naming a language

[Henrik Rosenkvist]

Thanks for all interesting remarks and comments!

As for my initial question, however, I conclude that me and my co-editor 
have a number of possible alternatives to think about. Except for 
"Oevdalian" and "Övdalian", an alternative is "Upper Dalian". That would 
capture the fact that the language varieties in the norther parts of 
Dalecarlia are mutually intelligible.

The term "Elfdalian" is however still not an option. The speakers are 
struggling for some kind of formal recognition for their language, and 
"Elfdalian" just has the wrong connotations. On the net, one finds 
statements like "Elfdalian sounds like something out of /Lord of the 
Rings/". Therefore, I still think that the term is inappropriate (and 
that non-native speakers of English might underestimate this semantic 
feature). Furthermore, "Elfdalian" gets about 1 000 hits on Google, 
whereas "Oevdalian/Övdalian" gets about 600. Hence there is no huge 
difference between these alternatives, and it is not entirely correct to 
state that "Elfdalian" is established, I think.

As for endonym/exonym, this particular language is severely threathened 
by Swedish, and I see no reason at all why the Swedish term should form 
the basis for the English name of the language. We are not striving to 
be politically incorrect in this case, but trying to avoid being 
politically incorrect. There is a marked difference.

A rose is a rose is a rose – who can deny that? But a language is not 
always a language, and I am convinced that if politics and prestige were 
of equal importance in the world of roses as in the world of languages, 
some of these flowers would be called "icky thorny things" and others 
"flowers of heaven". If roses could think and speak, most of them would 
probably prefer the latter term.

Henrik