Älvdalen Municipality (Swedish: Älvdalens kommun) is a municipality in Dalarna County in central Sweden. Its seat is located in the town of Älvdalen.
The two parishes Särna and Idre were ceded to Sweden from Norway under the treaty of Brömsebro on 13 August 1645. In 1971 the three municipalities Särna, Idre (which itself had been split off from Särna in 1916) and Älvdalen were amalgamated to form the present municipality.
Övdalian or Elfdalian (Elfdalian: övdalsk or övdalską, pronounced [ˈœvdɐlskãː]; Swedish: älvdalska or älvdalsmål) is a North Germanic language spoken by around 3,000 people who live or have grown up in the locality of Älvdalen (Övdaln), in the southeast of Älvdalen Municipality in northern Dalarna, Sweden.
Like all other modern North Germanic languages, Övdalian developed from Old Norse, a North Germanic language spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements during the Viking Age until about 1350. Övdalian developed in relative isolation since the Middle Ages and is considered to have remained closer to Old Norse than the other Dalecarlian dialects.
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