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Kalmar Union

Kalmar Union

The Kalmar Union (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish: Kalmarunionen) was a series of personal unions (1397–1520) that united the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden under a single monarch. The countries had given up their sovereignty, but not their independence, and diverging interests (especially Swedish dissatisfaction over the Danish and Holsteinish dominance) gave rise to a conflict that would hamper it from the 1430s until its final dissolution in 1523.

Union

The union was formed by Queen Margaret I of Denmark (1353–1412) in the Swedish town of Kalmar, then close to the Danish border, after Danish and Swedish troops in 1389 had defeated the Swedish king, Albert of Mecklenburg, and he subsequently failed to pay the required tribute of 60,000 silver marks within three years after his release. King Albert, born in Germany, was disliked by the Swedish nobility and their rebellion had received help from the Danes, who intended the union to serve as a check on the growing power of the German Hanseatic League. Queen Margaret, who was a daughter of the late Danish king Valdemar Atterdag and wife of the late Norwegian king Haakon VI, maneuvered to have her grandnephew Eric of Pomerania recognized as heir to the Norwegian throne, and then elected king over the two other countries. Margaret promised to protect the political influence and privileges of the nobility under the union, but Eric wanted to strengthen the monarchy.

Conflict

The Swedes were not happy with the Danes' frequent wars on Schleswig, Holstein, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania, which were a disturbance to Swedish exports (notably iron) to the Continent. Furthermore, the centralization of government in Denmark raised suspicions. The Swedish Privy Council wanted to retain a fair degree of self-government. The unity of the union eroded in the 1430s, even to the point of armed rebellion (the Engelbrecht rebellion), leading to the expulsion of Danish forces from Sweden. Eric was deposed (1438–1439) as the union king and was succeeded by the childless Christopher of Bavaria. In the power vacuum that arose following Christopher's death (1448), Sweden elected Charles VIII king with the intent to reestablish the union under a Swedish crown. Charles was elected king of Norway in the following year, but the counts of Holstein were more influential than the Swedes and the Norwegians together, and made the Danish Privy Council appoint Christian I of Oldenburg as king. During the next seven decades struggle for power and the wars between Sweden and Denmark would dominate the union. After the successful retaking of Sweden by Christian II and the subsequent Stockholm bloodbath in 1520, the Swedes started yet another rebellion which ousted the Danish forces once again in 1521. While independence had been reclaimed the election of King Gustav of the Vasa on June 6, 1523, restored sovereignty for Sweden and finally dissolved the union.

Final dissolution

The last structures of the Kalmar Union remained until 1536 when the Danish Privy Council, in the aftermath of a civil war, unilaterally declared Norway to be a Danish province, without consulting their Norwegian colleagues. As Norway was a hereditary kingdom, it was in the king's interest to maintain Norway's formal status as semi-independent, to insure that future members of the Oldenburg dynasty would be elected to the Danish throne. Norway kept some separate institutions and its legal system, but the former Norwegian possessions of Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands, came directly under the Danish crown. In 1814 the king of Denmark-Norway was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden. In the middle of the 19th century, this would give rise to the Scandinavian movement, which sought to reunite the countries of the Kalmar Union, except Finland, under one monarch.

See also


- List of Kalmar Union monarchs
- Grand Duchy of Finland

External links


- [http://www.fotw.net/flags/dk_ku.html Kalmar Union Flag] - Flags of the World
- [http://home.student.uu.se/o/orma1967/Kartor/Kalmarunionen/union.htm The Kalmar Union] - Maps of the Kalmar Union Category:Danish monarchy Category:Former monarchies Category:Norwegian monarchy Category:Scandinavian history Category:Swedish monarchy ja:カルマル同盟 nb:Kalmarunionen

Norwegian language

Norwegian is a Germanic language spoken in Norway. Norwegian is closely related to, and generally mutually intelligible with Swedish and Danish. Together with these two languages as well as Faroese and Icelandic, Norwegian belongs to the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages). Native speakers of Norwegian are, for the most part, quite proficient in understanding Danish and Swedish in spoken as well as written form. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Danish was the standard written language of Norway. As a result, the development of modern written Norwegian has been subject to strong controversy related to nationalism, rural versus urban discourse, and Norway's literary history. As established by law and governmental policy, there are currently two official forms of written Norwegian – Bokmål (literally "book language") and Nynorsk (literally "new Norwegian"). The Norwegian Language Council recommends the terms "Norwegian Bokmål" and "Norwegian Nynorsk" in English, but these are seldom used. The language question in Norway has been subject to much controversy during the past generations. Though not reflective of the political landscape in general, written Norwegian is often described as a spectrum ranging from the conservative to the radical. This is because successive spelling reforms have resulted in an increased number of optional forms in spelling and grammar, allowing for greater possibility of combining elements from both written forms, particularly in the Bokmål variant. The current forms of Bokmål and Nynorsk are considered moderate forms of conservative and radical versions of written Norwegian, respectively. The unofficial written form known as Riksmål is considered more conservative than Bokmål, and the unofficial Høgnorsk more conservative than Nynorsk. Those forms became popular among enthusiastic conservative people due to the reforms in the 1920s and 30s when the two official languages were brought closer together. Although Norwegians are educated in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, around 86-90% use Bokmål as their daily written language, and 10%-12% use Nynorsk, although many of the spoken dialects resemble Nynorsk more closely than Bokmål, mostly in terms of vocabulary and accent. Broadly speaking, Bokmål and Riksmål are more commonly seen in urban and suburban areas; Nynorsk in rural areas, particularly in Western Norway. The Norwegian broadcasting corporation (NRK) broadcasts in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and all governmental agencies are required to support both written languages. Bokmål is used in 92% of all written publications, Nynorsk in 8% (2000). According to the Norwegian Language Council, "It may be reasonably realistic to assume that about 10-12% use Nynorsk, i.e. somewhat less than half a million people." [http://www.sprakrad.no/templates/Page.aspx?id=6811] In spite of concern that Norwegian dialects would eventually give way to a common spoken Norwegian language close to Bokmål, dialects find significant support in local environments, popular opinion, and public policy.

