Scanian is a closely related group of
South Swedish dialects spoken in the province of
Scania in southern
Sweden. Scanian formed part of the old
Scandinavian dialect continuum and are by most historical linguists considered to be an East
Danish dialect group, but due to the modern-era influence from Standard Swedish in the region and because traditional dialectology in the Scandinavian countries normally has not considered
isoglosses that cut across state borders, the Scanian dialects have normally been treated as a South
Swedish dialect group in Swedish dialect research. However, many of the early Scandinavian linguists, including
Adolf Noreen and G. Sjöstedt, classified it as "South Scandinavian", and some linguists, such as
Elias Wessén, also considered Old Scanian a separate language, classified apart from both Old Danish and Old Swedish.