Swedish is the official language of Sweden and is spoken by the vast majority of the 10.23 million inhabitants of the country. It is a North Germanic language and quite similar to its sister Scandinavian languages, Danish and Norwegian, with which it maintains partial mutual intelligibility and forms a dialect continuum. A number of regional Swedish dialects are spoken across the country. In total, more than 200 languages are estimated to be spoken across the country, including regional languages, indigenous Sámi languages, and immigrant languages.[2]
In 2009, the Riksdag passed a national language law recognizing Swedish as the main and common language of society, as well as the official language for "international contexts". The law also confirmed the official status of the five national minority languages — Finnish, Meänkieli, Romani, Sámi languages and Yiddish — and Swedish Sign Language.
History
For most of its history, Sweden was a larger country than today. At its height in 1658, the Swedish Empire spread across what is currently Finland and Estonia and into parts of Poland, Russia, Latvia, Germany, Denmark, and Norway. Hence, Sweden's linguistic landscape has historically been very different from its current context.
Finnish was the majority language of Sweden's eastern parts, though it was almost exclusively a spoken language. Parts of Finland are also home to a significant Swedish-speaking minority, including Åland, many of whom speak the Finland Swedish dialect. Finnish became a minority language in western Sweden as many Finnish speakers migrated there for economic reasons.
Latin, as the language of the Catholic Church, was introduced to Sweden with the Christianization of Sweden, around AD 1000. As in most of Europe, Latin remained the lingua franca and scholarly language of the educated communities for centuries in Sweden. For instance, Carl Linnaeus's most famous work, Systema Naturae, published in 1735, was written in Latin.
During the 18th century, French was the second language of Europe's upper classes and Sweden was no exception. The Swedish aristocracy often spoke French among themselves and code-switching between French and Swedish was common. The Swedish King Gustav III was a true Francophile and French was the common language at his court. In 1786, Gustav III founded the Swedish Academy to promote and advance the Swedish language and literature.[4]
Aside from what is currently Norway, Sweden largely obtained its current borders in 1809, when it lost its eastern part (Finland) to the Russian Empire. Sweden largely lost its overseas possessions over time, with Swedish Pomerania being ceded to Denmark in exchange for Norway and Guadeloupe was returned to France in 1814. As a consequence, Sweden became a rather homogeneous country with the exceptions of the indigenous Sámi people and the Finnish-speaking Tornedalians in the northernmost parts of the country.
During the 19th century, Sweden became more industrialised, resulting in important demographic changes. The population doubled and people moved from the countryside to towns and cities. As a consequence of this and factors such as generalised education and mass media, traditional dialects began to make room for the standard language (Standard Swedish). During the same period and until the 1970s, Sweden applied a Swedification policy that limited schooling to Swedish-language instruction and actively discouraged the use of other languages.[5]
As in the rest of Europe and much of the world, the English has grown as an important foreign language in Sweden, especially since the Allied victory in World War II. During the second half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century, Sweden has received great numbers of immigrants who speak languages other than Swedish (see: "Immigrant languages" below). It is unclear to what degree these communities will hold on to their languages and to what degree they will assimilate.
In 2009, the Riksdag passed the Language Law (Språklag SFS 2009:600), which contains provisions concerning the Swedish language, the five national minority languages and Swedish Sign Language. Among its provisions is a general mandate to safeguard the Swedish language, linguistic diversity in Sweden, and individuals' access to language.[6]
Swedish
Map showing the Swedish-speaking areas of Scandinavia and Finland
The Kingdom of Sweden is a nation-state for the Swedish people and as such the national language is held in high regard. Of Sweden's roughly 10 million people, almost all speak Swedish as at least a second language and the majority as a first language (7,825,000, according to SIL's Ethnologue).[citation needed] Swedish is also an official language in Finland where it is spoken by a large number of Swedish-speaking Finns. The language is also spoken to some degree by ethnic Swedes living outside Sweden, for example, just over half a million people of Swedish descent in the United States speak the language, according to Ethnologue.[citation needed]
The Language Law of 2009 recognizes Swedish as the main and common language of society, as well as being the official language in "international contexts".[6]:4,5,14
Map showing the Swedish dialects traditionally spoken. Stripes indicate transitional areas.
