Götamål is one of the six dialect areas of the Swedish language, mostly heard in Västergötland, Dalsland, northern Halland, northern Småland and Östergötland. However, it is also heard in Bohuslän and Värmland. Examples of Götamål features are vowel reduction, vowel shortening in front of endings and loss of /r/ in suffixes, such as in hästa instead of hästar, eng. horses.
The Geats (/ɡiːts, ˈɡeɪəts, jæts/ GHEETS, GAY-əts, YATS; Old English: gēatas [ˈjæɑtɑs]; Old Norse: gautar [ˈɡɑu̯tɑr]; Swedish: götar [ˈjø̂ːtar]), sometimes called Goths, were a large North Germanic tribe who inhabited Götaland ("land of the Geats") in modern southern Sweden from antiquity until the Late Middle Ages. They are one of the progenitor groups of modern Swedes, along with the tribes of Swedes and Gutes. The name of the Geats also lives on in the Swedish provinces of Västergötland and Östergötland, the western and eastern lands of the Geats, and in many other toponyms.
The Swedish dialects spoken in the areas that used to be inhabited by Geats form a distinct group, Götamål.