Origins

The Swedish language derived, like all Scandinavian languages, from Old Norse. The inner separation of Old Norse resulted in the split into Western and Eastern Old Norse, the latter being the original language from which Danish and Swedish descended. Along their history, the Scandinavian languages have closely interacted due to Danish domination, the great Swedish Kingdom, etc. All of this resulted in three mutually intelligible languages, today’s Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. German also had some influence on Swedish, especially in earlier eras prior to Modern Swedish.

Official Language

Swedish is the official language of Sweden. It’s also official to some extent in Finland and Estonia, mainly due to historical reasons which resulted in contemporary Swedish-speaking populations within those countries. Swedish is one of the EU’s official languages. It’s also among the official languages of the Nordic Council.

Varieties

Swedish is a language with a high degree of standardisation. Standard Swedish is based upon the language spoken in the capital city of Stockholm. Still, some dialects exist. As such, official Swedish linguistics determines the language varieties, which probably didn’t follow the same historical evolution as the official language. As a result, such varieties are significantly unintelligible to most Standard Swedish speakers, though the speakers of the dialects are fluent in Standard Swedish. Such dialects, like Orsa and Narpes, are limited within separate parishes.

Brief History

The history of Swedish has its first stages in the Old Norse language. This was the common language spoken by all people in Scandinavia during the era of the Vikings. In the 9th Century, Old Norse began to split into two major branches, Eastern and Western.Swedish, along with Danish, belonged to the Eastern branch. The divergence between them started in the 13th Century.

The Swedish language spoken in the Middle Ages is known as Old Swedish. This period is related to the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church. At this time, Latin and Greek had a strong impact on the language.

The next period, known as New Swedish, is marked with a strong trend of searching for national identity. At that time, the printing press was discovered, and the New Testament was translated into Swedish, as well as many other books and works of literature. The influence of Latin and Greek was reduced. The New Swedish period started in the 16th Century, and lasted until the transition to Modern Swedish.

Modern Swedish, the closest to the contemporary language, is a period starting at the end of the 19th Century. Its most important events and works were performed in the first half of the 20th Century, with the literature reaching new horizons and producing some of its most notable works ever. One of the most important authors of the time was August Strindberg. It was at that time that the language finally saw the stabilisation of its orthography and firmly established standardisation.

Did you know?

Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are mutually intelligible, though they belong to two different branches of the Scandinavian languages, Eastern and Western.

The official Swedish language is based upon the language of Stockholm. It has almost no dialects, except for a few regional varieties.

Swedish also has the status of an official language to some extent in Finland and Estonia.