Swedish

## Overview

**Swedish** ( *svenska*) is a North Germanic language spoken natively by 9.6 million people, predominantly in Sweden (as the sole official language), and in parts of Finland, where it has equal legal standing with Finnish. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to some extent with Danish, although the degree of mutual intelligibility is largely dependent on the dialect and accent of the speaker. Both Norwegian and Danish are generally easier for Swedish speakers to read than to listen to because of difference in accent and tone when speaking. Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It has the most speakers of the North Germanic languages.

Standard Swedish, spoken by most Swedes, 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. While distinct regional varieties descending from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized.

The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages, V2, which means that the finite verb (V) appears in the second position (2) of a declarative main clause. Swedish morphology is similar to English; that is, words have comparatively few inflections. Swedish has two genders and is generally seen to have two grammatical cases – nominative and genitive (except for pronouns that, as in English, also are inflected in the object form) – although it is debated if the genitive in Swedish should be seen as a genitive case, or just the nominative plus the so-called genitive *s*, then seen as a clitic. Swedish has two grammatical numbers – plural and singular. Adjectives have discrete comparative and superlative forms, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.

## History

### Old Norse

In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, evolved into Old Norse. This language underwent more 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). The dialects of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden are called *Runic Swedish*, while the dialects of Denmark are referred to as *Runic Danish*. The dialects are described as "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 had only 16 letters. 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*, also used for *e*.[4]

From 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, or isoglosses, ranging from Zealandin the south to Norrland, Österbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.

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". 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". By the end of the period, these innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish-speaking area as well, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.

### Old Swedish

Old Swedish (Swedish: *fornsvenska*) is the term used for the medieval Swedish language. The start date is usually set to 1225 since this is the year that *Västgötalagen* ("the Västgöta Law") is believed to have been compiled for the first time. It is among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script and the oldest Swedish law codes. Old Swedish is divided into *äldre fornsvenska* (1225–1375) and *yngre fornsvenska* (1375–1526), "older" and "younger" Old Swedish. Important outside influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Christian church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, Middle Low German became very influential. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of Low German-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their native languages 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. The League also brought a certain measure of influence from Danish (at the time much more similar than today's language).

Early Old Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and also retained the original Germanic three-gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numeralswere inflected in four cases; besides the extant nominative, there were also the genitive (later possessive), dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having masculine, feminine and neuter genders. The masculine and feminine genders were later merged into a *common gender* with the definite suffix *-en* and the definite article *den*, in contrast with the neuter gender equivalents *-et* and *det*. 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.

### Modern Swedish

Modern Swedish (Swedish: *nysvenska*) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. 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 main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.

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. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. 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. Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).

### Contemporary Swedish

It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography finally stabilized and became almost completely uniform, with 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 of today. The plural verb forms appeared decreasingly in formal writing into the 1950s, when their use was removed from all official recommendations.

A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 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. The use of *herr* ("Mr" or "Sir"), *fru* ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or *fröken* ("Miss") was considered the only acceptable way to begin 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*. (Cf. T-V distinction.) *Ni* wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of *du*, the 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 class distinctions became less important, and *du* became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decree, but rather the result of sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years, from the late 1960s to early 1970s. The use of *ni* as a polite form of address is sometimes encountered today in both the written and spoken language, particularly among older speakers.

## Swedish excerpt from Wikipedia article "Svenska"

I den språklag som trädde i kraft 1 juli 2009 anges att svenskan är huvudspråk i Sverige. Det innebär att svenska är samhällets gemensamma språk, som alla som bor i Sverige ska ha tillgång till och som ska kunna användas inom alla samhällsområden. Det allmänna ska ha ett särskilt ansvar för att svenskan används och utvecklas. Lagen innebär också ett starkare skydd för det svenska teckenspråket och för de fem nationella minoritetsspråken finska, jiddisch, meänkieli, romani chib och samiska. Det allmänna ska ha ett särskilt ansvar för att skydda och främja dessa språk. Den som har ett annat modersmål än svenska, svenskt teckenspråk eller nationellt minoritetsspråk ska ges möjlighet att utveckla och använda sitt modersmål.

Även om svenskan har varit officiellt administrativt och liturgiskt språk sedan tidigt 1500-tal ansågs det fram till nyligen inte nödvändigt att i lag fastställa svenskans status som officiellt språk i Sverige. Så sent som den 7 december 2005 beslutade Sveriges riksdag med röstsiffrorna 147 mot 145 att inte anta svenskan som officiellt majoritetsspråk utan att även fortsättningsvis endast benämna svenskan som huvudspråk. Beslutet kritiserades, bland annat av Sture Allén, ledamot av Svenska Akademien.

Även om svenskan har varit officiellt administrativt och liturgiskt språk sedan tidigt 1500-tal ansågs det fram till nyligen inte nödvändigt att i lag fastställa svenskans status som officiellt språk i Sverige. Så sent som den 7 december 2005 beslutade Sveriges riksdag med röstsiffrorna 147 mot 145 att inte anta svenskan som officiellt majoritetsspråk utan att även fortsättningsvis endast benämna svenskan som huvudspråk. Beslutet kritiserades, bland annat av Sture Allén, ledamot av Svenska Akademien.

### Språkmyndigheter

Det finns ingen officiellt fastslagen instans för reglering av svenska i Sverige. Institutionen Språkrådet kan dock ses som Sveriges officiella språkorgan och finansieras av den svenska regeringen. Det har dock inga ambitioner att utöva direkt kontroll över språket liknande de som *Académie française* har som mål. Språkrådet består av representanter från en rad olika organisationer, inklusive Svenska Akademien. Dess främsta medel för att reglera språket är genom ordböcker som *Svenska Akademiens ordbok* (SAOB) och *Svenska Akademiens ordlista* (SAOL), samt en rad olika handböcker i grammatik, stavning och rättskrivning (främst *Svenska skrivregler*). Även om SAOL ofta betraktas som normerande, så är dess funktion främst att beskriva den samtida språkanvändningen.

Den rikliga utgivningen av ordböcker och språkhandböcker under senare år, *Svenska Akademiens grammatik* (1999), *Svenska Akademiens språklära* (2003), *Svenskt språkbruk* (2003), *Svenska språknämndens uttalsordbok* (2003), *Språkriktighetsboken* (2005), jämte databaser på internet såsom SAOB, Språkbanken, är ett led i den nordiska språkvårdens målsättning att göra språkets regler och normer tydliga och tillgängliga för alla. Utgivningen av sådana böcker har fått språkvetare som Sture Allén och Catharina Grünbaum att kalla svenskan för ett av världens bäst beskrivna språk.

I Finland regleras svenskan av Svenska avdelningen vid Institutet för de inhemska språken som har officiell status som språkmyndighet. Bland dess högst prioriterade uppgifter är att se till att finlandssvenskan inte fjärmar sig från sverigesvenskan i för hög grad. Svenska avdelningen vid Institutet för de inhemska språken har till exempel gett ut *Finlandssvensk ordbok* som belyser de skillnader som finns mellan svenskan i Finland och Sverige.