South SwedishGötamålSvealand Swedish NorrlandFinland SwedishGutnish Norwegian Dialectal Influence
A number of Swedish dialects exist and are generally classified into six groups, called sockenmål in Swedish: South Swedish, Götamål, Svealand Swedish, Norrland, Finland Swedish, and Gutnish. As North Germanic languages these dialects all grew out of Old Norse, but under differing influences as the language split along East and West Scandinavian branches. In western Sweden, many local dialects, such as Jämtlandic and Dalecarlian, show greater influence from the West Scandinavian branch of Old Norse and Norwegian. Some dialects are divergent enough from standard Swedish to be considered separate languages.
The Dalecarlian dialect group of Dalarna County varies significantly, ranging from the variations in the northwest of the county similar to the neighboring East NorwegianØsterdalsmål[no] dialect to versions more similar to Swedish. The Älvdalen Municipality has a population of about 1,500 speakers of the Elfdalian Dalecarlian dialect.[7]
Modern Gutnish or Gotlandic exists as a spoken language in Gotland and Fårö. While influenced by Swedish, Gutnish is descended from Old Gutnish, which evolved as a separate branch of Old Norse.
Spoken mainly in Jämtland, but with a scattered speaker population throughout the rest of Sweden, Jämtlandic or Jämska is a West Scandinavian language and part of the Norrland sockenmål with 95% lexical similarity to Norwegian and Swedish, but is generally more archaic. It has a native speaker population of 30,000.[8]
Spoken in the Swedish province of Scania, Scanian is considered by some a dialect of Danish,[9] and the related Bornholmsk dialect spoken on the Baltic island of Bornholm, is considered an East Danish dialect. Historically, Bornholmsk and Scanian split after Denmark ceded Scania to Sweden in 1658, and was heavily influenced by the Swedish language. Modern Scanian is today generally considered by Swedish linguists to be part of the South Swedish dialect group.
In 1999, the Minority Language Committee of Sweden formally declared five languages as official minority languages of Sweden: Finnish, Meänkieli (also known as Tornedal, Tornionlaaksonsuomi or Tornedalian), Romani, Sámi languages (in particular Lule, Northern, and Southern Sámi), and Yiddish.[10] The Language Law of 2009 confirms the recognition of these five languages as "national minority languages".[6]:7,8 This status enshrines the right of speakers of these languages to receive schooling and other services in their language.
Areas with Finnish speaking population in per cent, in southern Sweden, 2005
As of 2009[update], there were about 470,000 Finnish-speakers in Sweden.[11]Finnish, a Uralic language, has long been spoken in Sweden (the same holds true for Swedish in Finland, see Finland-Swedes, Åland), as Finland was part of the Swedish kingdom for centuries. Ethnic Finns (mainly first- and second-generation immigrants) constitute up to 5% of the population of Sweden. A high concentration of Finnish-speakers (some 16,000) resides in Norrbotten.
Meänkieli is a Finnic language related to Finnish and Kven. Spoken by the Tornedalian people, it is mutually intelligible with Finnish, but has a higher number of Swedish loan words; it is sometimes considered a dialect of Finnish. Meänkieli is mainly used in the municipalities of Gällivare, Haparanda, Kiruna, Pajala and Övertorneå, all of which lie in the Torne Valley. Between 40,000 and 70,000 people speak Meänkieli as their first language.
Map showing where Sámi languages are traditionally spoken
The Sámi people (formerly known as Lapps) are a people indigenous to Scandinavia and the Kola peninsula (see Sápmi) who speak a related group of languages, five of which — Lule, Northern, and Southern Sámi, as well as the critically endangered Ume Sámi and Pite Sámi— are spoken in Sweden.[12] Like Finnish and Meänkieli, Sámi languages are Uralic languages; however, prolonged exposure to Germanic-language-speaking neighbors in Sweden and Norway causes them to have a large number of Germanic loanwords not found in other Uralic languages. Between 15,000 and 20,000 Sámi people live in Sweden of whom 9,000 speak a Sámi language. In Sweden, the largest concentrations of Sámi-language speakers are found in the municipalities of Arjeplog, Gällivare, Jokkmokk, Kiruna, and other parts of Norrbotten.
