1.
Swedish language
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Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken natively by more than 9 million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, where it has equal legal standing with Finnish. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish, along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It is currently the largest of the North Germanic languages by number of speakers, 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 descended from the rural dialects still exist. The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages, V2, Swedish morphology is similar to English, that is, words have comparatively few inflections. There are two genders, no cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are inflected according to gender, number. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes, complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles, the prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme. Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages, by many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had some changes. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, the dialects of Old East Norse that were spoken in Sweden are called Runic Swedish while the dialects of Denmark are referred to as Runic Danish. The dialects are described as runic because the body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, from 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. An early change that separated Runic Danish from the dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain, there was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr dead
Swedish language
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The initial page of the first complete copy of
Västgötalagen, the
law code of
Västergötland, from c. 1280. It is one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the
Latin script.
Swedish language
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Major Swedish-speaking areas
Swedish language
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Front page of
Gustav Vasa 's Bible from 1541, using
Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in
Uppsala. 1541".
Swedish language
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August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
2.
North Swedish
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Norrland dialects is one of the six major dialect groupings of the Swedish language. It comprises the dialects in most of Norrland, except those of Gästrikland and southern Hälsingland, the old northern border of the Swedish language in coastal Norrbotten largely followed the eastern and northern borders of Lower and Upper Kalix parishes in modern Kalix Municipality. Norrland dialects arose from the influence of the Old West Norse spoken in Trøndelag to the west. The westerly influences were strong in the centuries leading up to the Viking Era. The shift to East Norse progressed through the Middle Ages, as Norrland gradually came to be more and more under Central Swedish influence in the Modern Era, many of the older West Norse characteristics disappeared. The strong West Norse influences can still be today in the toponymy of Norrland in placenames ending in -ånger. Parish names such Skön and Indal have West Nordic origins, the dialect of Norrbotten displays less West Nordic influence than other more westerly dialects. The greatest West Nordic/Norwegian—or, perhaps, least East Nordic/Swedish—influence is found in Jamtlandic, as with other regiolects, it is difficult to clearly define a unique set of characteristics for the Norrland dialects. The distribution of different features of the dialect have differing boundaries, vowel balance Words that were long-spelled in Old Swedish developed weakened or dropped end-vowels. Examples of words with weakened end-vowels are kastä and backä, in dialects such as those of Jämtland and Västerbotten, where the end-vowels are dropped, these words become kaast and baack. Words that were short-spelled have, however, conserved the original end-vowel length, vowel balance is also an important distinctive feature in the East Norwegian dialects. End-vowel development in words has been dependent on the length since the time of Old Swedish. This characteristic is known as vowel balance, the dialect of Medelpad is the southernmost of the coastal dialects which has vowel balance. In the Hälsing dialect, the endings are as in Standard Swedish, kasta, vowel balance is particularly evident in the definite plural of nouns, Standard Swedish hästarna is in certain northern dialects hästa, while dagarna is dagana. All of the Sami languages, particularly East Sami, have had similar systems of vowel balance since long before any Nordic languages were spoken in north Scandinavia, smoothing Words that were originally short-spelled have often undergone a process of assimilation of the stem-vowel and ending. Examples include färä and vuku, firi and skyri and this phenomenon, known as smoothing, is found predominantly in the dialects from upper Dalarna and Trøndelag northward. A and thick L The Old Swedish a before the consonant cluster rð has been preserved, while rð itself became a retroflex flap and this is sometimes represented as a capital L, to differentiate it from the Standard Swedish rd cluster. Examples of this thick L include svaL and aL and this phenomenon is shared with the Dalecarlian dialects and Norwegian, as well as the Swedish dialects in Ostrobothnia
North Swedish
–
Norrland dialects
3.
Norrbotten
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Norrbotten, known in English as North Bothnia, is a Swedish province in northernmost Sweden. It borders south to Västerbotten, west to Swedish Lapland, the traditional provinces of Sweden serve no administrative or political purposes, but are historical and cultural entities. In this case, however, the county is older than the province, when the new national border to the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland formed, the province split in two, and formed the municipalities of Kolari, Muonio, Pello, Tornio, and Ylitornio. However, Finnish Norrbotten is not recognized enough as its own province, so its usually merged instead with Ostrobothnia. The northernmost of the counties of Sweden were created in 1810 consisting of the parts of Lappland. After that, northern Västerbotten has gradually evolved as a province of its own, not being one of the old historical provinces of Sweden Norrbotten had not been granted a coat of arms in the same way as the others. As recently as 1995, after decades of controversy, Norrbotten got its arms, during the Middle Ages Norrbotten was basically terra nullius. The area was populated by Sami people, who lived on hunting, fishing. From the Middle Ages and forward, the Swedish kings tried hard to colonise, settlers from Finland, the most important of which were known as Birkarls, controlled the trade and even the taxing on the area long into the 16th century. From the mid-16th century, the area was more firmly tied to Sweden, an important sign of Swedish control was the large Nederluleå stone church from 1492. Still today, Finnish and Sami minorities live in Norrbotten and they have kept their culture, historically, Västerbotten was the denomination for northern Sweden, together with the Lappland areas. The Eastern Botten or Ostrobothnia was in the Finnish side, cultural identification in Sweden is closely related to the historical provinces, and the people in Norrbotten live in this sense in Northern Västerbotten, or Norra Västerbotten. Norrbotten had gradually become synonymous with the area that was referred to as northern Västerbotten. It started to evolve as a separate province, during the 20th century it got all of the symbols which are assigned to the other provinces of Sweden. But there was some resistance to the idea of Norrbotten being a province. As recently as 1995, after decades of debate, Norrbotten was granted a coat of arms, the coat of arms symbolizes the four large rivers in Norrbotten that drain into the Gulf of Bothnia, Torne River, Kalix River, Lule River and Pite River. The summers can bring warm temperatures for such northerly altitudes. As of December 31,2009, the population is 192,542, distributed over 26,671 km2, Norrbotten has around 8,000 ancient remains
Norrbotten
–
Coat of arms
4.
