Swedish svenska
Pronunciation:	[ˈsvɛnˌska] (with grave accent)
Spoken in:	Sweden and Finland
Region:	Northern Europe
Total speakers:	c. The Phonology of Swedish is notable for having a large Vowel inventory with 9 vowels that are distinguished in quality and to some degree quantity making "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. Northern Europe is a term for the northern part of Europe. The United Nations defines Northern Europe as (Finland 10 million
Ranking:	74
Language family:	Indo-European  Germanic   North Germanic    East Scandinavian     Swedish
Official status
Official language in:	Sweden (de facto)  Finland  European Union Nordic Council
Regulated by:	Swedish Language Council (in Sweden) Svenska språkbyrån (in Finland)
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	sv
ISO 639-2:	swe
ISO 639-3:	swe
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in The Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers is an intergovernmental forum for co-operation between the Nordic countries. This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language The Swedish Language Council ( Språkrådet) is the primary regulatory body for the advancement and cultivation of the Swedish language. The Research Institute for the Languages of Finland (Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus Päikkieennâm kielâi tutkâmkuávdáš Ruovttueatnan gielaid dutkanguovddáš Finnosko tšimbengo ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Swedish (svenska (help·info)) is a North Germanic language, spoken by more than ten million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Åland islands. The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). In Linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between Languages in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand Norwegian ( norsk) is a North Germanic Language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language Danish ( d̥ænsɡ̊ is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Danish ( d̥ænsɡ̊ is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age The Germanic peoples are a historical group of Indo-European -speaking peoples originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Germanic Viking Age is the term denoting the years from about 700 to 1066 in European history.

Standard Swedish is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. Standard Swedish ( standardsvenska) denotes Swedish as a spoken and written Standard language. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος dialektos) is a variety of a Language that is characteristic of a particular group of A written language is the representation of a Language by means of a Writing system. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. Grammar is the field of Linguistics that covers the Rules governing the use of any given natural language. The vocabulary of a person is defined either as the set of all Words that are understood by that person or the set of all words likely to be used by that person when constructing These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Rural areas can be large and isolated (also referred to as "the country" and/or "the countryside over the course of time See also Economic mobility Social mobility is the degree to which in a given society an individual's family's or group's social status Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities. According to some definitions an extinct language is a Language which no longer has any speakers, whereas a dead language is a language which is no longer spoken

The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. In Linguistic typology, subject-verb-object ( SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first the Verb second and the object Swedish morphology is similar to English, i. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases (though older analyses posit two cases, nominative and genitive), and a distinction between plural and singular. In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong In Grammar, the case of a Noun or Pronoun indicates its Grammatical function in a greater Phrase or Clause; such as the The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another Plural is a Grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the Referent in the real world SINGULAR is a Computer algebra system for Polynomial computations with special emphasis on the needs of Commutative algebra, Algebraic geometry Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. In grammatical theory, definiteness is a feature of Noun phrases distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context (definite noun In Grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an Affix which is placed at the end of a word The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. In Linguistics, prosody (from Greek προσωδία) is the Rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme. The so-called voiceless palatal-velar fricative (also called a voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, voiceless postalveolar and velar fricative, or voiceless The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU

Classification

Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. Danish ( d̥ænsɡ̊ is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Faroese ( føroyskt ˈføːɹɪst or) often also spelled Faeroese (cf Icelandic ( is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. Norwegian ( norsk) is a North Germanic Language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic.

By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long string of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. The Kingdom of Denmark ( ˈd̥ænmɑɡ̊ (archaic ˈd̥anmɑːɡ̊ commonly known as Denmark, is a country in the Scandinavian region of northern Europe The term nationalism can refer to an Ideology, a sentiment, a form of Culture, or a Social movement that focuses on the Nation The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden – especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland – take up a middle ground between the national standard languages. A dialect continuum is a range of Dialects spoken across a large geographical area differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close and gradually decreasing is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative Provinces of Sweden ( landskap in Swedish situated on the west coast of the country Dalsland is one of the traditional Swedish provinces ( landskap) in the south west of Sweden. is a historical province or landskap in the west of middle Sweden. is a historical province or landskap in the centre of Sweden. or Jamtland (ˈjamtˌlanː in Jamtish) is a historical province or Landskap in the center of Sweden in Northern ^[1]

History

Main article: History of Swedish

In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Middle Low German ( ISO 639 -3 code gml) is a Language that is the descendant of Old Saxon and is the ancestor of modern Low German. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.