Romani (also known as Rromani Ćhib) is a family of Indo-Aryan languages spoken by the Romani people, a nomadic ethnic group originating in northern India. Several dialects of Romani are spoken and Swedish, including the ScandoromaniPara-Romani admixture of Scandinavian languages and Romani. Around 90% of Sweden's Romani people speak a form of Romani, meaning that there are approximately 9,500 ćhib speakers. In Sweden, there is no major geographic center for Romani, as there is for Finnish, Sámi, or Meänkieli, but it is considered to be of historical importance by the Swedish government and as such the government is seen as having an obligation to preserve them, a distinction also held by Yiddish.[13] Because of this, the Swedish government has helped develop and publish a significant number of books and educational materials in Romani.[14]
Yiddish
The first issue of Jidische Folkschtime (Yiddish People's Voice), a Yiddish-language newspaper first published in Stockholm, 12 January 1917
Yiddish is a Germanic language with significant Hebrew and Slavic influence, written with a variant of the Hebrew alphabet (see Yiddish orthography) and, formerly spoken by most Ashkenazic Jews (although most now speak the language of the country in which they live). Although the Jewish population of Sweden was traditionally Sephardic, after the 18th century, Ashkenazic immigration increased bringing with them the Yiddish language (See History of the Jews in Sweden). Like Romani, it is seen by the government as a language of historical importance. The organisation Sällskapet för Jiddisch och Jiddischkultur i Sverige (Society for Yiddish and Yiddish Culture in Sweden) has more than 200 members, many of whom are mother-tongue Yiddish speakers, and arranges regular activities for the speech community and in external advocacy for the Yiddish language.
As of 2009[update], the Jewish population in Sweden was estimated at around 20,000, about 2,000–6,000 of whom claim to have at least some knowledge of Yiddish. The number of native speakers among these has been estimated by linguist Mikael Parkvall to be 750–1,500. It is believed that virtually all native speakers of Yiddish in Sweden today are adults, and most of them elderly.[15]
Swedish Sign Language (SSL) is an officially recognized language[6]:9 and is used by the Deaf community in Sweden. SSL was developed in the early 1800s, possibly with some influence from British Sign Language. It has influenced the development of sign languages in Finland, Portugal, and Eritrea (see Swedish Sign Language family).
Foreign languages
Knowledge of foreign languages in Sweden, in per cent of the population aged 15 and above, 2005. Data taken from an EU survey ebs_243_en.pdf (europa.eu).Frequency of use of the English language in Sweden, 2005, according to the EurobarometerSelf-reported knowledge of English in Sweden, 2005
Since the Middle Ages until the end of World War II, Germany was usually the country outside Scandinavia with the closest cultural, commercial and political relations with Sweden. Thus, study of the German language had always been promoted by the Swedish state as the primary foreign language. Many of Sweden's administrative and social institutions, including the education system, were organised along the German and Prussian model, as many Swedish pioneering intellectuals of the 17th century were educated in German universities. This changed after the end of the Second World War, when it was no longer acceptable to emphasise a closer link with defeated Germany.
A majority of Swedes, especially those born after World War II, are able to understand and speak English thanks to trade links, the popularity of overseas travel, a strong American influence, especially in regards to arts and culture, and the tradition of subtitling rather than dubbing foreign television shows and films. English, whether in American, Commonwealth (Australian, Canadian, and Kiwi) or British dialects, has been a compulsory subject for secondary school students studying natural sciences as early as 1849 and has been a compulsory subject for all Swedish students since 1952, when it replaced German.[18]
Depending on local school authorities, English is currently a compulsory subject from third until ninth grade, and all students continue to study English in secondary school for at least another year. Most students also learn one and sometimes two additional languages; the most popular being German, French and Spanish. From the autumn semester 2014, Mandarin Chinese is proposed as a fourth additional language.[19] Some Danish and Norwegian are also taught as part of Swedish language learning to emphasize differences and similarities between the languages.