Lule River
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Lule River is a major river in Sweden, rising in northern Sweden and flowing southeast for 460 km before reaching the Gulf of Bothnia at Luleå. It is the second longest river by watershed area or length in Norrbotten County and it has a watershed of 25,240.5 km² of which 24,545.6 km² is in Sweden and 694.9 km² in Norway. The river was used extensively for the transportation of timber, with logs floated downstream for processing at Luleå, several major rapids exist along the rivers length, notably the Stora Falls and those at Porjus and Harsprånget. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the river was designated as a line against a dreaded invasion by Imperial Russia. Extensive fortifications exist along the length of the river, culminating in Bodens Fortress in. Most of these fortifications and bunkers are no longer in use today, the Greater Lule River arguably begins somewhere near Sårjåsjaure in the mountains west of Gällivare. The water flows to the Virihaure lake, which collects water from Kerkevare and Alkajaure. The Tukejokk joins the Lule as well in Virihaure, leaving Virihaure to the north, the river reaches the Vastenjaure lake after losing 32m over 2.2 km. It then flows via the Vuojatätno to lake Kutjaure and then Luoktanjarkajaure, collecting a lot of water from lakes in Sarek National Park, like Salohaure. There are numerous waterfalls and rapids in the river, the best known is Stora Sjöfallet at the end of the Akkajaure lake, where the water falls 39.6 m from Kårtjejaure to Langasjaure. In this lake the Vietasajokk joins the Lule, the Stora Lule träsk is the largest of the lakes in the river. Here it reaches the forest, and after the lake is joined by the Muddus River from Muddus National Park, at 75m, near the village of Vuollerim, the river joins with the Lesser Lule River. The Lule passes the Porsiforsen, Edefors and Hedens fors and it flows into the Baltic Sea through the Bälingefjärden and Lulefjärden. Other rivers in the watershed of the Lule with a length of more than 100 km are, Black River, Flarkån, Lesser Lule River, Pärl River, Rissajåkkå, Vietasätno, article Lule älf from Nordisk Familjebok
Lule River
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Harsprånget in Lule River
Lule River
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This lithograph from the year 1856 shows the waterfall Harsprånget in the polar night with the
aurora borealis. The waterfall Harsprånget (former name: Njommelsaska) was the largest waterfall on the Swedish Lule River. Today there is the largest hydroelectric plant in Sweden
Stora harsprånget
5.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
French language
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The
"arrêt" signs (French for "stop") are used in
Canada while the international stop, which is also a valid French word, is used in France as well as other French-speaking countries and regions.
French language
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Regions where French is the main language
French language
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Town sign in
Standard Arabic and French at the entrance of
Rechmaya in
Lebanon.
French language
–
An obsolete 100
Lebanese pound note with the French language inscriptions "Banque du Liban" and "Cent livres".
6.
Diphthongs
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A diphthong, also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets, that is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel, in many dialects of English, the phrase no highway cowboys /ˌnoʊ ˈhaɪweɪ ˈkaʊbɔɪz/ has five distinct diphthongs, one in every syllable. Diphthongs contrast with monophthongs, where the tongue or other organs do not move. For instance, in English, the word ah is spoken as a monophthong, where two adjacent vowel sounds occur in different syllables—for example, in the English word re-elect—the result is described as hiatus, not as a diphthong. Diphthongs often form when separate vowels are run together in rapid speech during a conversation, however, there are also unitary diphthongs, as in the English examples above, which are heard by listeners as single-vowel sounds. Diphthongs use two vowel sounds in one syllable to make a speech sound, in the International Phonetic Alphabet, monophthongs are transcribed with one symbol, as in English sun, in which ⟨ʌ⟩ represents a monophthong. Diphthongs are transcribed with two symbols, as in English high or cow, in which ⟨aɪ⟩ and ⟨aʊ⟩ represent diphthongs, diphthongs may be transcribed with two vowel symbols or with a vowel symbol and a semivowel symbol. Transcribing the diphthongs as ⟨aɪ̯ aʊ̯⟩ is a precise or narrower transcription. The non-syllabic diacritic, the inverted breve below ⟨◌̯⟩, is placed under the prominent part of a diphthong to show that it is part of a diphthong rather than a vowel in a separate syllable. When there is no contrastive vowel sequence in the language, the diacritic may be omitted, other common indications that the two letters are not separate vowels are a superscript, ⟨aᶦ aᶷ⟩, or a tie bar, ⟨a͡ɪ a͡ʊ⟩ or ⟨a͜ɪ a͜ʊ⟩. The tie bar can be useful when its not clear which letter represents the syllable nucleus, superscripts are especially used when an on- or off-glide is particularly fleeting. The period ⟨. ⟩ is the opposite of the non-syllabic diacritic, if two vowels next to each other belong to two different syllables, meaning that they do not form a diphthong, they can be transcribed with two vowel symbols with a period in between. Thus, lower can be transcribed ⟨ˈloʊ. ər⟩, with a period separating the first syllable, /loʊ/, from the second syllable, the non-syllabic diacritic is only used when necessary. It is typically omitted when there is no ambiguity, as in ⟨haɪ kaʊ⟩, no words in English have the vowel sequences *, so the non-syllabic diacritic is unnecessary. The less prominent component in the diphthong may also be transcribed as an approximant, thus in eye, however, when the diphthong is analysed as a single phoneme, both elements are often transcribed with vowel letters. There are many languages that contrast one or more rising diphthongs with similar sequences of a glide, in closing diphthongs, the second element is more close than the first, in opening diphthongs, the second element is more open. Closing diphthongs tend to be falling, and opening diphthongs are rising, as open vowels are more sonorous. However, exceptions to this rule are not rare in the worlds languages, in Finnish, for instance, the opening diphthongs /ie̯/ and /uo̯/ are true falling diphthongs, since they begin louder and with higher pitch and fall in prominence during the diphthong
Diphthongs
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German diphthongs ending in [ɐ̯] (part 1), from Kohler (1999:88)
7.
Retroflex flap
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The retroflex flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɽ⟩, features of the retroflex flap, Its manner of articulation is flap, which means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another. Its place of articulation is retroflex, which means it is articulated subapical. That is, besides the prototypical sub-apical articulation, the contact can be apical or laminal. Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation and it is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only. It is a consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue. The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, japanese /r/ may be transcribed with ⟨ɽ⟩, in which case it represents the postalveolar flap rather than retroflex. Toda has a trill, which is transcribed with the same IPA symbol. Index of phonetics articles Heide, Eldar,2010, «Tjukk l – Retroflektert tydeleggjering av kort kvantitet, om kvalitetskløyvinga av det gamle kvantitetssystemet. » Maal og minne, s
Retroflex flap
8.