Old Norse

Main article: Old Norse

The approximate extent of Old Norse and related languages in the early 10th century:       Old West Norse dialect       Old East Norse dialect       Old Gutnish dialect       Crimean Gothic       Old English       Other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility

In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age Old Gutnish was the dialect of Old Norse that was spoken on the island of Gotland. Crimean Gothic was a Germanic dialect spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea (now in Ukraine) until the late 18th The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. Terminology and usage As a cultural term "Scandinavia" has no official definition and is subject to usage by those who identify with the culture in question as well Proto-Norse (also Proto-Scandinavian, Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Ancient Nordic, Old Scandinavian and Proto-North Germanic This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden). Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland ( ( Ísland or Lýðveldið Ísland ( The Kingdom of Denmark ( ˈd̥ænmɑɡ̊ (archaic ˈd̥anmɑːɡ̊ commonly known as Denmark, is a country in the Scandinavian region of northern Europe "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation.

The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). is a county, province and municipality of Sweden and the largest Island in the Baltic Sea. Old Gutnish was the dialect of Old Norse that was spoken on the island of Gotland. The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Proto-Norse (also Proto-Scandinavian, Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Ancient Nordic, Old Scandinavian and Proto-North Germanic The Elder Futhark (or Elder Fuþark, Older Futhark, Old Futhark) is the oldest form of the Runic alphabet, used by Germanic tribes The Younger Futhark, also called the Scandinavian runes, is a Runic alphabet, a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, consisting of only 16 characters in Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract

From 1100 and onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Österbotten and southeastern Finland in the north. An isogloss is the geographical boundary or delineation of a certain linguistic feature e Zealand (also Sealand Danish: Sjælland;) is the largest Island (7031 km² of Denmark (excluding Greenland Geography Norrland comprises the historical provinces ( landskap) Gästrikland, Medelpad, Ångermanland, Hälsingland, Jämtland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe.

An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with A monophthong ( Greek μονόφθογγος "monophthongos" = single note) is a "pure" Vowel sound one whose articulation at This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas. The Mälaren Valley (Mälardalen occasionally referred to as Stockholm-Mälaren Region ( Stockholm-Mälaren regionen) is the easternmost part of Svealand ^[2]

Old Swedish

A copy of Äldre Västgötalagen—a law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet. See also Medieval Scandinavian laws Västgötalagen or the Westrogothic law is the oldest Swedish text written in the Latin script A civil code is a systematic compilation of laws designed to comprehensively deal with the core areas of Private law. is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative Provinces of Sweden ( landskap in Swedish situated in the southwest of Sweden.

Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. A civil code is a systematic compilation of laws designed to comprehensively deal with the core areas of Private law. See also Medieval Scandinavian laws Västgötalagen or the Westrogothic law is the oldest Swedish text written in the Latin script The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. Monasticism (from Greek μοναχός, monachos, derived from Greek monos, alone is the religious practice in which one Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Low Saxon became ever more present. The Hanseatic League (also known as the Hansa) was an alliance of trading cities and their Guilds that established and maintained trade The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch. Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname

Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. In Grammar, the case of a Noun or Pronoun indicates its Grammatical function in a greater Phrase or Clause; such as the In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another The dative case is a Grammatical case generally used to indicate the Noun to whom something is given The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.

A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ – and sometimes as a' – though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a^o, and "oe" became o^e. These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, å and ö. " Ä " or " ä " is a character which represents either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets or the letter A with The letter Å represents various sounds in the Swedish, Finnish (although no native Finnish words contain the letter å Danish, Norwegian O-Umlaut The glyph O with Umlaut appears in the German alphabet. ^[3]

Modern Swedish

Main article: Modern Swedish

Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541. Modern Swedish (nysvenska is the linguistic term used for the Swedish language from the Bible translation of 1526 to the development of a common national language Gustav I, born Gustav Eriksson (Colloquial 15th century Upplandic Gösta Jerksson) and later known as Gustav Vasa (12 May 1496 – 29 September The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. Uppsala ˈɵpˌsɑːla (older spelling Upsala) is the capital of Uppsala County ( Uppsala län) and the fourth largest city of 1541".

Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium (such as paper or cloth thereby transferring an image The Protestant Reformation was a reform movement in Europe that began in 1517 though its roots lie further back in time After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. Gustav I, born Gustav Eriksson (Colloquial 15th century Upplandic Gösta Jerksson) and later known as Gustav Vasa (12 May 1496 – 29 September Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The Bible has been translated into many languages from the Biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek. The Gustav Vasa Bible is the common name of the Swedish Bible translation published in 1540-41 The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri. Laurentius Andreae (c 1470 &ndash April 14, 1552) was a Swedish clergyman and scholar who is acknowledged as one of his country's preeminent intellectual Laurentius Petri Nericius ( Örebro 1499 – 27 October 1573) was a Swedish clergyman and the first Evangelical Lutheran Olof Persson (sometimes Petersson; born January 6, 1493 in Örebro, died April 19, 1552 in Stockholm better known under

The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. ^[4] It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.

Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.

Capitalization during this time was not standardized. Capitalization (or capitalisation &mdash see spelling differences) is writing a word with its first letter as a Majuscule (upper case letter It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. Blackletter, also known as Gothic script or Gothic minuscule, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua). Antiqua Typefaces are those designed between about 1470 and 1600 specifically those by Nicholas Jenson and the Aldine roman commissioned by Aldus Manutius

Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative [ʃ] and later into [ɧ]. The voiceless alveolar fricatives are Consonantal sounds The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a There was also the gradual softening of [ɡ] and [k] into [j] and the fricative [ɕ] before front vowels. The voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward The velar fricative [ɣ] was also transformed into the corresponding plosive [ɡ]. The voiced velar fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in various spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The voiced velar plosive is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that ^[5]

August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature. ( January 22, 1849  &ndash May 14, 1912) was a Swedish Writer, Playwright, and painter.

Contemporary Swedish

The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. is a process of social and economic change whereby a human group is transformed from a Pre-industrial society into an industrial one Urbanizationn (also spelled urbanisation) is the physical growth of Urban areas into rural or natural land as a result of population in-migration to an existing Swedish literature refers to literature written in the Swedish language or by writers from Sweden. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. /ˈgɵsˌtav ˈfrøːˌdɪŋ/ ( August 22, 1860 - February 8, 1911) was a Swedish poet and writer born in Alster outside / sèlˈma ʊ̀tiːlɪa lʊ̀viˈsa lɑ̀ːgərˈløːv / (20 November 1858&ndash16 March 1940 was a Swedish Author and the first woman writer to win the ( January 22, 1849  &ndash May 14, 1912) was a Swedish Writer, Playwright, and painter. ^[6]

It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.

A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. In Sociology or Anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in Society (one's Social position) A title is a prefix or suffix added to a person's name to signify either veneration an official position or a professional or academic qualification A surname is a name added to a Given name and is part of a Personal name. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. Grammatical person, in Linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event such as the speaker the Addressee, or others In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Social class refers to the hierarchical distinctions (or stratification) between individuals or groups in Societies or Cultures. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. ^[7] However, among younger generations the form ni remains in frequent use as a respectful form of address towards older people, and is occasionally used by sales clerks towards customers.

Former language minorities

Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations

From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e. The Estonian Swedes, Estonia-Swedes, or Coastal Swedes ( Swedish: Estlandssvenskar, or "Estonia Swedes" colloquially Aibofolke g. , Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. Hiiumaa is the second largest Island (989 km² belonging to Estonia. Estonia 's fourth largest Island, Vormsi, is located between Hiiumaa and the mainland with a total area of 92 square kilometers Ruhnu (Runö is an Island situated in the Gulf of Riga in the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea is a Brackish inland sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N Latitude and from 20°E to 26°E Longitude. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. TalkParliament#Screen-size. -->A  parliament is a Legislature, especially in those After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). The Russian Empire ( Pre-reform Russian: Pоссійская Имперія Modern Russian: Российская Империя translit: Rossiyskaya Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Verbivka ( Standard Swedish: Gammalsvenskby, local Swedish dialect Gammölsvänskbi literally "Old Swedish Village" Ukrainian Старошведське A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. ^[8]

From 1918–1930, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Only a handful of older speakers remain today. ^[9]

