper Kalix and Lower Kalix forms of this word seem to be more or less the exact same, but they are written differently here due to what appears to have been a practice in some places to write circumflex accents in the Upper Kalix language using a circumflex accent written over the vowel, whereas in the Lower Kalix language these are, to my understanding, generally written as doubled. Another difference in writing that you may have noticed in the name Köḷisma:ḷe is that the retroflex flap tends to be written as a ḷ with the dot below the "L sound", as opposed to the capital L employed to write this sound in the Lower Kalix language. The practice of using ḷ seems to be sometimes used by Bjernna - Föreningen för överkaliska, which is a society for the preservation and teaching of the Upper Kalix language. My use of dz̧ and tş instead of dj and tj are not used by the society though, to my knowledge. 
Whilst I have visited Kalix before, unknowingly, when going from Kiruna to Kemi in Finland, I have never been to the areas where the Upper Kalix language is spoken precisely, I feel very drawn to the landscape for some reason, as I felt such a magic around the Northern Baltic and around Kalix and Kemi. 

IV. The Kiruna Swedish dialect

As is the case in the part of the article after this one, the main text in this section is below the photo description, which is below the photo below, although the photo description is descriptive, and contains info not in the main text.

Photo above: a view of part of the landscape looking westwards from the mountain of Luossavaara, one of the mountains around Kiruna. This mountain was mined extensively for magnetite, and its name is of Meänkieli origin, although the word is very much a part of the local Kiruna Swedish dialect as well. The photo above helps to give some idea of the landscape in which the Kiruna dialect came to be, although the vast landscape around has historically been primarily Meänkieli and, further afield, Northern Sámi-speaking. The photo was taken in August 2018. I remember thinking how majestic this place was, the clouds, the endless forests, the small, but ancient-looking magnetite-rich mountains, with their strange, purplish grey rock. 

The Bondska languages, and Borgarmål, which is itself connected to Bondska, are referred to as "languages" on this page, and are not referred to as forms of Swedish or Swedish dialects, for reasons already explained. Of the languages of Norrland discussed on this page, what is known as Kirunamål is the only one which I would call a "dialect of Swedish", although it is possible that there are Bondska influences on the Kiruna Dialect which I do not know of, and ultimately I do not know how long a Nordic language has been spoken around Kiruna for, although any earlier form of Norse in this area would probably not have been widely spoken, especially considering that the place-names of the surrounding landscape are almost entirely Northern Sámi, and especially Meänkieli in origin. 

From what I can tell, the Kiruna dialect is essentially a form of standard Rikssvenska Swedish, spoken with a prosodic structure that makes it sound a bit different. But, I think in the case of the Kiruna dialect, the prosodic difference is quite pronounced. The prosody of Kiruna Swedish does not remind me especially of that of Bondska, although it can be described as a "Norrlandic form of Swedish" (which again is completely distinct from the Bondska languages, with their own ancient words, phonology and grammar). And I wonder then if perhaps the Kiruna dialect's prosody is influenced by the surrounding Meänkieli and Sámi languages, which would seem rather likely, although I did not make specific notes.

The r tends to be rolled rather strongly in and around Kiruna, which could likely be an influence from Meänkieli, I think. There are also a number of words in the dialect, which seem to show an influence from Meänkieli or Finnish phonetic structural influence, for example the words penkki and spenkki are the Kiruna dialect equivalents of Rikssvenska pengar - "money", and spännande - "exciting". This shows a devoicing in accordance with general Meänkieli phonology, the addition of a final vowel, also a typical feature of Meänkieli phonology; and ultimately the formation of, or re-use of, a -kki suffix in these words.
Two other Kiruna dialect words, which both mean "annoyed", are kurri and finnkurri, the second of which is more intense a word. The second word appears to contain a reference to "Finns", perhaps due to an association between the Finns (probably in this case: Meänkieli speakers), being powerful people in some way, although this is just my opinion. The word kurri looks like a Meänkieli word, but I have not yet found a Meänkieli word that might be the origin of kurri. 

When I was in Kiruna once, in 2018, when I was 24, I remember meeting and speaking with a lady from Kiruna, who I guess I had a crush on, although she did have a boyfriend, despite that it felt a little like there was mutual interest from her in our conversation, not that I assumed or am assuming so. She was a couple of years older than me, and she spoke the local Swedish dialect, and I remember thinking that perhaps, this indeed was, my favourite form of the Swedish language. Her voice reminded me a little of how people speak Norwegian in Narvik, across the border in Norway, gentle, musical, likely influenced by both Finnic and Samic languages in some way. The lady had hair, that was the palest gold in colour, which shone a little like moonlight, except a little more golden. She looked perhaps more Finnic than Nordic, but who knows: I hope she is well, wherever she may be.