Finland Swedish
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Most Swedish-speaking Finns emphasize that Finland Swedish is not a language separate from the Swedish of Sweden. The Swedish dialects in Finland are considered varieties of Swedish, Swedish as spoken in Finland is regulated by the Swedish Department of the Institute for the Languages of Finland. An often repeated fact is that the municipality with the highest proportion of Swedish speakers in the world, korsnäs has also held this title and is often cited as such. However, as there are no statistics on the mother tongue of inhabitants of Sweden. In addition bilingualism is common for immigrants in Sweden, so the term Swedish-speaking may be diffuse in that sense. In the spoken vernacular, especially young people in Finnish-dominated areas. There are also words in Finland Swedish that would be considered slightly archaic in Sweden. Some government and public service terms that have created in recent centuries also differ. The same is true of other new words, notably loanwords from English. e. in normal, in 1809, when Finland was conquered by the Russian Empire and became an autonomous Grand Duchy, Swedish remained the only official language. Finland has since then been a country with a Swedish-speaking minority living mostly in the coastal areas of southern, south-western. During the 20th century, the following the Industrial Revolution has led to large majorities of Finnish speakers in all major cities. The capital Helsinki became predominantly Finnish-speaking as recently as around 1900, a large and important part of the Swedish-speaking population nevertheless lives in the capital. The autonomous island province of Åland is an exception, being monolingually Swedish-speaking according to international treaties and it is a matter of definition whether the Swedish dialects spoken on Åland are to be considered a kind of Finland Swedish or not. Most Swedish-speaking Finns and linguists consider them to be closer to some of the dialects spoken in parts of Sweden. Swedish is one of the two languages of the republic of Finland, the other being Finnish. These two languages have equal status in nearly all legislation. The other minority languages are regulated separately, Finland Swedish is regulated by the Institute for the Languages of Finland. Official Swedish is not supposed to be different from Swedish as found in Sweden
Finland Swedish
–
Unofficial flag of the Swedish-speakers in Finland
9.
Swedish dialects
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Swedish dialects are the various forms of the Swedish language, particularly those that differ considerably from Standard Swedish. Many of the rural dialects have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, the different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmål. They are generally separated into the six traditional dialect groups, with characteristics of prosody, grammar. The color represents the area and the samples are from Svenska Dagbladets dialect project. The areas with mixed colors as stripes are transitional areas, the parts in yellow with coloured dots represent various distinct dialect areas which are not easily defined as belonging to any of the six major groups above. The areas west of the core for Norrland dialects, west of Svealand dialects and north of Götaland dialects are related to each of these, respectively, samples from these areas, Jämtland, Föllinge socken, Dalarna, Älvdalens socken and Värmland, Nordmarks härad, Töcksmarks socken. The dialects of this category have in common that all show more or less strong Norwegian influences, especially the dialects in Härjedalen, Northwestern Jämtland. The grey area does not have any independently developed Swedish dialect, below we have a summary of some of the most important differences between the major groups. Note that this table does not hold for the distinct or transitional areas, Götaland dialects is mostly used in Västergötland, Dalsland, northern Halland, northern Småland and Östergötland although it is also heard in Bohuslän and Värmland and Öland. Examples of Götaland dialect features are vowel reduction, vowel shortening in front of endings, in addition, connect adjacent areas, mainly Dalsland, northern Småland and Östergötland southwest. Värmland can also be counted here, although its dialects in many ways is a special case and this feature is also found in East Norwegian, North Swedish and in some dialects of Scottish Gaelic
Swedish dialects
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Map showing the Swedish dialects traditionally spoken. (Note that even the northernmost part of Sweden is Swedish speaking today and that the dialects in Estonia are almost extinct.)
10.
Norrland dialects
–
Norrland dialects is one of the six major dialect groupings of the Swedish language. It comprises the dialects in most of Norrland, except those of Gästrikland and southern Hälsingland, the old northern border of the Swedish language in coastal Norrbotten largely followed the eastern and northern borders of Lower and Upper Kalix parishes in modern Kalix Municipality. Norrland dialects arose from the influence of the Old West Norse spoken in Trøndelag to the west. The westerly influences were strong in the centuries leading up to the Viking Era. The shift to East Norse progressed through the Middle Ages, as Norrland gradually came to be more and more under Central Swedish influence in the Modern Era, many of the older West Norse characteristics disappeared. The strong West Norse influences can still be today in the toponymy of Norrland in placenames ending in -ånger. Parish names such Skön and Indal have West Nordic origins, the dialect of Norrbotten displays less West Nordic influence than other more westerly dialects. The greatest West Nordic/Norwegian—or, perhaps, least East Nordic/Swedish—influence is found in Jamtlandic, as with other regiolects, it is difficult to clearly define a unique set of characteristics for the Norrland dialects. The distribution of different features of the dialect have differing boundaries, vowel balance Words that were long-spelled in Old Swedish developed weakened or dropped end-vowels. Examples of words with weakened end-vowels are kastä and backä, in dialects such as those of Jämtland and Västerbotten, where the end-vowels are dropped, these words become kaast and baack. Words that were short-spelled have, however, conserved the original end-vowel length, vowel balance is also an important distinctive feature in the East Norwegian dialects. End-vowel development in words has been dependent on the length since the time of Old Swedish. This characteristic is known as vowel balance, the dialect of Medelpad is the southernmost of the coastal dialects which has vowel balance. In the Hälsing dialect, the endings are as in Standard Swedish, kasta, vowel balance is particularly evident in the definite plural of nouns, Standard Swedish hästarna is in certain northern dialects hästa, while dagarna is dagana. All of the Sami languages, particularly East Sami, have had similar systems of vowel balance since long before any Nordic languages were spoken in north Scandinavia, smoothing Words that were originally short-spelled have often undergone a process of assimilation of the stem-vowel and ending. Examples include färä and vuku, firi and skyri and this phenomenon, known as smoothing, is found predominantly in the dialects from upper Dalarna and Trøndelag northward. A and thick L The Old Swedish a before the consonant cluster rð has been preserved, while rð itself became a retroflex flap and this is sometimes represented as a capital L, to differentiate it from the Standard Swedish rd cluster. Examples of this thick L include svaL and aL and this phenomenon is shared with the Dalecarlian dialects and Norwegian, as well as the Swedish dialects in Ostrobothnia
Norrland dialects
–
Norrland dialects
11.
