The Thy dialect – Thybomålet – Æ Tyjbomoel

Søren Ralph, offentliggjort den 24. februar 2020

All articles I publish on Danish dialects may be shared for free on the net. This article is
written by myself, Alex Søren Ralph, with the help of a resident of Hundborg who
helped to correct some things. I give thanks to people in Thy who have helped me to
learn their dialect over successive visits around Thy National Park.
Jutlandic is one of the three main dialects of the Danish language, Jutlandic being the
group of dialects that are spoken on the mainland part of Denmark, which is the
peninsula of Jutland north of Germany. Scandinavian dialects have always been difficult
to classify, rather than calling Jutlandic a dialect of the Danish language, we may also
refer to it as the Jutlandic Language, since its features pre-date the appearance of
Rigsdansk/Sjællandsk Danish in Jutland. Jutlandic dialects are fundamentally different
from every other North-Germanic language, these fundamental differences are
embedded within Jutlandic and are not a recent stage of changes. Jutlandic dialects can
be further divided. Some may talk about the South Jutlandic language. The southern
dialects of the Jutland Peninsula share things which set them apart from the Northern
dialects, they in a way form their own language between Northern Jutlandic dialects and
German to the south.
Northern Jutlandic is a less united group of dialects, arguably the dialects of Northern
Jutland are more different to each other than those of Southern Jutland. The northern
dialects possess a very local identity in their names, like Thybomål and Vendelbomål.
There are significant differences between the western and eastern varieties of North
Jutlandic. Eastern varieties have three genders, like most traditional North-Germanic
dialects but not the modern standard languages, except for Nynorsk in Norway. Western
Jutlandic dialects, whether they be north or south, have no gender in nouns at all. This
means that Western Jutlandic and English, stand out as being some of the only Indo-
European languages to not distinguish nouns by gender. One of the other main things
which makes Jutlandic dialects unique among all the North-Germanic languages, is that
the definite article may come before the noun, rather than being attached to the end of
it.
Standard Danish, Rigsdansk, has two genders: common and neuter. Common nouns end
with -en in the definite form, neuter nouns end with -et.
en mand – a man, manden – the man
en kvinde – a woman, kvinden – the woman
et hus – a house, huset – the house
In the Thy dialect, these forms are:
 æn mand – a man, æ mand – the man
æn kwind – a woman, æ kwind – the woman
æn huws – a house, æ huws – the house

The indefinite article has a remarkable similarity to the indefinite article ‘yan’ used in
parts of Northern England. The article æn means ‘a’ or ‘an’, jæn means ‘one’, Danish én.

Pronouns

English Rigsdansk Thy Dialect

Danish

I jeg æ or a in
places
thou du do
he han han
she hun hun
it (m/f) den den
it (n) det dæ
we vi wi
you plural I i
they de de

Like South Jutlandic is a grouping of dialects, the Thy dialect is in itself a grouping of
related dialects, the Thy dialect can be spoken quite differently from place to place.
Some speakers may use a v rather than w, vi instead of wi, vææ instead of wææ etc.
Danish uses os as the first person plural object pronoun, English us. Like the Norn
Language from Scotland, North Jutlandic uses the form wos. For example æ hunn æ wæ
æ wand å mæ' wos – the dog is beside the water and with us, Rigsdansk: hunden er ved
vandet og med os. It is common in North Jutlandic to preserve the initial w- found in
Ingaevonic languages, but lost in North Germanic languages.

Nouns with regional variations.

 English Rigsdansk Thy dialect
Danish

day dag daw/då

house hus huws
houses huse huuws
fish fisk fesk/feesk/fiesk
stone sten sten/steen/stien
horse hest hæst/hææst/hæjst/haist
week uge u`gh

The vowels in the words ‘fish’ and ‘stone’ show similar variation to the vowels in
Northern English for the word ‘stone’, e.g. steen, stian, styan, stane. The sound variation
of fisk – fesk is something that also occurs in some of the southern coast dialects of
Norway and those of Nordland in Northern Norway. Another example from Thybomål is
that the word ringe in Danish is renng in Thybomål, the process of the final vowel
disappearing is known as apocope, and it also occurs in Northern Norway and is
common in Thybomål, tenke – tenk, hjælpe – hjælp. In fact these areas share many
things in common. Like in Denmark, some of the dialects in Southern Norway and
Nordland voice medial stops, like in much of Denmark. South Coast and Nordland
dialects of Norway commonly have æ or e as the first person singular pronoun, but the
pronunciation of this in Norwegian is different to in Jutlandic.

The prepositions in Jutlandic are also rather like those of Northern English dialects and
of Scots.
English Rigsdansk Danish Thy dialect
to til te
by ved wæ'
with med mæ'
from fra fræ

Sample sentence:
they do not like fish - English
de kan ikke lide fisk – Rigsdansk Danish
de ka e' lie feesk – Thy dialect

In standard Danish ‘not’ is ikke, in the Thy dialect it varies. It or itt is used in the
northern part of Thy, elsewhere it can be ikk, int, intj. Another variation is i’ or e’.
In Jutlandic the d disappears between vowels. Also the n in kan has disappeared, this
happens in Sjællandsk Danish too, but in the Thy dialect ka is always heard and is
grammatically standard.
Interrogative pronouns in the Thy dialect change the initial hv of Danish to hw.
what hvad hwa, wa
where hvor hwoe, woe
how hvordan hwodan, wodan

Phrases

English Rigsdansk Danish Thy dialect

welcome velkommen wælkommen/walkommen

good day god dag go daw
good evening god aften go awten
how are you? (how is it hvordan går det? hwodan goe æ’e?
going?)
Fine thanks, and with you? Fint tak, og hvad med dig? Fint tak, å hwa mæ’ dæ?
what are you called? hvad hedder du? hwa hi’ker do?
I am called… jeg hedder... æ hier...
where are you from? hvor er du fra? hwoe æ do fræ?
I am from Thy jeg er fra Thy æ æ fræ Thyj’k

One of the very unusual features of the Thy dialect is the insertion of a ‘k’ sound where
standard Rigsdansk Danish would have the stød. The process can be compared to pre-
aspiration in Icelandic, Faroese and some dialects of Norwegian. Pre-aspiration occurs
also in Scottish Gaelic and the Sámi languages. The process that happens in the Thy
dialect is not identical, since the stød sound, as well as the general phonemic inventory
of colloquial Sjællandsk Danish, is very unique. Danish phonology is in general very
unique, some saying unique in the world. How the stød functions with the prosody of
Danish would seem to reflect features in grammar and speech that we cannot fully
identify or explain. In the Thy dialect, the ‘k equivalent seems to serve some kind of
grammatical function, visible in the examples given of ‘to be called’, where the
interrogative of the verb has this ‘k’ sound inserted, where the affirmative form does
not.
Thy – Thyj’k – ‘Thy’
sund – suw’kn – sound (water channel)
ud – uw’k – ‘out’