Swedish

Introduction

Sweden Map Swedish belongs to the North (Scandinavian) group of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is closely related to Danish and Norwegian. Swedish is spoken predominantly in Sweden Building and in parts of Finland by close to 9 million people.

Like all Germanic language, Swedish originated from Old Norse which began to split into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark) in the 9th century. In the 12th century, Sweden and Danish emerged as distinct varieties. They became Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. Both were heavily influenced by Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League spoken around the Baltic and North Seas during the medieval period.

water Early medieval Swedish had a more complex grammar than modern Swedish. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases and three genders. (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative), whereas today there are only two (nominative and genitive). The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were were marked for person and number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish, and the verbs lost church their conjugation.

Swedish is the de facto national language of Sweden, where it is spoken by close to 8 million people, although it does not have the status of an official language there. It is the first or primary language for the majority of Sweden's citizens. In Finland, both Swedish and Finnish are official languages. Swedish is a mandatory subject in all Finnish schools. Ethnologue estimates that the total number of speakers of Swedish worldwide is 8.8 million. Swedish is one of the official languages of the European Union.

Dialects

Swedish is generally divided into three main dialect areas:

Northern Swedish (Norrland)
Eastern Swedish (Finland Swedish, Estonian Swedish)
Svea, Gutniska (Gutamal, Gotlandic, Gutnic).

Standard Swedish is based on the Svea variety associated with the cities of Stockholm, Uppsala, Lund, Gothenburg, and Helsinki. Standard Swedish is cultivated through the Svenska språknämnden, the official Swedish language board, which sets standards for the language.

Structure

Sound System

party

Children

Swedish has a large vowel inventory, with nine separate vowels that are distinguished by length. Swedish is also distinguished by its prosody which includes both lexical stress and tonal qualities, and which differs considerably among different varieties of Swedish.

Vowels	Consonants
Swedish has nine short vowels (a, e, i o, u, y, ). Each has a long counterpart. Vowel length makes a difference in word meaning. Standard Swedish does not have any diphthongs, but some dialects do. Front vowels, appear in unrounded-rounded pairs. For instance, the vowels i and e can be pronounced with the lips rounded and protruding, producing sounds that do not have equivalents in English.	Swedish has six stop consonants: p-b, t-d, k-g. There are three nasal sounds: m, (ng); one lateral l. Swedish has a voiceless palato-velar fricative, known as the sje-sound, which is found in all varieties of the language. This sound is unique to Swedish.

Stress
Stressed syllables in Swedish are long. They follow three patterns:

long vowel + short consonant, e.g., tak "roof"
short vowel + long consonant, e.g., tack "thank you"
long vowel not followed by any consonant, e.g., ta "take"

Pitch (tonal) accent
Swedish pitch accent has two patterns used to differentiate between words with otherwise identical pronunciations.

Pitch accent varies throughout the Swedish-speaking area, and is completely absent in Swedish varieties spoken in Finland.

Click here to listen to Swedish pronunciation.

Grammar

Old Norse

Swedish grammar has the following main features:

Nouns

Swedish nouns are marked as follows:

two genders: common and neuter which are not predictable and must be memorized;
two cases: nominative and genitive;
two numbers: singular and plural;
two articles: indefinite and definite (-en/-ett and -den/-det attached to the noun as a suffix) expressing different degrees of definiteness;

.	Singular		Plural
.	Indefinite	Definite	Indefinite	Definite
Nominative	fisk	fisken	fiskar	fiskama
Genitive	fisks	fiskens	fiskars	fiskamas

Adjectives

There are strong and weak adjectives. In the strong form, a distinction is made between the common gender, e.g., en gammal man "an old man" and neuter gender "ett gammalt hus" "an old house." In the weak declension, there is one general form for both genders, e.g., den gamla man, den gamla hus.

Verbs

Verbs are not marked for person or number, e.g., jag "I am," du "you are," han " "he is," vi "we are."
There are two conjugations.
Verbs are marked for tense and aspect.
Swedish is very similair to English in forming and using the past tenses. The perfect tense is formed with the auxiliary verb ha "to have."
There are strong and weak verbs as in all Germanic languages
There are two ways of expressing the future: komma att + infinitive "will," and ska + infinitive "going to."

Word order
The basic word order in Swedish sentences is Subject-Verb-Object.

Click here to learn more about Swedish grammar.

Vocabulary

Norse God

Norse god

The basic vocabulary of Swedish is derived from Old Norse. Swedish has borrowed words from Middle Low German, andmore recently from English. Much of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin and Greek origin, often borrowed through French. New words are mostly formed by compounding, e.g., nagellacksborttagningsmedel "nail polish remover."

Below are some common Swedish phrases and words.

Pharses

Click here to listen to the pronunciation of some common phrases in Swedish.

Below are the numerals 1-10 in Swedish.

Click here to listen to the pronunciation of these numerals

Writing

Runes

Stone carving

Writing system
A printing press was established in Sweden in 1484. The New Testament came out in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541. Debates about spelling started in the 17th century and continued until the second half of the 19th century when a standard orthography was finally established. It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was stabilized during the 20th century through a series of reforms.

Today, Swedish is written with a Latin-based alphabet consisting of 29 letters. Beside the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, it contains three additional letters Åå, Ää, Öö.

Take a look at Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Swedish.

Allmän Förklaring om de Mänskliga Rättigheterna
Artikel 1.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 1
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.

moped

Smorgasbord

Swedish words in English
English has borrowed a few words from Swedish. Among them are the following:

English	from Swedish
moped	mo (motor) + ped (pedaller) "pedal cycle with engine and pedals"
ombudsman	ombudsman, literally "commission man" (specifically, in reference to the office which hears and investigates complaints by individuals against abuses of the state)
smorgasbord	smorgasbord "open sandwich table," literally"butter-goose table," from smorgas, which is said to mean "bread and butter," but is compounded from smor "butter" and gas, literally "goose" which is said to have a secondary meaning of "a clump (of butter)." The final element is bord "table."
tungsten	tungsten "calcium tungstate," coined by its discoverer, Swedish chemist Karl Wilhelm Scheele from tung "heavy" + sten "stone."

Resources

Click here to find out where Swedish is taught in the United States.
Click here to find learning materials for studying Swedish.

Online resources for the study of Swedish language and culture
English-Swedish-English Online Dictionary
Swedish language resources
Björn Engdahl's Swedish Course
Ethnologue report on Swedish
Yamada Language Center Guide for Swedish
Wikipedia article on Swedish
UCLA Language Profile for Swedish

Interesting Facts

Pippi Longstocking is a fictional character in a series of children's books created by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. She is a nine-year-old girl with red pigtails who is very unconventional, assertive, strong, and rich. She lives alone with a monkey and a horse in an old house. Her friends Tommy and Annika accompany her on her adventures.