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Language Information

Swedish is the most widely spoken of the Scandinavian languages, which constitute a branch of the Germanic languages, in turn a part of the Indo-European family. There are approximately 9 million speakers of Swedish. In addition to the 8 million people of Sweden, about 300,000 speakers live on the southwestern and southern coasts of Finland.

Swedish is closely related to Norwegian and Danish. Historically it is closer to Danish, but the years of Swedish hegemony over Norway (l8l4-1905) brought the two languages closer together. A Swedish person today has more difficulty understanding Danish than Norwegian.

The Swedish alphabet consists of twenty-nine letters, the regular twenty-six of the English alphabet, plus å, ä, and ö at the end. The ä and ö distinguish it from Norwegian and Danish, which use æ and ø.

During the Middle Ages Swedish borrowed many words from German, while the 18th century witnessed a large infusion of words from the French. In the 19th and 20th centuries English has become by far the largest source of foreign borrowings.

The English words smorgasbord and tungsten are of Swedish origin. The former is a combination of smörgås (sandwich) and bord (table). The latter is a combination of tung (heavy) and sten (stone).

Finland, Sweden.

Family: Indo-European
Subgroup: Germanic
Branch: Northern (Scandinavian)

Writing Sample

Translation

He stood erect—as a peg top does so long as the whip keeps lashing it. He was modest—thanks to a robust conviction of his own superiority. He was unambitious—all he wanted was a life free from cares, and he took more pleasure in the failures of others than in his own successes. He saved his life by never risking it—and complained that he was misunderstood.

DAG HAMMARsKJÖLD, Markings