Jamtlandic dialects
–
Jamtlandic or Jamtish is a group of dialects spoken in the Swedish province of Jämtland. Jamtlandic shares many characteristics with both Trøndersk—the dialect spoken in Trøndelag, Norway—and with the dialects spoken along the coast of Norrland, Sweden. Due to this position, there has been a debate since the early 20th century whether Jamtlandic belongs to the West Norse or the East Norse language group. Jamtlandic cannot be uniquely defined belonging to either of these groups, prior to, and around, the time of the dissolution of the Swedish–Norwegian union, Jamtlandic was undisputedly considered a dialect of Norwegian. See, e. g. p.112 in part one of Adolf Noreens Vårt språk, The Westnorthern Swedish, originally Norwegian dialects in Särna and Idre, Härjedalen, the local name for the dialects is jamska, which translates to English as Jamtlandic. However, since there is no established name for the dialects in English. Jamska as such is a form, the original form is rarely used, besides as a verb. Since the early 20th century, whether Jamtlandic is a dialect or a language has been hotly debated, proponents of Jamtlandic as a language point to the differences in vocabulary and pronunciation. A great percentage of the Jamtish speakers recognise Jamtish as a rather than a Swedish dialect. There have been efforts to make the Swedish government recognise it as a minority language just as Yiddish, one of the more prominent people that have been active in the effort to make Jamtish a recognised language is Bo Oscarsson. Oscarsson has written books about the Jamtish language/dialect and even compiled dictionaries, according to the sagas, the region called Jämtland was originally settled by fugitives from Trøndelag after Harald Fairhair united Norway in the 9th century. It became part of Norway during the reign of Haakon I in the 10th century, at that point it became part of Sweden. The history of the accounts for many of the dialects features. There have been attempts to standardize the orthography of Jamtlandic, the attempt that has been the most popular is Vägledning för stavning av jamska which is the work of the committee Akademien för jamska consisting of Bodil Bergner, Berta Magnusson and Bo Oscarsson. The most prominent application of this orthography has been to prepare translations of parts of the Bible into Jamtlandic resulting in the book Nagur Bibelteksta på jamska, an excerpt, Genesis 1, 26–27, 26Å Gud saa, ’Lätt oss gjära når mänish, nager som e lik oss. Te kær å kviin skapa n dom and it should be emphasized that the book does not fully follow Vägledning för stavning av jamska. For example, using Vägledning för stavning av jamska one would spell gjæra v. do, make, not gjära. Another spelling convention in Nagur Bibelteksta på jamska is the use of the digraph sh, in e. g. mänish n. human being and fishn n. the fish, with the same pronunciation as English sh in shoe
Jamtlandic dialects
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Jämtland in northern Sweden
12.
Westrobothnian
–
Like all Scandinavian, the different varieties of Westrobothnian originate in Proto-Norse and dialects of Old Norse, spoken by immigrating Germanic settlers during the Viking Age. Westrobothnian has three genders in most dialects, two plural forms of indefinite nouns, and broad usage of definite nouns. Nouns are also inflected differently in the dative and accusative case, some adjectives can be serially joined with nouns and some have two plural forms. A pleonastic article is used before names when referring to someone. In the vocative, a name may instead be declined similarly to how words for near kin decline in the vocative, a small population of Nordic tribes inhabited the area as early as the bronze age, evidence of this is supported by recent archeological findings in Backen and Jävre. Westrobothnian dialects, in their different forms, have historically been the native tongues in Umeå and Skellefteå, in Kalix and Luleå, they co-existed with Kven language before gradually becoming the majority language of the region. These two cities are now part of Norrbotten county but before 1810 they belonged to Westrobothnia and therefore their dialects are included in the Westrobothnian dialect continuum. The different dialects of Westrobothnian are also present in southern and mid Lapland where it was introduced in the late 17th century as the colonization of traditional Sami lands begun. The cities soon became majority Swedish speaking while the native tongues still maintained a stance in rural areas. The native tongues were gradually weakened as an urbanization process went on and TV and radio broadcasts were exclusively in standard Swedish, most of the coast seems to have been uninhabited during the Viking age but some settlements of unknown origin existed during the iron age. There are no Sami loan words in the Westrobothnian coastal dialects, except for in the dialects spoken in the much later settlements in Lapland, such as Malå, the highest density of villages ending with -mark is found between Umeå and Skellefteå. The Germanic settlers spoke a north dialectal development of proto-Norse, related to, Old Norse is rather well preserved in runestones and later also in a Bible translation. The citizens of the area around Umeå and Skellefteå were initially referred to as speakers of the Old Norse dialect Helsingemål during the early Viking age, during the 14th century, the Hanseatic League started dominating trade in the Baltic sea, mostly speaking Middle Low German. After the Consolidation of Sweden, this uprising power started to control of trade along the coast. Christianity also came to the relatively non-organized and free Germanic settlers, colonisation escalated under the Swedish Empire, and while Österland received independence in the Treaty of Fredrikshamn 1809, Swedish colonialism still remains in terminology like Norrland. The Swedish school came to Westrobothnia in the 1850s, with the goal of teaching everyone to read, write, speak, similar laws existed in Scotland were speakers of Scottish Gaelic were forbidden to use their language in schools as a result of the 1872 Education Act. The nickname bondska is derived from the word bonde, meaning peasant, state language policies caused the language to be seen as even more rural and backward, thus starting a downward spiral. The language has more speakers around and in the cities of Piteå and Skellefteå, especially in the former
Westrobothnian
–
Old Norse ca 900 AD.
13.
Swedish dialects in Ostrobothnia
–
Ostrobothnian Swedish is a variety of Finland-Swedish, spoken in Finland. Outside the autonomous province of Åland, which is officially monolingually Swedish. Ostrobothnian Swedish-speakers are traditionally farmers, and as such, isolation of the communities produces strong dialectal variations, one famous Swedish dialect in Ostrobothnia is the Närpes dialect, whose mutual intelligibility with other forms of Swedish is questionable. Finland-Swedes have difficulties with understanding the Närpes dialect, and it is almost unintelligible to anyone else, so speakers of the Närpes dialect have to learn standard Swedish, some of the most archaic Nordic dialects in Mainland Scandinavia are found in Ostrobothnia, especially regarding pronunciation. The abovementioned Närpes dialect is in syntax, grammar and vocabulary fairly close to Icelandic and they also share many common features with the Westrobothnian dialects spoken on the other side of Kvarken, in parts of Westrobothnia and Norrbotten
Swedish dialects in Ostrobothnia
–
Ostrobothnia on a map of
Finland
14.
