Bornholm dialect

Bornholmsk is an East Danish dialect spoken on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. It was originally part of the East Danish dialect continuum, which includes the dialects of southern Sweden, but became isolated in the Danish dialect landscape after 1658, when Sweden annexed the eastern Danish provinces of Scania (Skåne), Halland and Blekinge. The language is more generally spoken than written, despite the existence of several Bornholmsk–Danish dictionaries and a regular Bornholmsk article in the local newspaper. Even words that are never used in Standard Danish are spelled according to the standard orthography. The dialect is endangered, as the inhabitants of Bornholm have been shifting to standard Danish over the past century. "Bevar Bornholmsk" is an organization whose purpose is to preserve Bornholmsk. Its main organization is KulturBornholm, the editor of books with CDs with the text in Bornholmsk. The Bornholm's Self-Government Party was founded in the 1990s with the express goal of preserving the dialect, which it considers a separate language from Danish, which they believe can only be achieved through initially independence, and later, self government. The small island has only about 40,000 inhabitants, yet the language is divided into five main dialects, not counting standard Danish. As an example, "eye" would be spelled iva in some regions, but elsewhere it would be øja, which is quite close to the Danish word øje and Scanian "öja-öjen".