Geographic distribution

Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. In the latter half of the 2000s, around 5. 5% of the population of Finland are Swedish speakers,^[10] though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. ^[11] The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. Finland Swedish is a general term for the closely related cluster of Dialects of Swedish spoken in Finland by Swedish-speaking Finns as their An archipelago (ɑrkəˈpɛləgoʊ is a chain or cluster of Islands The word archipelago literally means "chief Sea " from Italian In some of these areas, Swedish is the dominating language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Åland, Swedish is the only official language. A municipality is an administrative entity composed of a clearly defined territory and its population and commonly denotes a City, Town, or Village, or ^[12] In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the languages and cultures (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe called the Nordic region, consisting of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside A region or society where several different groups are spontaneously assimilated is sometimes referred to as a Melting pot. According to the 2000 US census some 67,000 people over age five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. The United States Census is a decennial Census mandated by the United States Constitution. ^[13] Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. ^[14]

Official status

A Finnish/Swedish street sign

Swedish in Sweden is considered the "main language" and is used as the primary language used in local and state government, but not legally recognised as an official language. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145–147) due to a pairing-off failure. Pairing is a system whereby two Members of parliament from opposing political parties may agree to abstain where one member is unable to vote due to other commitments illness ^[15]

Swedish is the only official language of Åland (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. An autonomous area is an area of a Country that has a degree of Autonomy, or freedom from an external authority Sovereignty is the exclusive Right to control a Government, a country, a people or oneself Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some rural and coastal municipalities. Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. This article is on the municipality of Finland For other uses see Korsnäs (disambiguation. Närpes ( Närpiö in Finnish) is a City in Finland. The municipality is located in the province of Western Finland Larsmo ( Luoto in Finnish) is a municipality of Finland, located in the Ostrobothnia region of the province of Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in The Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers is an intergovernmental forum for co-operation between the Nordic countries. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. The Nordic Language Convention is a convention of Linguistic rights which came into force in March 1, 1987, under the auspices of the Nordic The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe called the Nordic region, consisting of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Translation is the interpreting of the meaning of a text and the subsequent production of an equivalent text likewise called a " translation ^[16][17]

Regulatory bodies

The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does. The Swedish Language Council ( Språkrådet) is the primary regulatory body for the advancement and cultivation of the Swedish language. L'Académie française, or the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. The Swedish Academy (Svenska Akademien founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. A dictionary is a book of alphabetically listed Words in a specific language with definitions etymologies pronunciations and other information or a book of alphabetically Svenska Akademiens Ordlista, or SAOL for short is a Dictionary published every few years by the Swedish Academy. Svenska Akademiens ordbok ( SAOB) is a Dictionary published by the Swedish Academy, with the official title Ordbok över svenska språket utgiven av Spelling is the Writing of a Word or words with the necessary letters and Diacritics present in an accepted standard order A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for design and writing of documents either for general use or for a specific publication or organization Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.

In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. The Research Institute for the Languages of Finland (Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus Päikkieennâm kielâi tutkâmkuávdáš Ruovttueatnan gielaid dutkanguovddáš Finnosko tšimbengo Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden from their point of view.

Dialects

Main article: Swedish dialects

The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Swedish dialects can be categorized into Traditional Dialects (with no Standard Swedish influence and Modern Dialects (with various degrees of Standard Swedish influence A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος dialektos) is a variety of a Language that is characteristic of a particular group of Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Österbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. The Operations Research Society of America Oxacillin-resistant ''Staphylococcus aureus'' Närpes ( Närpiö in Finnish) is a City in Finland. The municipality is located in the province of Western Finland In Grammar, the case of a Noun or Pronoun indicates its Grammatical function in a greater Phrase or Clause; such as the These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmål (lit. A parish is a Local church; it is an administrative unit typically found in episcopal or presbyterian churches "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately. ^[18]

This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The term nationalism can refer to an Ideology, a sentiment, a form of Culture, or a Social movement that focuses on the Nation The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s and onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. "Popular press" redirects here note that the University of Wisconsin Press publishes under the imprint "The Popular Press" The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. Norrbotten (English meaning Northbottom) is a Swedish province ( landskap) in northernmost Sweden. is a county, province and municipality of Sweden and the largest Island in the Baltic Sea. A dialect continuum is a range of Dialects spoken across a large geographical area differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close and gradually decreasing This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects. The Norwegian dialects are commonly divided into 5 main groups North Norwegian (nordnorsk Trøndelag Norwegian ( Trøndersk[http //www Danish ( d̥ænsɡ̊ is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the ^[19]