Scanian dialect
–
Scanian is a closely related group of South Swedish dialects spoken in the province of Scania in southern Sweden. Scanian was originally classified as a language in ISO 639-3. A request for reinstatement was submitted during the 2009 annual review process, many of the genuine rural dialects have been in decline subsequent to the industrial revolution and urbanization in Sweden. The population of Skåne County consists of around 13% of the population in Sweden. Swedish and Danish are considered to have been the same dialect, Old East Norse, however, some scholars speculate that there might have been certain dialect differences within the Nordic language area as early as the Proto-Nordic period. Two Scanian fragments dated to around 1325 were initially claimed to be Old Swedish, but further research in modern times has claimed that the language was not Swedish, like the Scanian Law, one of the fragments, a six-leaf fragment, is written in the runic alphabet. The place of writing, according to Frederiksen, has been identified as the Cistercian monastery at Herrevad Abbey in Scania. The fragment contains a translation of Marys lament at the cross, after the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658, the former Danish provinces of Blekinge, Halland and Scania became a Swedish dominion, but they were allowed to keep their old privileges, laws and customs. However, from the 1680s, a process of Swedification was introduced, including a switch of languages used in churches and restrictions imposed on cross border travel and trade. The situation in Scania was unique from a point of view. As pointed out by the Norwegian scholar Lars S. Bornholm was once part of Skåneland, the Scanian dialect of Bornholm remained in use as a functioning transitional stage, but Standard Danish soon became dominant in official contexts and the dialect is thought to be disappearing. The gradual transition to Swedish has resulted in the introduction of many new Swedish characteristics into Scanian since the 18th century, especially when it comes to vocabulary and grammar. In spite of the shift, Scanian dialects have maintained a non-Swedish prosody, as well as details of grammar and vocabulary that in some aspects differ from Standard Swedish. The prosody, pronunciation of vowels and consonants in such qualities as length, stress and intonation, has more in common with Danish, German and Dutch than with Swedish. If so, are the formal semantic analytic tools that have been developed mainly for English, however, linguists reject this explanation for the sound change, at present, there are no universally-accepted theories for why sound changes occur. Scanian once possessed many unique words which do not exist in either Swedish or Danish, in attempts to preserve the unique aspects of Scanian, these words have been recorded and documented by the Institute for Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research in Sweden. Preservation is also accomplished through comparative studies such as the Scanian-Swedish-Danish dictionary project and this project is led by Helmer Lång and involves a group of scholars from different fields, including Birger Bergh, linguistics, Inger Elkjær and Inge Lise Pedersen, researcher of Danish dialects. Several Scanian dictionaries have been published through the years, including one by Sten Bertil Vide and this publication and a variety of other Scanian dictionaries are available through the Department of Dialectology and Onomastics in Lund
Scanian dialect
–
Anders Sunesøn 's 13th century version of the
Scanian Law and Church Law, containing a comment in the margin called the "Skaaningestrof": " Hauí that skanunga ærliki mææn toco vithar oræt aldrigh æn." (Let it be known that Scanians are honorable men who have never tolerated injustice.)
15.
Swedish phonology
–
Swedish has a large vowel inventory, with nine vowels distinguished in quality and to some degree quantity, making 17 vowel phonemes in most dialects. Swedish pronunciation of most consonants is similar to that of other Germanic languages, another notable feature is the pitch accent, which is unusual for European languages. There are 18 consonant phonemes of which /ɧ/ and /r/ show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. Contrary to the situation with Danish or Finnish, there is not a uniform nationwide spoken Standard Swedish, instead there are several regional standard varieties, i. e. the most intelligible or prestigious forms of spoken Swedish, each within its area. The differences between the regional dialects may be compared with those of General American, Australian English. In Sweden, the Central Swedish varieties often go under the name of rikssvenska Swedish has 9 vowels that, as many other Germanic languages, come in long. The length covaries with the quality of the vowels, as shown in the table below, with variants being more centered. Traditionally, length has been viewed as the distinction, with quality being secondary. No short vowels appear in open stressed syllables, the front vowels appear in rounded-unrounded pairs. Central Standard Swedish /ʉː/ is near-close near-front, in other dialects it may be central. /a/ has been described as central and front. Rounded vowels have two types of rounding, /ɵ/, /ʉː/, /ʊ/ and /uː/ are compressed, and /ʏ/, /yː/, /œ/ and its allophone, /øː/ and its pre-/r/ allophone, /ɔ/ and /oː/ are protruded. Type of rounding is the way of distinguishing /ʉː/ from /yː/. /ɛː/, /ɛ/, /øː/, and /œ/ are lowered to, and, respectively and these speakers often also pronounce pre-rhotic /øː/ and /œ/ even lower, i. e. and. This is especially true for the long allophone, also, the allophone is sometimes difficult to distinguish from the long /ɑː/. Words like fördömande and fördummande are then often pronounced similarly, if not identically, in Central Standard Swedish, unstressed /ɛ/ is slightly retracted, but is still a front vowel rather central. However, the pronunciation is commonly found in Southern Swedish. Therefore, begå to commit is pronounced in Central Standard Swedish, before /r/, southerners may use a back vowel
Swedish phonology
–
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish. From Engstrand (1999:140)
16.
Sj-sound
–
In Swedish phonology, the sj-sound is a voiceless fricative phoneme found in most dialects. It has a variety of realisations, whose precise phonetic characterisation is a matter of debate, the sound should not be confused with the Swedish tj sound, often spelled tj or k in Swedish. The sound is transcribed ⟨ɧ⟩ in the International Phonetic Alphabet, the International Phonetic Association describes as a simultaneous and, but this claim is disputed among phoneticians, including at least one former president of the IPA. The closest English phoneme is /ʃ/ ⟨sh⟩, however, the phone ⟨wh⟩ present in some English dialects is an approximation as well. Its place of articulation is disputed and its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. It is a consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only. It is a consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue. The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm and this sound has been reported in certain dialects of Swedish, where it is most often known as the sj-sound. Its place of articulation varies over Swedish regions and is not agreed upon and it has been variously found to be the following, velar and postalveolar, meaning it is articulated simultaneously with the tongue dorsum approximating the velum and just behind the teeth. However, doubly articulated fricatives are difficult to pronounce or to hear. Lindblad describes one of two variants of Swedish /ɧ/ as labiodental with simultaneous velarization and protrusion of the upper lip. He does not use the symbol ⟨ɧ⟩ for this allophone, lindblad describes the second common variant of Swedish /ɧ/ as velar. The difference between it and the standard IPA sound is not clear, but it may have less friction, or be further forward, a number of intermediate possibilities between these extremes. Other articulations have been described as well, with no obvious standard emerging, the acoustic difference between and the Kölsch is difficult to perceive but the articulation is clearly distinct. Whether or not there is a relation between the Swedish /ɧ/, and the Kölsch /ɧ/, is not known, while none seems to have been established, comments suggest that, the choice of ⟨ɧ⟩ might well have been based upon a misunderstanding. Doubtlessly, the Kölsch /ɧ/ is not doubly articulated and even contrasts with a slightly velarized /ʃ/, some phoneticians suggest contrasting /ʃ/ with /ɕ/, as is done in Polish, but this is not established practice, and may need further research. Index of phonetics articles Rheinische Dokumenta
Sj-sound
17.