English
There is currently an ongoing debate among linguists whether English should be considered a foreign language, second language or transcultural language in Sweden (and other Scandinavian countries)[20] due to its widespread use in education[21] and society in general.[22][23] This has also triggered opposition: in 2002 the Swedish government proposed an action plan to strengthen the status of Swedish[24][25] and in 2009 Swedish was announced the official language of the country for the first time in its history. Since 2011, Swedes have consistently been ranked among the best non-native English speakers in the world by EF Education First's English Proficiency Index, placing first on the Index in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2018.[26][27]
Sign in a shop in Swedish, English, Arabic and Russian.
Like many developed European countries from the late 1940s to the 1970s, Sweden has received tens of thousands of guest workers from countries in Southern Europe and the Middle East. Second- and third-generation Swedes of Southern European or Middle Eastern descent have adopted Swedish as their main tongue or in addition to their immigrant languages, such as Arabic, Bulgarian, Greek, Italian, Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian, and Turkish.
In 2016, language-learning service Duolingo shared first-party statistics which showed that most of the people using the service to study Swedish were actually located in Sweden, and that Sweden-based users were taking the Swedish course for English speakers more than any other course available on the service; the staff determined that both of these facts were a result of Sweden's large immigrant population.[28][non-primary source needed]
There are over 250 languages indigenous to Europe, and most belong to the Indo-European language family. Out of a total European population of 744 million as of 2018, some 94% are native speakers of an Indo-European language. The three largest phyla of the Indo-European language family in Europe are Romance, Germanic, and Slavic; they have more than 200 million speakers each, and together account for close to 90% of Europeans.
Swedish is a North Germanic language spoken predominantly in Sweden and in parts of Finland. It has at least 10 million native speakers, the fourth most spoken Germanic language and the first among any other of its type in the Nordic countries overall.
Scandinavia is a subregion of Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. Scandinavia most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also refer to the Scandinavian Peninsula. In English usage, Scandinavia is sometimes used as a synonym for Nordic countries. Iceland and the Faroe Islands are sometimes included in Scandinavia for their ethnolinguistic relations with Sweden, Norway and Denmark. While Finland differs from other Nordic countries in this respect, some authors call it Scandinavian due to its economic and cultural similarities.
The demography of Sweden is monitored by the Statistiska centralbyrån. Sweden's population was 10,555,448, making it the 15th-most populous country in Europe after Czech Republic, the 10th-most populous member state of the European Union, and the 87th-most populous country in the world. The total fertility rate was rated at 1.66 in 2020, which is far below the replacement rate of 2.1.
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also referred to as the Nordic languages, a direct translation of the most common term used among Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish scholars and people.
Finland Swedish or Fenno-Swedish is a variety of the Swedish language and a closely related group of Swedish dialects spoken in Finland by the Swedish-speaking population, commonly also referred to as Finland Swedes, as their first language.
The Swedish-speaking population of Finland is a linguistic minority in Finland. They maintain a strong identity and are seen either as a separate cultural or linguistic group or, while not regularly, as a distinct nationality. They speak Finland Swedish, which encompasses both a standard language and distinct dialects that are mutually intelligible with the dialects spoken in Sweden and, to a lesser extent, other Scandinavian languages.
Sweden Finns are a Finnish-speaking national minority in Sweden.
Meänkieli is a group of distinct Finnish dialects or a Finnic language spoken in the northernmost part of Sweden along the valley of the Torne River. Its status as an independent language is disputed, but in Sweden it is recognized as one of the country's five minority languages.
Meänmaa, or sometimes Torne Valley or Torne River Valley lies at the border of Sweden and Finland. It is named after the Torne River flowing through the valley and into the Gulf of Bothnia. Geographically the townships and municipalities that make up the area are Haparanda, Övertorneå, Pajala and Kiruna in Sweden, and Tornio, Ylitornio, Pello, Kolari, Muonio and Enontekiö in Finland. Culturally the highland Swedish municipality Gällivare is sometimes also considered part of Meänmaa due to the large share of Meänkieli-speaking population in it. Torne Valley should not be confused with Torne Valley Sub-region.
