Languages of Sweden

For most of its history, Sweden was a larger country than today. At its height in 1658, the Swedish Empire spread across what is today Finland and Estonia and into parts of Russia, Latvia, Germany, Denmark and Norway. Hence, Sweden's linguistic landscape has historically been very different from its current context.

Sign in German outside the German Church, Stockholm

Swedish evolved from Old Norse around the 14th and 15th century, and historically, the Swedish dialects were generally much more diverse than today. Since the 20th century, Standard Swedish has prevailed throughout the country. The Scandinavian languages constitute a dialectal continuum and some of the traditional Swedish dialects could equally be described as Danish (Scanian) or Norwegian dialects (Jämtlandic).

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 the Åland Islands, many of whom speak the Finnland Swedish dialect. Finnish became a minority language in western Sweden as many Finnish speakers migrated there for economic reasons.

Estonian was the language of the majority in Swedish Estonia but the province, like Finland, hosted a Swedish-speaking minority and a more significant minority of Germans.

In medieval Sweden, the Low German language played an important role as a commercial language, serving as the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league. As such, Low German influenced Swedish and other languages in the region considerably. In medieval Stockholm, half the population were Low German speakers.[4] Low German was also spoken in the 17th-century Swedish territories in northern Germany, i.e. Swedish Pomerania, Bremen-Verden, Wismar and Wildeshausen, (as well as the rest of northern Germany) and by the German minority in Estonia and Swedish Livonia. Livonia was also inhabited by Latvians, Estonians and Livonians.

In Swedish Ingria, Finnish, Ingrian and Votian were spoken along with Swedish.

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.[5]

Gradually Sweden lost its overseas possessions and obtained its current borders in 1809, when it lost its eastern part (Finland) to the Russian Empire. 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.[6]

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.[7]

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). 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.

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".[7]^:4,5,14

Dialects

Map showing the Swedish dialects traditionally spoken. Stripes indicate transitional areas.
     South Swedish      Götamål      Svealand Swedish
     Norrland      Finland Swedish      Gutnish
     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.

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.[11] The Language Law of 2009 confirms the recognition of these five languages as "national minority languages".[7]^:7,8 This status enshrines the right of speakers of these languages to receive schooling and other services in their language.

Finnish

Main article: Sweden Finns

Areas with Finnish speaking population in per cent, in southern Sweden, 2005

As of 2009, there were about 470,000 Finnish-speakers in Sweden.[12] 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.

Sámi languages

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, three of which — Lule, Northern, and Southern Sámi — are spoken in Sweden.[13] 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.

Yiddish

The first issue of Jidische Folkschtime (Yiddish People's Voice), a Yiddish-language newspaper first published in Stockholm, 12 January 1917

Main article: Yiddish in Sweden

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, 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.[16]

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 Eurobarometer[17]

Self-reported knowledge of English in Sweden, 2005[18]

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, is 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.[19]

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.[20] Some Danish and Norwegian are also taught as part of Swedish language learning to emphasize differences and similarities between the languages.

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 app Duolingo determined that, because of Sweden's large immigrant population, the largest number of Swedish-language learners on the app were in Sweden.[28]

• "Swedish". Ethnologue.com. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
• "United States". Ethnologue.com. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
• Dieter W. Halwachs. "Speakers and Numbers" (PDF). Romani.uni-graz.at. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
• "Här är 20 största språken i Sverige". Språktidningen. Retrieved 5 October 2017.

• Languages in Sweden
• Språklag (2009:600) [Language Law] text from rkrattsbaser.gov.se