History of Swedish
–
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse and Old East Norse. In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish, all were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the medieval period. In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had some changes. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, Old East Norse is in Sweden called Runic Swedish and in Denmark Runic Danish, but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries. The dialects are called runic because the body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, a change that separated Old East Norse from Old West Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong e, as in stæin to sten. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain, there was also a change of au as in dauðr into ø as in døðr. This change is shown in inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into ø as well, as in the Old Norse word for island, from 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, Västgötalagen. The main influences during this time came with the establishment of the Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary, besides a great number of loan words for areas like warfare, trade and administration, general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions where imported. Almost all of the terms were also borrowed from Dutch. Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases, besides the modern nominative and genitive there were also dative and accusative, the gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender, the verb system was also more complex, it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number
History of Swedish
–
A copy of
Äldre Västgötalagen – a
law code of
Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the
Latin alphabet.
History of Swedish
–
Old West Norse dialect
History of Swedish
–
Front page of the Gustav Vasa Bible of 1541. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in
Uppsala. 1541".
History of Swedish
–
August Strindberg, often considered to be the founder of modern Swedish literature.
18.
Proto-Norse language
–
Proto-Norse, was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic over the first centuries CE. It is the earliest stage of a characteristically North Germanic language, and it evolved into the dialects of the Old Norse language, at the beginning of the Viking Age about AD800, which later themselves evolved into modern North Germanic languages. Proto-Norse phonology probably did not differ substantially from that of Proto-Germanic, although the phonetic realisation of several phonemes had probably changed over time, the overall system of phonemes and their distribution remained largely unchanged. /n/ assimilated to a velar consonant. It was before a velar, and probably before a labial-velar consonant. Unlike its Proto-Germanic ancestor /x/, the phoneme /h/ was probably no longer a fricative and it eventually disappeared except word-initially. and were allophones of /b/, /d/ and /ɡ/, and occurred in most word-medial positions. Plosives appeared when the consonants were lengthened, and also after a nasal consonant, word-finally, and were devoiced and merged with /p/, /t/, /k/. The exact realisation of the phoneme /z/, traditionally written as ʀ in transcriptions of runic Norse, is unclear, while it was a simple alveolar sibilant in Proto-Germanic, it eventually underwent rhotacization and merged with /r/ towards the end of the runic period. It may have been pronounced as or, tending towards a trill in the later period, the sound was still written with its own letter in runic Old East Norse around the end of the millennium. The system of vowels differed somewhat more from that of Proto-Germanic than the consonants, earlier /ɛː/ had been lowered to /ɑː/, and unstressed /ai/ and /au/ had developed into /eː/ and /ɔː/. Shortening of word-final vowels had eliminated the Proto-Germanic overlong vowels, /o/ had developed from /u/ through a-mutation. It also occurred word-finally as a result of the shortening of Proto-Germanic /ɔː/, the long nasal vowels /ɑ̃ː/, /ĩː/ and /ũː/ occurred only before /h/. Their presence was noted in the 12th century First Grammatical Treatise, all other nasal vowels occurred only word-finally, although it is unclear whether they had retained their nasality in Proto-Norse or had already merged with the oral vowels. The vowels /o/ and /ɔ̃/ were contrastive, however, as the former eventually developed into /u/ while the latter was lowered to /ɑ/, towards the end of the Proto-Norse period, stressed /e/ underwent breaking, becoming a rising diphthong /ja/. Also towards the end of the Proto-Norse period, u-mutation began to take effect, at least the following diphthongs were present, /æi/, /ɑu/, /eu/, /iu/. /ɑu/ was later rounded to /ɒu/ due to u-mutation, /eu/ eventually underwent breaking to become the triphthong /jɒu/. This was preserved in Old Gutnish, but simplified to a long rising /joː/ or /juː/ in other areas, as /iu/ occurred exclusively in environments with i-mutation, its realisation was probably fronted. This then developed further into, which then became /yː/, Old Norse had a stress accent which fell on the first syllable
Proto-Norse language
–
Composite photograph of the
Einang stone inscription (ca. AD 400)
19.
Old Norse
–
Old Norse was a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during about the 9th to 13th centuries. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century, Old Norse was divided into three dialects, Old West Norse, Old East Norse and Old Gutnish. Old West and East Norse formed a continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish, the more obscure dialectal branch, is included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders and Danes spoke the same language, another term used, used especially commonly with reference to West Norse, was norrœnt mál. In some instances the term Old Norse refers specifically to Old West Norse, the Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, settlements in Kievan Rus, eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language, in Kievan Rus, it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod, probably lasting into the 13th century there. Norwegian is descended from Old West Norse, but over the centuries it has heavily influenced by East Norse. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and Lowland Scots and it also influenced the development of the Norman language, and through it and to a smaller extent, that of modern French. Various other languages, which are not closely related, have heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman dialects, Scottish Gaelic. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi, of the modern languages, Icelandic is the closest to Old Norse. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system, contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the phonemes, has changed at least as much as in the other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain asymmetric mutual intelligibility. Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, the languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders
Old Norse
–
The
Rök Runestone in
Östergötland, Sweden, is the longest surviving source of early Old East Norse. It is inscribed on both sides.
Old Norse
–
Old West Norse dialect
20.
