Swedish language
North Germanic language / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Swedish (svenska [ˈsvɛ̂nːska] ⓘ) is a North Germanic language spoken predominantly in Sweden and in parts of Finland.[2] It has at least 10 million native speakers, the fourth most spoken Germanic language and the first among any other of its type in the Nordic countries overall.[3]
Swedish | |
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Svenska | |
Pronunciation | [ˈsvɛ̂nːska] |
Native to | Sweden, Finland, formerly Estonia |
Ethnicity | Swedes |
Speakers | Native: 10 million (2012–2021)[1] L2 speakers: 3 million[1] |
Early forms | |
Latin (Swedish alphabet) Swedish Braille | |
Tecknad svenska (falling out of use) | |
Official status | |
Official language in | Finland Sweden Åland European Union Nordic Council |
Regulated by | Swedish Language Council (in Sweden) Swedish Academy (in Sweden) Institute for the Languages of Finland (in Finland) |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | sv |
ISO 639-2 | swe |
ISO 639-3 | swe |
Glottolog | swed1254 |
Linguasphere | 52-AAA-ck to -cw |
Regions where Swedish is an official language spoken by the majority of the population (Sweden, Åland, Western Finland) Regions where Swedish is an official language spoken by a minority of the population (Finland) | |
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. |
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Higher category: Language |
Swedish, like the other Nordic languages, is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish, although the degree of mutual intelligibility is largely dependent on the dialect and accent of the speaker.
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 and rural dialects still exist, the written language is uniform and standardized. Swedish is the most widely spoken second language in Finland where it has status as co-official language.
Swedish was long spoken in parts of Estonia, although the current status of the Estonian Swedish speakers is almost extinct. It is also used in the Swedish diaspora, most notably in Oslo, Norway, with more than 50,000 Swedish residents.[4]