The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers; older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists. ^[20]

Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples

1. Överkalix, Norrbotten; younger female

2. Överkalix (Finnish Ylikainuu) is a locality (pop 950 in Norrbotten, Sweden and the seat of Överkalix Municipality, Norrbotten Norrbotten (English meaning Northbottom) is a Swedish province ( landskap) in northernmost Sweden. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female

3. Burträsk is a locality in Skellefteå Municipality, Västerbotten County, Sweden. is a province or landskap in the north of Sweden. It borders Ångermanland, Lapland, Norrbotten and the Gulf Aspås, Jämtland; younger female

4. or Jamtland (ˈjamtˌlanː in Jamtish) is a historical province or Landskap in the center of Sweden in Northern Färila, Hälsingland; older male

5. Färila, is a small town in Ljusdal Municipality, Hälsingland, Gävleborgs län, Sweden. is a historical province or landskap in central Sweden. It borders to Gästrikland, Dalarna, Härjedalen, Medelpad Älvdalen, Dalarna; older female

6. Älvdalen is a town (pop 1800 in Dalarna, Sweden and the seat of Älvdalen Municipality, Dalarna County. Gräsö, Uppland; older male

7. Gräsö is an island in Östhammar Municipality, off the coast of Uppland province Uppland ( is a historical province or landskap on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male

8. Sorunda is a locality with 1352 (2005 inhabitants situated in Nynäshamn Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden. sometimes referred to under its Latin form Sudermannia, is a historical province or landskap on the south eastern coast of Sweden. Köla, Värmland younger female

9. is a historical province or landskap in the west of middle Sweden. Viby, Närke; older male

10. is a traditional Swedish province or landskap in middle Sweden. Sproge, Gotland; younger female

11. is a county, province and municipality of Sweden and the largest Island in the Baltic Sea. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female

12. Närpes ( Närpiö in Finnish) is a City in Finland. The municipality is located in the province of Western Finland Ostrobothnia (Österbotten Pohjanmaa is a Region of Finland (landskap maakunta Dragsfjärd, Åboland; older male

13. Åboland, in Swedish, or Turunmaa, in Finnish, is a sub-region in the Finland Proper region in south-western Finland Porvoo, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male

14. "Borga" redirects here For the village in Bangladesh see Borga Bangladesh. Eastern Uusimaa (Itä-Uusimaa / Östra Nyland is a region ( maakunta / landskap) in Southern Finland. Orust, Bohuslän; older male

15. Orust Municipality ( Orusts kommun) is a municipality in Västra Götaland County in western Sweden. is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative Provinces of Sweden ( landskap in Swedish situated on the west coast of the country Floby, Västergötland; older female

16. Floby is a Town in the Municipality of Falköping, which is located in Västergötland, Sweden. is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative Provinces of Sweden ( landskap in Swedish situated in the southwest of Sweden. Rimforsa, Östergötland; older female

17. Östergötland is a one of the traditional Provinces of Sweden ( landskap in Swedish) in the south of Sweden. Årstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male

18. is one of the traditional Provinces of Sweden ( landskap in Swedish on the western coast of Sweden. Stenberga, Småland; younger female

19. is a historical province ( landskap) in southern Sweden. Småland borders Blekinge, Scania or Skåne Halland, Jämshög, Blekinge; older female

20. is a one of the Provinces of Sweden ( landskap) situated in the south of the country Bara, Scania; older male

Standard Swedish

Standard Swedish, which is derived from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. Scania ( in Swedish and Danish) is a geographical region on the southernmost tip of the Scandinavian peninsula, a traditional province ( Standard Swedish ( standardsvenska) denotes Swedish as a spoken and written Standard language. ('stɔkhɔlm is Sweden 's Capital and its largest City. It is the site of the national Swedish government, the parliament, and the Swedish -speaking Finns (often called Finland-Swedes, Finnish Swedes, Fennoswedes or Swedish Finns, see below ( Swedish The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc. The provinces of Sweden, Landskap, are historical geographical and cultural regions ). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish. "Popular press" redirects here note that the University of Wisconsin Press publishes under the imprint "The Popular Press"

Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute (Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skånska were provided as alternatives in the poll. ^[21]

Finland Swedish

Main article: Finland Swedish

Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Finland Swedish is a general term for the closely related cluster of Dialects of Swedish spoken in Finland by Swedish-speaking Finns as their Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then.

