Swedish language
Swedish (svenska [ˈsvɛ̂nːska] ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family, spoken predominantly in Sweden and in parts of Finland.[2] 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.[3]
Swedish
Native: 10 million (2012–2021)[1]
L2 speakers: 3 million[1]
Tecknad svenska (obsolete)
Swedish Language Council (in Sweden)
Swedish Academy (in Sweden)
Institute for the Languages of Finland (in Finland)
52-AAA-ck to -cw
Swedish, like the other Nordic languages, is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish, although the degree of mutual intelligibility is dependent on the dialect and accent of the speaker.
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 and rural dialects still exist, the written language is uniform and standardized. Swedish is the most widely spoken second language in Finland where it has status as co-official language.
Swedish was long spoken in parts of Estonia, although the current status of the Estonian Swedish speakers is almost extinct. It is also used in the Swedish diaspora, most notably in Oslo, Norway, with more than 50,000 Swedish residents.[4]
Vocabulary[edit]
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. 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, lately, English. Some 1–200 words are also borrowed from Scandoromani or Romani, often as slang varieties; a commonly used word from Romani is tjej ("girl").[64]
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced recognizably to a French-speaker. 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, "armchair") 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. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton"; literally, tree-wool).[65]
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e. g., nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smyglyssna ("to eavesdrop").[66][67] Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme.[66] 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 bil ("car") and bila ("travel (recreationally) by car").[68] The opposite, making nouns of verbs, is also possible, as in tänk ("way of thinking; concept") from tänka ("to think").[69]