Swedish
Swedish is used by approximately 9,000,000 people as a native language and is mainly spoken in Sweden and Finland. About 95% among a population of 9,100,000 people in Sweden were born with Swedish as their mother tongue. Besides Swedish there are no further official languages in the country. About 300,000 Finland-Swedes live in Finland, particularly on the Åland islands, on the west and the south coast. Finland-Swedes make up 5,5% of the 5,300,000 inhabitants of Finland. In contrast to Sweden, Finland has two official languages: Finnish and Swedish. In addition there are some small communities in Estonia, the Ukraine, Canada, the U.S. and further countries in northern, central and western European countries. Swedish is an official language in Sweden, Finland and the European Union.
| Swedish | ||
|---|---|---|
| Autoglottonym: | Svenska | |
| Pronunciation: | [svɛnska] | |
| Ethnologue name: | Swedish | |
| OLAC name: | {{{OLACname}}} | |
| Location point: | Sweden: 62 00 N, 15 00 E,
Finland: 64 00 N, 26 00 E | |
| Genealogy | ||
| Family: | Indo-European | |
| Genus: | Germanic | |
| Speakers | ||
| Country: | Sweden, Finland | |
| Official in: | Sweden
Finland European Union | |
| Speakers: | approximately 9,000,000: | |
| Writing system: | {{{WritingSyst}}} | |
| Codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | sv | |
| ISO 639-2: | swe | |
| ISO 639-3: | {{{ISO3}}} | |
Contents
Standard Swedish
Standard Swedish, or also called Rikssvenska, is a standardised form of Swedish which is relatively neutral compared to the different dialects. The term describes written and spoken Swedish, however, there is barely a pure spoken standard due to regional variations. Rikssvenska evolved from the dialects spoken around the Stockholm region. It is used in Sweden only and differs from Finland and Estonian Swedish among other things due to its phonology.
Dialectal Variations
- Norrländska mål
- Sveamål
- Gotländska mål
- Östsvenska mål (Finland)
- Saltvik (Finland)
- Götamål
- Sydsvenska mål
Swedish spoken in Finland
Only about one third of all Finland-Swedes live in monolingual territories.
Bilingual with Swedish minorities:
- Uusimaa (Nyland)
- Itä-Uusimaa (Öster-Nyland)
- Kymenlaakso (Kymmenedalen)
- Varsinais-Suomi (Egentliga Finland)
Bilingual with Swedish majority:
- Österbrotten
Unilingual Swedish:
- Åland
While many Finland-Swedes struggle with the Finnish language, many of the Finnish speaking majority have a good command of Swedish.