Old Swedish
–
Old Swedish developed from Old East Norse, the eastern dialect of Old Norse. The differences were minute, however, and the dialects truly began to diverge around the 12th century, becoming Old Swedish. It is not known when exactly Old Gutnish and Elfdalian began to diverge from Swedish, Early Old Swedish was markedly different from modern Swedish in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system and thus had three genders. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases, the writing of the Westrogothic law marked the beginning of Early Old Swedish, which had developed from Old East Norse. It was the first Swedish language document written in the Latin alphabet, Old Swedish was relatively stable during this period. The phonological and grammatical systems inherited from Old Norse were relatively well preserved, most of the texts from the Early Old Swedish period were written in Latin, as it was the language of knowledge and the Church. However, Old Swedish was used as a language as well. Much of the knowledge of Old Swedish comes from these law texts, in addition to laws, some religious and poetic texts were also written in Old Swedish. The Catholic Church and its various monastic orders introduced many new Greek, Latin especially had an influence on the written language. The Middle Low German language also influenced Old Swedish due to the economic, many German speakers immigrated to Swedish cities and worked in trade and administration. Accordingly, loanwords relating to warfare, trade, crafts and bureaucracy entered the Swedish language directly from Low German, along with some grammatical suffixes and conjunctions. The prefixes be-, ge- and för- that can be found in the beginning of modern Swedish words came from the Low German be-, ge- and vor-. Some words were replaced new ones, the native word for window, vindøgha, was replaced with fönster, eldhus was replaced with kök. Some of these still exist in Modern Swedish but are often considered archaic or dialectal. Many words related to seafaring were borrowed from Dutch, the influence of Low German was so strong that the inflectional system of Old Swedish was largely broken down. The printing of the New Testament in Swedish in 1526 marked the point for modern Swedish. In this period Old Swedish had taken in an amount of new vocabulary primarily from Latin, Low German. When the country part of the Kalmar Union in 1397
Old Swedish
–
A page of the
Äldre Västgötalagen (Westrogothic law), a
law code used in
Västergötland, from the 1280s
21.
Modern Swedish
–
Modern Swedish is the linguistic term used for the Swedish language from the Bible translation of 1526 to the development of a common national language around 1880. The period can further be divided into Early Modern Swedish and Late Modern Swedish, Early Modern Swedish was established in 1526 with a complete Swedish translation of the Bible. The translation followed the word rather closely, as opposed to the more Latin-inspired way of writing commonly used in the Middle Ages. The Vasa Bible is considered to be a compromise between old and new, while not adhering to the spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of old forms. Though it was not completely consistent in spelling, particularly when it came to vowels and it established the use of the letters ä and ö in place of the older æ and ø and introduced the completely new å in place of o in many words. It also introduced such as using ck instead of kk in words like tacka. The ongoing rivalry with Denmark can be argued to have influence on the new translation. Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a powerful precedent for orthographic standards. It was not until the end of the 17th century that the issue started being discussed, the 16th century was further marked by inconsistencies in the Swedish language throughout the country. Some regions did not adhere to the standards the Bible used and continued to use their old way of writing, books printed in Swedish were scarce. Most were theological texts intended to spread the Lutheran doctrines through Sweden, also of importance were the national hymnals. A first draft was created in the 1530s In the 17th century there were attempts to establish Swedish as a genuine language, an early linguist and author was Georg Stiernhielm, who is today almost universally labelled Father of Swedish Poetry. He was the first to introduce the hexameter into the Swedish language with his epic Hercules in 1658, the hexameter is used in the Latin language and is sometimes considered unsuitable for Germanic languages because of the differences in prosody. The hexameter would later be used by many other Swedish poets, Stiernhielm was a learned man, and has been labelled the most knowledgeable man in Sweden of his time. He was probably the first to be so fascinated by the Norse languages, realizing the common inheritance they shared, he traced their origin from ancient times, descending them from a Biblical tribe. Late Modern Swedish is considered to have begun in 1732 when Olof von Dalin published the weekly publication The Swedish Argus in Stockholm and it dealt with current events in Sweden, mainly Stockholm with its population of 50,000, in a publicly appealing way. Often it used irony and satire to portray royalty and other notable people and this popular style characterizes the entire period. Bellman was a Stockholm poet of the late 18th century whose poetry represented the drinking habits of the time, in 1825 a professor of Lund University and later Bishop of Växjö, Esaias Tegnér, published Fritiofs Saga, a Viking epic directed to a general audience
Modern Swedish
–
Gustav Vasa Bible in 1541 was the first complete Swedish translation of the Bible
22.
Swedish literature
–
Swedish literature refers to literature written in the Swedish language or by writers from Sweden. The first literary text from Sweden is the Rök Runestone, carved during the Viking Age circa 800 AD, with the conversion of the land to Christianity around 1100 AD, Sweden entered the Middle Ages, during which monastic writers preferred to use Latin. Therefore, there are only a few texts in the Old Swedish from that period, Swedish literature only flourished when the Swedish language was standardized in the 16th century, a standardization largely due to the full translation of the Bible into Swedish in 1541. This translation is the so-called Gustav Vasa Bible, with improved education and the freedom brought by secularisation, the 17th century saw several notable authors develop the Swedish language further. In Sweden, the period starting in 1880 is known as realism because the writing had a focus on social realism. In the late 19th and early 20th century, other writers included Ola Hansson. In the 1900s, one of the earliest novelists was Hjalmar Söderberg, the early 20th century continued to produce notable authors, such as Selma Lagerlöf and Pär Lagerkvist. In the 1960s, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö collaborated to produce a series of internationally acclaimed detective novels, the most successful writer of detective novels is Henning Mankell, whose works have been translated into 37 languages. In the spy genre, the most successful writer is Jan Guillou. In recent decades, a handful of Swedish writers have established themselves internationally, such as the detective novelist Henning Mankell, also well-known outside of Sweden is the childrens book writer Astrid Lindgren, author of works such as Pippi Longstocking and Emil of Maple Hills. Most runestones had a practical, rather than a literary, purpose and are mainly of interest to historians. Several runic inscriptions are also nonsensical by nature, being used for magical or incantatory purposes, the most notable literary exception is the Rök Runestone from circa 800 AD. It contains the longest known inscription, and encompasses several different passages from sagas and legends, part of it is written in alliterative verse, or fornyrdislag. It is generally regarded as the beginning of Swedish literature, the Christianization of Sweden was one of the main events in the countrys history, and it naturally had an equally profound impact on literature. The Gök runestone is a case in point of how the older literature dissolved and it uses the same imagery as the Ramsund carving, but a Christian cross has been added and the images are combined in a way that completely distorts the internal logic of events. Whatever the reason may have been, the Gök stone illustrates how the pagan heroic mythos was going towards its dissolution, Literature now looked to foreign texts to provide models. By 1200, Christianity was firmly established and a Medieval European culture appeared in Sweden, only a selected few mastered the written language, but little was written down. Complete manuscripts are found from the early 14th century, written in Latin
Swedish literature
–
The
Rök Runestone, the start of Swedish literature
Swedish literature
–
The
Gök runestone.
Swedish literature
–
The novelist and playwright
August Strindberg, painted by
Richard Bergh, 1906
23.