Immigrant variants

Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. Rinkeby Swedish ( Rinkebysvenska) is a common term for varieties of Swedish spoken mainly in suburbs with a high proportion of Rinkeby is a district (stadsdel in Rinkeby-Kista borough Stockholm, Sweden. Gothenburg ( Swedish:) /jœte'bɔrj/ is a city, a municipality, and an urban area on the west-coast of Sweden. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. In Linguistics, a sociolect is the variety of language characteristic of a social background or status Some studies have however found distinctive features and lead to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Rosengård, literally "Rose garden" is a city district in Malmö, Sweden. ^[22] A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1. 8% guessed his native language correctly. ^[23]

Sounds

Main article: Swedish phonology

Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short /e/ and /ɛ/ coincide). The Phonology of Swedish is notable for having a large Vowel inventory with 9 vowels that are distinguished in quality and to some degree quantity making The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, /ɧ/, and /r/ show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal The so-called voiceless palatal-velar fricative (also called a voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, voiceless postalveolar and velar fricative, or voiceless A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc. In Linguistics, prosody (from Greek προσωδία) is the Rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech ) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect. Often the prosody is the first to be changed, perhaps because it is the element most disruptive to understanding, or simply the easiest to adapt.

Vocabulary

The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet In Phonetics, labiodentals are Consonants articulated with the lower Lip and the upper Teeth. In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people

A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Transcription is the conversion into written typewritten or printed form of a Spoken language source such as the proceedings of a court hearing Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. A lingua franca (from Italian, literally meaning Frankish language, see etymology under Sabir and Italian below is any Language widely The Hanseatic League (also known as the Hansa) was an alliance of trading cities and their Guilds that established and maintained trade Standard German ( German: Hochdeutsch) is the standard varieties of the German language used as a Written language, in formal contexts Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). In Linguistics, a calque (kælk or loan translation is a Word or Phrase borrowed from another Language by Literal, word-for-word ^[24]

As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e. g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong In linguistics the head is the word that determines the syntactic type of the Phrase of which it is a member or analogously the stem that determines the New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in öl ("beer") and öla ("to drink beer"). In Linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from In Linguistics, conversion, also called zero derivation, is a kind of Word formation; specifically it is the creation of a Word In Grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an Affix which is placed at the end of a word

Writing system

The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Å / å, Ä / ä, and Ö / ö constructed in modern time from the habit of writing the later letter of ao, ae and oe on top of the former. The Swedish Alphabet consists of the following 29 letters Upper Case A, B, C, D, E, F An alphabet is a standardized set of letters basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a Phoneme, a Spoken language, either The letter Å represents various sounds in the Swedish, Finnish (although no native Finnish words contain the letter å Danish, Norwegian " Ä " or " ä " is a character which represents either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets or the letter A with O-Umlaut The glyph O with Umlaut appears in the German alphabet. Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the word diacritic, these 3 characters are not considered as diacritics within the narrower Swedish application since they are sorted in that order following z as independent letters. The letter A is the first letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is a (eɪ plural O is the fifteenth letter of the modern Latin Alphabet. Its name in English is spelled o (oʊ plural usually o's or os; sometimes A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Svenska Akademiens Ordlista, or SAOL for short is a Dictionary published every few years by the Swedish Academy. Other diacritics (to use the broader English word usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation É, é ( E - acute) is a letter of Hungarian, Icelandic, Kashubian, Czech, Slovak, and Uyghur language idé); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. History An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels. Pitch The grave accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, where it occurred only on the last syllable of a word in cases where the The letter à is used to refer to unit cost, equivalent to the at sign (@) in English. Pitch The grave accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, where it occurred only on the last syllable of a word in cases where the The typographic character @, the at sign, denotes a pan-lingual abbreviation of the word 'at'

German ü is treated a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names. Letter Ü The letter Ü occurs in Hungarian, Karelian, Turkish, Estonian, Azeri, Turkmen, Crimean The letter Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. A diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). In Linguistics, diaeresis, or dieresis, is the pronunciation of two adjacent Vowels in two separate Syllables rather than as a Diphthong The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to German umlaut, where a or å is softened to ä during conjugation (natt – nätter, tång – tänger), and o is softened to ö (bok – böcker). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung – yngre); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity. The Domain Name System (DNS is a hierarchical naming system for computers services or any resource participating in the Internet.

