Swedish language

Swedish, or svenska, is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family. It is mainly spoken in Sweden and parts of Finland, with at least 10 million native speakers. This makes it the fourth most spoken Germanic language and the most spoken language in the Nordic countries.

Swedish comes from Old Norse, the common language of Germanic peoples in Scandinavia during the Viking Age. It is very similar to Norwegian and Danish. People who speak these languages can usually understand each other, though it depends on their dialect and accent.

Standard Swedish is the national language of Sweden. It developed from Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and became well established by the early 20th century. While there are still distinct regional varieties and rural dialects, the written language is uniform and standardized. In Finland, Swedish is the most widely spoken second language and has official status. There are also Swedish-speaking communities in places like Oslo, Norway, where more than 50,000 people of Swedish descent live.

Classification

Swedish is an Indo-European language that belongs to the North Germanic group of the Germanic languages. It is part of the East Scandinavian languages, along with Danish. This sets it apart from the West Scandinavian languages, which include Faroese, Icelandic, and Norwegian.

Recently, some experts split the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian (Faroese and Icelandic) and Continental Scandinavian (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish). This split is based on how well people can understand each other’s languages. Even though Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish have different ways of writing and speaking, they are very similar and can often be understood by each other. This is because of old rivalries and national pride, which led to separate rules for each language.

History

Main article: History of Swedish

Old Norse

Main article: Old Norse

In the 8th century, the common language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, changed into Old Norse. This language had two main types: Old West Norse (spoken in Norway, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland) and Old East Norse (spoken in Denmark and Sweden). In Sweden, Old East Norse was called Runic Swedish. Old Norse was written with a special alphabet called runes, which had only 16 letters. Because there were so few letters, some were used to represent many sounds.

Old Swedish

Main article: Old Swedish

Old Swedish is the name for the Swedish language used in the Middle Ages. It started around the year 1225, when a very important book called Västgötalagen (the Västgöta Law) was written. During this time, many new words came into Swedish from the Christian church and from traders who spoke Middle Low German. Old Swedish was very different from today’s Swedish. It had more ways to change words to show their meaning and still kept an old system to tell if a word was masculine, feminine, or neuter.

Modern Swedish

Main article: Modern Swedish

Modern Swedish started when the printing press was invented and during a big change in religion called the Reformation. A new Swedish Bible was translated and published in 1541, called the Gustav Vasa Bible. This Bible helped make Swedish writing more consistent. During this time, Swedish spelling changed and new letters like “å”, “ä”, and “ö” were added.

Contemporary Swedish

Today’s Swedish, called nusvenska, began in the late 1800s. With more schools and books, Swedish became easier to use in writing and speaking. Famous writers like Gustaf Fröding, Selma Lagerlöf, and August Strindberg helped shape the language. In the 1960s, Swedish changed how people address each other. Instead of using formal titles, everyone started using the word du, making communication simpler and more friendly.

Geographic distribution

Swedish is the official language of Sweden and one of two official languages in Finland, along with Finnish. In 2006, about 83% of people in Sweden spoke Swedish as their first language. In Finland, around 5.5% of the population, or about 290,000 people, spoke Swedish as their first language. This number has been getting smaller, especially after Finland became part of Russia in the early 1800s. Swedish speakers in Finland mostly live near the coast and on islands in the south and west.

There are also Swedish speakers living outside of Sweden and Finland. As of 2010, up to 300,000 people spoke Swedish outside these countries. The largest groups were in the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany, with smaller groups in other places like France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, and Australia. Over three million people speak Swedish as a second language, with many of them in Finland. Because Scandinavian languages are similar, many people who speak Danish or Norwegian can understand Swedish.

Official status

Swedish is the official language of Sweden. It is also one of the two official languages of Finland. In Sweden, Swedish was used in government and schools for a long time, but it wasn’t officially recognized as the main language until 2009. A law was passed that year to make Swedish the official language of the country.

Swedish is also the only official language on the islands of Åland, which belong to Finland. Most people there speak Swedish. In all of Finland, Swedish has the same official status as Finnish, especially in certain areas.