Early Swedish literature
–
Early Swedish literature designates Swedish literature written between approximately 1200–1500 AD. As Swedish evolved from Old Norse in the 13th century, the Swedish literature began to form as an independent body of literature. The earliest form of an independent Swedish language is called Old Swedish, the period was initiated by the first provincial laws. In them, the runic Futhark was almost totally replaced by the Latin alphabet, the provincial laws are believed to have had a solid centuries-old foundation that was kept alive by oral tradition until they were written down. Compared to the Christianity-influenced Swedish literature during the centuries, the provincial laws are described as having a touch of the ancient folkhistory, of tradition. Because of the dominant Catholic Church, Latin had come to be the lingua franca for all matters of education, science, therefore, there are few traces of Old Swedish in the old medieval manuscripts. As mentioned, the most important exceptions were the provincial laws, second to the laws come the legends of saints, popular among both commoners and scholars. These works would often be based upon the international best-seller Golden Legend, the three ballads were titled Herr Ivan lejonriddaren, Hertig Fredrik av Normandie and Flores och Blanzeflor. They were followed by a translation of the Norwegian Karlamagnús saga as Karl Magnus, the mid-fifteenth century also saw a Swedish verse translation Legends about Theoderic the Great of the Norwegian prose Þiðreks saga. Other works need to be mentioned for their historical importance. The Chronicle of Charles, the Chronicle of Eric and the Chronicles of Sture give a coverage of the time of Swedish history between the early 14th to the late 15th century. The earliest and most notable of these was the Chronicle of Erik, written around 1330, in term of literary quality, the chronicles were written in an unambitious rhyming verse known as knittel, without actual literary ambitions. Several early Swedish works were written in Latin, but they are considered part of Swedish literature history. It was the Christian field that gave birth to most literature in the ensuing centuries, the monk Petrus de Dacia originated from a monastery on the island Gotland, south-east Sweden. The literature for which he is best known are his letters of admiration directed to the pious woman Christine of Cologne, de Dacia is generally regarded the first Swedish writer. In the 14th century, one notable figure stands out, Saint Birgitta, a devoted Christian mystic and her complete writings were published as Revelaciones celestes in 1492, and they have since been translated to several languages. Algulin, Ingemar, A History of Swedish Literature, published by the Swedish Institute,1989, ISBN 0-8032-4750-8 Gustafson, Alrik A History of Swedish Literature,1961. Lönnroth, L. Delblanc S. Göransson, S. Den svenska litteraturen,3 volumes Tigerstedt, E. N
Early Swedish literature
–
A page of a 1280 copy of the
Law of Västergötland, the oldest remaining complete book in Swedish. Currently in possession of
The Royal Library.
24.
Swedish Reformation and Renaissance literature
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The German Protestant Reformation had spread to Sweden by 1520. The advent of the printing press facilitated a full translation of the Bible into Swedish in 1541, from a philological view, a new period in the development of the Swedish language called Modern Swedish was initiated with the Bible translation. It also gave power to the vernacular language, from a literary point of view, the period between 1400 and 1600 produced little of note, especially during the 1520–1600. Yet, paradoxically, the Bible translation published 1541 is possibly the most significant Swedish book of all times, first and foremost, it had a great religious impact, but apart from that it also introduced the common man to a language beyond the common-day. The Bible was used in churches for around 400 years until the Bible translation of 1917, from an ideological perspective, the 16th century literature gave rise to a Gothicismus. The main idea of movement is that the Goths, a renowned East Germanic tribe in the 1st-6th century, originated from Scandinavia. An important advocate was the deposed Swedish archbishop Johannes Magnus, who was exiled in Rome between 1530–1544 together with his brother Olaus Magnus, in Historia de omnibus gothorum suenumque regibus, Johannes Magnus traced the Swedish line of kings back to the Old Testament. The works of the Magnus brothers gained attention throughout Europe and was translated into several languages, in history, Sweden was a great empire between 1611–1718. In literature, however, its development was trailing other European countries and it was by French and German influence that Swedish literature was to be shaped. In literature, an important turnstone occurred in 1658, when Georg Stiernhielm published Hercules, the story in Hercules is based on Xenophons story of Hercules at the crossroads of different paths. It was the first known publication of hexameter in Swedish language, another significant aspect of Hercules is the freedom of religious motives, drawing more upon ancient philosophy than on the Bible. In the ensuing decades, Stiernhielm and his followers made further attempts at writing tragedies, pastoral poetry, but when the last volume of Atlantica was published, the Gothicism movement was already on decline. This was for part an natural reaction to the failed Swedish wars. By 1720, gothicismus was a thing of the past, and Swedish culture took a turn towards science, an ecclesiastical body of literature affected by Gothicism was the Swedish hymn production of the late 17th century. The first official Swedish hymn book was published in 1695 and it is attributed to the bishop Jesper Svedberg, assisted by the bishop Haqvin Spegel. Svedberg was an advocate of the strength and high status of Swedish. In fact, he was the last strong proponent and new-thinker of his kind, the hymn book became widespread and beloved in sermons all over Sweden for a full century, and its weight cannot be overestimated. But the Gothicism ideals on which it was based had become superseded with the dawn of the 18th century, algulin, Ingemar, A History of Swedish Literature, published by the Swedish Institute,1989
Swedish Reformation and Renaissance literature
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Front page of the first complete Swedish translation of the Bible in 1541, known as the
Gustav Vasa Bible.
25.
Swedish enlightenment literature
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Swedish enlightenment literature was written between approximately 1732 and 1809. Key figures included the mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, the botanist Carl Linnaeus, the poet Johan Henrik Kellgren, there were only a few notable writers in spiritual matters in the 18th century. The most notable exception is Emanuel Swedenborg who published some 30 mystical 30 works, such as Heaven and its Wonders and Hell From Things Heard, Swedenborg almost exclusively wrote in Latin, but his work did have a significant influence on others for centuries to come. In the 18th century, Latin accelerated its decline in favor of the national language, one of the first proponents of producing material for a general public was the botanist Carl Linnaeus. Later key figures included the poet Johan Henrik Kellgren and the songwriter and performer Carl Michael Bellman, Carl Michael Bellman is one of few Swedish 18th century characters who has never lost the appreciation of common people. He was born in Stockholm and lived there for most of his life, education did not turn out well, instead he became interested in pleasurable activities. He made himself a reputation as a poet and singer-songwriter. Bellmans two principal works are Fredmans Epistles in 1790 and Fredmans Songs in 1791, each comprising some 80 songs, a striking theme is the freedom with which his main characters display themselves, they drink anywhere at any time, and make love anywhere at any time. All the same, death is always lurking around the corner, algulin, Ingemar, A History of Swedish Literature, published by the Swedish Institute,1989
Swedish enlightenment literature
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The Swedish enlightenment songwriter
Carl Michael Bellman portrayed by Per Krafft, 1779