In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor for tio kronor och femtio öre (10. 50 SEK); for abbreviations such as 1:a for första (first) and S:t for Sankt (Saint); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as 53:an for femtiotrean (the 53), första a:t for "the first a" and tv:n for televisionen (the television). ^[25]

Grammar

Main article: Swedish grammar

Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Swedish is descended from Old Norse. Compared to its progenitor Swedish Grammar is much less characterized by Inflection. In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" Nouns belong to one of two genders—common for the en form or neuter for the ett form^[26]—which also determine the declension of adjectives. In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:

The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). Demonstratives are deictic words (they depend on an external frame of reference that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or A determiner is a Noun modifier that expresses the reference of a noun or noun phrase including quantity rather than its attributes as expressed For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e. g. , jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").

Adjectives are inflected in two declensions — indefinite and definite — and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e. g. , en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar (green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e. g. , den gröna stolen (the green chair), det gröna huset (the green house), and de gröna stolarna (the green chairs). The irregular adjective liten (little/small) is declined differently:

Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or An object in Grammar is a Sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:

hon - hennes - henne

Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In Linguistics, a clitic is a grammatically independent and phonologically dependent Word. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.

mannen; "the man"

mannens hatt; "the man's hat"

mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"

mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"

Verbs are conjugated according to tense. In Linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a Verb, Noun or Adjective from its Principal parts by Inflection Grammatical tense is a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at during or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form, though with most verbs this is identical to the infinitive form. In Grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:

Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"

Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"

In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. The perfect aspect is variously considered either an aspect or tense which calls a listener's attention to the consequences generated by an action rather than the Present Tense is the first Sagittarius album released in 1968 by Columbia Records. In Linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a Calque of Greek μετοχη "partaking" is a derivative of a non-finite Rather, the auxiliary verb "har", "hade" ("have"/"has", "had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):

Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"

Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"

The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead. In Linguistics, an auxiliary (also called helping verb, helper verb, auxiliary verb, or verbal auxiliary) is a Verb functioning In Grammar a supine is a form of Verbal noun used in some languages

In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish. In Grammar, a clause is a word or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in some Languages and some types of

Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"

Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions. In Grammar, the subjunctive mood (sometimes referred to as the conjunctive mood) is a Verb mood that exists in many languages An idiom is a Phrase whose meaning cannot be deduced from the literal Definition, but refers instead to a figurative meaning that is known only

The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages.

Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. In Linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek grc συν- syn-, "together" and grc τάξις táxis, "arrangement" is the Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. In Linguistic typology, subject-verb-object ( SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first the Verb second and the object Verb-second (V2 word order, in Syntax, is the rule in some languages that the second constituent of declarative main clauses is always a verb while this is not necessarily In Grammar, a clause is a word or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in some Languages and some types of Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). An adpositional phrase is a Linguistics term that includes (a prepositional phrase(s (which are usually found in head-first languages like English) and Place Manner Time is a term used in Linguistic typology to state the general order of Adpositional phrases in a language's sentences "to the store by car Adjectives precede the noun they modify. ^[27]

Sample

Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898–1961):

See also

• Languages of Sweden
• Languages of Finland
• Mandatory Swedish
• Minority languages of Sweden
• Swenglish
• Swedish as a foreign language

Notes

References

Print sources

Web sources

Recommended reading

Language courses

• Colloquial Swedish–The complete course for beginners Second Edition. The OCLC Online Computer Library Center is according to its website a "nonprofit membership computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purpose Nationalencyklopedin ( NE) is the most comprehensive contemporary Swedish language Encyclopedia, initiated by a government grant Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
• Teach Yourself Swedish–A complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
• Svenska utifrån–Lärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
• På svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande språk–Lärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
• På svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande språk–Lärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5

Grammars

• Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Åke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
• Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
• Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
• Svenska utifrån Schematic grammar–Swedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.

Dictionaries

• Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
• Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
• Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
• Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.

External links

Dictionaries

• Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
• Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.