Swedish is also an official language in the European Union and can be used in meetings of the Nordic Council. People from Nordic countries can use Swedish when dealing with official matters in other Nordic countries without needing to pay for translation.

Regulatory bodies

The Swedish Language Council helps guide how Swedish is used in Sweden. They publish guides and dictionaries, like the Svenska Akademiens ordlista, to help people use the language correctly. In Finland, a special group works to keep Finnish Swedish clear and easy to understand with the Swedish spoken in Sweden.

Language minorities in Estonia and Ukraine

For many centuries, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, especially on islands along the coast of the Baltic Sea. These communities are no longer there. In the early 1700s, when Estonia became part of Russia, about 1,000 Swedish speakers were moved to a village in Ukraine called Gammalsvenskby. A few elderly people there still speak a Swedish dialect, but it is likely to disappear soon.

Phonology

Main article: Swedish phonology

Swedish has many different sounds in its words. Most of these sounds come in pairs — one longer sound and one shorter sound that sound similar. This is like how English has pairs of sounds too.

Swedish also has special stress in its words, where some parts of a word are spoken more strongly than others. This gives Swedish its unique sound.

Grammar

Main article: Swedish grammar

Swedish words follow a specific order, much like many other languages. The verb usually comes second in a sentence. Words in Swedish don’t change shape much, unlike some other languages. There are two types of nouns: common gender (like “en” for “a”) and neuter gender (like “ett” for “one”).

Adjectives change depending on the noun they describe, matching in gender and number. For example, “green chair” changes form depending on whether the chair is singular or plural, and whether it’s common or neuter gender. Swedish also has special words to show if something is definite (like “the”) or indefinite (like “a”).

Pronouns in Swedish are similar to English, with words for “he” and “she,” plus forms for common and neuter gender. Recently, a new pronoun “hen” has been added to be more inclusive. Verbs change to show tense, and there are special forms for commands and descriptions.

Vocabulary

The words in Swedish mostly come from German, Latin, Greek, French, and English. Some common Swedish words like mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose") have German roots. Many words about religion and science come from Latin or Greek, often through French or English. A few words also come from Romani, like tjej ("girl").

During the 1700s, many French words entered Swedish. These words were written using Swedish spelling rules, so they sound a bit French. Examples include nivå ("level"), fåtölj ("armchair"), and affär ("shop" or "affair"). Swedish also borrowed words from Middle Low German and Standard German. Sometimes, Swedish makes new words by putting two words together, like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover"). Words can also change forms, like turning the noun bil ("car") into the verb bila ("to travel by car").

Writing system

Main article: Swedish orthography

The Swedish alphabet has 29 letters. It uses the regular 26-letter alphabet plus three special letters: ⟨å⟩, ⟨ä⟩, and ⟨ö⟩. These three letters were created in the 1500s by adding small marks to other letters. Before 2006, the letter ⟨w⟩ was seen as just another way to write ⟨v⟩, mostly in names and foreign words.

In Swedish writing, the colon (:) is used in some special ways, like in abbreviations and to show ownership, similar to how it's used in English.

Dialects

Main article: Swedish dialects

Swedish has several main groups of dialects, including Norrland dialects, Finland Swedish, Svealand dialects, Gotland dialects, Götaland dialects, and South Swedish dialects. These dialects are local versions of Swedish that have developed separately from the standard language. Many rural dialects have unique sounds and grammar rules, making them hard for most Swedes to understand.

People in Sweden mostly use Standard Swedish, also called rikssvenska. In Finland, Swedish speakers use a version called högsvenska. Swedish was the main language in Finland for many years, and it is still an official language there. Some urban areas have their own versions of Swedish spoken by people from different backgrounds.

Sample

Here is the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Swedish:

Alla människor är födda fria och lika i värdighet och rättigheter. De har utrustats med förnuft och samvete och bör handla gentemot varandra i en anda av gemenskap.

And here it is in English:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

There is also an excerpt from a book called Barfotabarn from 1933 by Nils Ferlin.