Sandra Gjervaldsaeter (16) received the Älvdalska bursary this
year. Her dad and grandmother always spoke the language together
and, with the money from the bursary as a motivation, she went
from understanding it, but not speaking, to using it fully. “Now
that I have learnt more about the language, I understand better
how unique it is and how important it is to preserve. I’m now
pushing my siblings and my cousins to start speaking it too.”
Sandra is moving away in the fall to study, but she said that
she will always want to keep one foot in Älvdalen. “Hopefully, I
will find a job here after I graduate from veterinary school. I
think boys are more prone to stay here. We girls, we have to go
away to study and we might be more open to try out the bigger
city lifestyle.” Sandra is interested in music. She sings, plays
various instruments, and writes her own songs. The isolated
valley of Älvdalen ('River Valley'), in Dalarna, central Sweden,
is by no means stereotypically Scandinavian. Both landscape and
lifestyle