In the previous issue you could read about soldmål and that there is a dictionary for soldmål.
How come the book "Far from Soldn" is there? Solleröbladet asked Lina Margit Andersson in Kulåra, who wrote the book together with Suzanne Danielsson.
Work on the dictionary started as early as 1915 when the local history researchers Håll Nils Mattsson and Karl Lärka began to suspect where our ancient language was heading. In a card index, they collected small pieces of paper with written down words and sentences that they had picked up from older Soller Islanders. Håll Nils continued collecting words for the rest of his life. When he died in 1959, he had managed to get to the letter L in his meticulous work to create a foundation. The rest M – Ö were in a small black notebook. Local history enthusiasts in the Soller Island Association took over 10 years later and continued the work, which can be compared to the Swedish Academy's Dictionary. In 1994, the letter Ö was finished. The foundation for a dictionary was laid.
Then Suzanne Danielsson and I began trying to create a dictionary and it was printed 6 years later in 1999, 84 years after Håll Nils and Karl Lärka took the initiative.”
Lina Margit tells a story about how Soldmål works across national borders. “Juha is a man who came to Sollerön as a war child during World War II. He didn’t speak any Swedish but quickly learned to speak Soldmål and made many friends here on the island. I was one of them. After the war, Juha moved back to Finland but we continued to keep in touch by letter in Soldmål. A few years ago, Juha invited me and my husband Bosse over to Finland. “How should we know you?” I asked in Soldmål on the phone. “When you see a little gray man on the right just as you step ashore, that’s me,” Juha replied. “And that was it! He spoke Finnish, I spoke Swedish, but we both spoke Soldmål.”
There are several similar stories where Soldfok who emigrated to the United States returned in modern times and conversed with their relatives in Soldmål.
If you speak or want to learn Soldmål, please let us know at info@solleron.se.
The dictionary "Färdär frå Soldn" can be borrowed from the library or purchased from Lina. Margaret.
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