V. The Borgarmål Language

As is the case in the previous part of the article to this one, the main text in this section is below the photo description, which is below the photo below, although the photo description is long, and contains much info not in the main text.

Photo above: the Abisko River, in Swedish: Abisko Älv, surrounded by birches turning dark gold in the autumn, with the mountains in the background already having snow. The photo was taken in September 2018 by the author. The river flows into Torneträsk a little further downstream. I do not know what the Northern Sámi name for this river is, but "Abisko River" in Northern Sámi would be: "Ábeskovvu Johka". The Abisko area, around Lake Torneträsk, is a route that one could have walked, in ancient times, to reach the Norwegian Sea and what is now Norway on the other side of the Scandinavian Mountains. So it is no surprise perhaps that Torneträsk, Norrland Swedish: Torneträsk "Torne Lake", also has a Meänkieli as well as a Northern Sámi name. The Northern Sámi language is the indigenous language of this region, but the existence of a Meänkieli name, which is "Torniojärvi", demonstrates how Finnic-speakers were also aware of this region, and I think it possible that this could be in part because of ancient seasonal movements along this valley. It is also quite possible that Sámi peoples and Bondska or Swedish speakers traded and met here, and spent time together in the past, speaking Borgarmål, especially considering that Borgarmål is especially connected to the Lule Valley, not far to the south. One can perhaps imagine them meeting at this river even, trading, sharing resources, chatting to each other in Borgarmål, whilst they sit a short way into the dark, golden birch trees, their leaves gently blowing in the agreeable September breeze, as there was on the day I took this photo. And indeed I found it so beautiful that being at this location was emotional. Note that I previously used a different version of the photo above in a photo book published under a pseudonym, but this book was never archived in any way and is unrelated to this article in front of you.

As I have alluded to, the Bondska languages were and continue to be spoken in a landscape that was largely Sámi and sometimes Kainu/Meänkieli speaking. Whilst the upper Kalix language has a more obvious influence from Sámi languages than the Lower Kalix language does, the Borgar language or Borgarmål in Swedish, was essentially a form of Bondska that contained many influences from Sámi languages, particularly in that Bondska words, from what I understand, seem to have sometimes had their semantic usages adapted to more closely match how spatial relationships are expressed in Sámi languages. Examples of the language were published in the 1700s detail by Pehr Högström, but not enough has been recorded to understand just how fully fledged this language was.

Whilst the language seems generally to be thought of as a relatively new language, resulting from when Swedish and Sámi peoples traded together, the Germanic parts of the language often have a clearer relationship to Bondska than to Swedish, and this again ties in with how Bondska has been spoken in northern Sweden for much longer than Swedish has, and so, potentially, the Borgarmål could result from pre-1700s contact, over a longer period of time, between Sámi and Bondska speakers. I hope to research this more in the future. I will discuss briefly two sentence examples of Borgarmål as recorded by Pehr Högström. The first example is: hur sit din heit? which is Borgarmål for "what is your name", which is in Swedish, as mentioned elsewhere in this article: vad heter du? The Borgarmål form more literally means something like "how sit(s) your call?", as it appears that the verb sit in Borgarmål is a kind of auxiliary verb. The form heit also shows a diphthong, ei, which is definately more of a Bondska feature than a Swedish feature.

The second example sentence, also recorded by Pehr Högström, is: den lapman kast sin renost bak i den borgar, which means "the Sámi gives the reindeer cheese to the townsperson", but which more literally translates to "the Sámi throws his reindeer cheese behind in the townsperson". We can see here how the verb kast is used here to mean "gives", rather than "throw(s)", and also how the word bak, normally "behind" is used in a form of special preposition, bak i - in this context meaning "to", but more literally translating to "behind in", if Swedish or Bondska is used as a reference point. The sentence also demonstrates how in Borgarmål, unlike in Swedish and Bondska, there appears also to be little evidence of the use of suffixes to make nouns definite, for example, we would expect *lapmanen and *borgaren for "the Sámi" and "The townsperson", but instead, the nouns are made definite using the standalone word den. I hope that I have helped to explain something of this language's grammar

VI: References and notes