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Swedish is the official language of Sweden and is spoken by the vast majority of the 10.23 million inhabitants of the country. It is a North Germanic language and quite similar to its sister Scandinavian languages, Danish and Norwegian, with which it maintains partial mutual intelligibility and forms a dialect continuum.
Swedish (endonym: svenska [ˈsvɛ̂nːska] ⓘ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family, spoken predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland. [2] It has at least 10 million native speakers, making it the fourth most spoken Germanic language, and the first among its type in the Nordic countries overall.
The Old English name for Sweden was Swēoland or Swēorīċe, land or kingdom of the Swēon, whereas the Germanic tribe of the Swedes was called Svíþjóð in Old Norse. [2] The latter is a compositum consisting of Sví which means Swedish and þjóð which means people. [ 3 ]
Spoken in: Kingdom of Sweden; Danish – Dansk Official language in: Kingdom of Denmark and the Faroe Islands; Recognised Minority Language in: Federal Republic of Germany, Greenland, and Republic of Iceland; Dargwa – Дарган Mез Official language in: the Republic of Dagestan, Russian Federation; Delaware – Lënapei èlixsuwakàn
Swedish became Sweden's main official language on July 1, 2009, when a new language law was implemented. [1] The issue of whether Swedish should be declared the official language has been raised in the past, and the parliament voted on the matter in 2005 but the proposal narrowly failed. [2]
Official language A language designated as having a unique legal status in the state: typically, the language used in a nation's legislative bodies, and often, official government business. Regional language A language designated as having official status limited to a specific area, administrative division, or territory of the state.
The name for Sweden is generally agreed to derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *s(w)e, meaning "one's own", referring to one's own tribe from the tribal period. [15] [16] [17] The native Swedish name, Sverige (a compound of the words Svea and rike, first recorded in the cognate Swēorice in Beowulf), [18] translates as "realm of the Swedes", which excluded the Geats in Götaland.
Countries and territories where Swedish is an official language ... Swedish names (2 C, 1 P) Swedish ... List of English words of Swedish origin; Swenglish; F.