Värmländska refers to the indigenous speech varieties of the traditional Swedish province of Värmland.
[2] However, any attempt to put a number on speakers of a Swedish dialect in the modern situation is likely to be contested.
On the other hand, if we define it on more phonological grounds — such as having a vowel sound [ɶ] and having a reduced schwa-like vowel sound in many word endings which in Standard Swedish have 'a' — we will in all likelihood include a majority of people living in Värmland, i.e. more than 150,000 people.
However, this does not mean that Värmländska has no full, unreduced vowels in word endings, because there have been secondary developments of suffixes with 'a' in them: 1) The loss of the ending -de in the past form of the largest group of weak verbs has in some varieties led to a contrast such as for example past tense härma (=imitated) as distinct from the infinitive härme (=to imitate).
[4] 2) A process whereby the definite suffix for singular feminine nouns has developed into -a, as can be seen in for example natta (=the night) as opposed to natt (=night).
Through the province goes a boundary between two distinct ways of pronouncing the consonant sound /ɧ/, represented in Swedish orthography by 'sj', 'stj', 'skj' etc.