In 1999, the Minority Language Committee of Sweden formally declared five official minority languages: Finnish, Sámi languages, Romani, Yiddish, and Meänkieli.
The Language Council of Sweden is the primary regulatory body for the advancement and cultivation of the Swedish language. The council is a department of the Swedish government's Institute for Language and Folklore. The council asserts control over the language through the publication of various books with recommendations in spelling and grammar as well as books on linguistics intended for a general audience, the sales of which are used to fund its operation. The council also works with four of the five official minority languages in Sweden: Finnish, Meänkieli, Yiddish, and Romani alongside the Swedish Sign Language.
The two main official languages of Finland are Finnish and Swedish. There are also several official minority languages: three variants of Sami, as well as Romani, Finnish Sign Language and Karelian.
Scandoromani is a North Germanic based Para-Romani language. It is spoken by the Scandinavian Romanisæl Travellers, a Romani minority community, in Norway, and formerly in Sweden.
Many languages are spoken, written and signed in Norway.
Gotlandic is the form of Swedish spoken on the islands of Gotland and Fårö in the Baltic Sea.
Finnish is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland. In Sweden, both Finnish and Meänkieli are official minority languages. The Kven language, which like Meänkieli is mutually intelligible with Finnish, is spoken in the Norwegian county Troms og Finnmark by a minority group of Finnish descent.
Sámi languages, in English also rendered as Sami and Saami, are a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sámi people in Northern Europe. There are, depending on the nature and terms of division, ten or more Sami languages. Several spellings have been used for the Sámi languages, including Sámi, Sami, Saami, Saame, Sámic, Samic and Saamic, as well as the exonyms Lappish and Lappic. The last two, along with the term Lapp, are now often considered pejorative.
The various regional and minority languages in Europe encompass four categories:
References
↑ "kielineuvosto, finska, jidisch, romani, teckenspråk, samiska - Institutet för språk och folkminnen". Sofi.se. 3 February 2007. Archived from the original on 3 February 2007. Retrieved 5 October 2017. "De största invandrarspråken är arabiska, turkiska, persiska, spanska, grekiska och ex-jugoslaviska språk"; "The largest immigrant languages are Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Spanish, Greek and ex-Yugoslav languages". Note that Finnish in deed is one of the most spoken immigrant languages but not classified as such by the Institutet för språk och folkminnen since it has acquired status as an official minority language.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
↑ Parkvall, Mikael (2009). "Sveriges språk. Vem talar vad och var?"[Sweden's languages. Who speaks what and where?](PDF). Rapporter från Institutionen för lingvistik vid Stockholms universitet (in Swedish). pp.68–72.
↑ "Europeans and their Languages"(PDF). Special Eurobarometer 243 / Wave 64.3 - TNS Opinion & Social. European Commission. February 2006. Retrieved May 3, 2011. According to this Eurobarometer survey, 89% of respondents in Sweden indicated that they know English well enough to have a conversation (p. 152). Of these 35% had a very good knowledge of the language, 42% had a good knowledge and 23% had basic English skills (p. 156).
↑ Hult, Francis M. (2017). "More than a lingua franca: Functions of English in a globalised educational language policy". Language, Culture and Curriculum. 30 (3): 265–282. doi:10.1080/07908318.2017.1321008. S2CID151994775.
↑ Hult, Francis M. (2012). "English as a Transcultural Language in Swedish Policy and Practice". TESOL Quarterly. 46 (2): 230–257. doi:10.1002/tesq.19.
↑ Hult, Francis M. (2010). "Swedish television as a mechanism for language planning and policy". Language Problems and Language Planning. 34 (2): 158–181. doi:10.1075/lplp.34.2.04hul.
↑ Regeringskansliet, Regeringen och (20 September 2017). "Government.se". Regeringskansliet. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
↑ Hult, Francis M. (2005). "A Case of Prestige and Status Planning: Swedish and English in Sweden". Current Issues in Language Planning. 6: 73–79. doi:10.1080/14664200508668274. S2CID145734375.
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