History

Norwegian Language Council. The red area is the distribution of the dialect Old West Norse; the orange area is the spread of the dialect Old East Norse. The pink area is Old Gutnish and the green area is the extent of the other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility]] The languages now spoken in Scandinavia developed from the Old Norse language, which did not differ greatly between what are now Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish areas. In fact, Viking traders spread the language across Europe and into Russia, making Old Norse one of the most widespread languages for a time. According to tradition, King Harald Fairhair united Norway in 872. Around this time, a runic alphabet was used. According to writings found on stone tablets from this period of history, the language showed remarkably little deviation between different regions. Runes had been in limited use since at least the 3rd century. Around 1030, Christianity came to Norway, bringing with it the Latin alphabet. Norwegian manuscripts in the new alphabet began to appear about a century later. The Norwegian language began to deviate from its neighbors around this time as well. Viking explorers had begun to settle Iceland in the 9th century, carrying with them the Old Norse language. Over time, Old Norse developed into "Western" and "Eastern" variants. Western Norse covered Iceland and Norway, while Eastern Norse developed in Denmark and Sweden. The languages of Iceland and Norway remained very similar until about the year 1300, when they became what are now known as Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian. In 1397, Norway entered a personal union with Denmark, which came to be the dominating part, and Danish was eventually used as Norway's written language. Danish, a language since medieval times mostly influenced by Low German, came to be the primary language of the Norwegian elite, although adoption was slower among the commoners. The union lasted more than 400 years, until 1814 when Norway became independent of Denmark, but was forced to enter a personal union with Sweden. Norwegians began to push for true independence by embracing democracy and attempting to enforce the constitutional declaration of being a sovereign state. Part of this nationalist movement was directed to the development of an independent Norwegian language. Two major paths were available: modify the elite's Danish, or attempt to undo centuries of foreign rule and work with the commoners' Norwegian. Both approaches were attempted.

From Danish to Norwegian

In the 1840s, many writers began to "Norwegianize" Danish by incorporating words that were descriptive of Norwegian scenery and folk life. Spelling and grammar were also modified. This was adopted by the Norwegian parliament as Riksmål, or "Standard Language" in 1899. However, a nationalistic movement strove for the development of a new written Norwegian. Ivar Aasen, a self-taught linguist, began his work to create a new Norwegian language at the age of 22. He traveled around the country, comparing the dialects in different regions, and examined the development of Icelandic, which had largely escaped the influences Norwegian had come under. He called his work, which was published in several books from 1848 to 1873, Landsmål, or "National Language". After the personal union with Sweden was dissolved, both languages were developed further. Riksmål was in 1929 officially renamed Bokmål (literally "Book language"), and Landsmål to Nynorsk (literally "New Norwegian") — the names Dano-Norwegian and Norwegian lost in parliament by one single vote, as the Danish label was (and still is) very unpopular among Bokmål users. Bokmål and Nynorsk were made closer by reforms in 1917, 1938 and 1959. This was a result of a state policy to merge Nynorsk and Bokmål into one language, called Samnorsk (Common Norwegian). A 1946 poll showed that this policy was supported by 79% of Norwegians at the time. However, opponents of the official policy still managed to create a massive protest movement against Samnorsk in the 50's, fighting in particular the use of "radical" forms in Bokmål text books in schools. The Samnorsk policy had little influence after 1960, and was officially abandoned in 2002. Users of either written language resented the efforts to dilute the distinctness of their written language in general and spelling in particular. Over the years, the standards for Bokmål have increasingly accommodated Riksmål forms. As a result, some people prefer to follow a more traditional way of spelling of Nynorsk, called Høgnorsk.

Sounds

The sound system of Norwegian is fairly similar to both Danish and Swedish, though no official spoken standard exists. The variant generally taught to foreign students is Eastern Norwegian (Bokmål) as it is spoken in and around the capital Oslo.

Consonants

In Western Norwegian more guttural realizations of the /r/-phoneme are very common. Depending on phonetic context voiceless, , or voiced uvular fricatives ., are used. A majority of the dialects, especially in eastern and central Norway, use several retroflex consonants. The most exotic of these is the retroflex flap which is only found in a few languages worldwide.

Vowels

There are, of course, many variations in vowel pronunciation in different dialects and idiolects of Norwegian, as in any language. The above vowel chart is meant to be fairly representative of Bokmål.

Tonems

Norwegian is a pitch accent language with two distinct tonemes. They are used to differentiate two-syllable words with otherwise identical pronounciation. For example in the Oslo dialects, the word "bønder" (farmers) is pronounced using tone 1, while "bønner" (beans) uses tone 2. The difference in spelling is used to allow the words to be distinguished in written language. Written Norwegian doesn't indicate which tone should be used. Tone 1 uses a low flat pitch in the first syllable and a higher rising pitch in the second. Tone 2 uses a high, sharply falling pitch in the first syllable and a neutral flat pitch in the second. There are significant variations in pitch accent between dialects. The pitch tones give Norwegian language a "singing" quality which makes it fairly easy to distinguish from other languages with the exception of Swedish.

Written language

The Alphabet

The Norwegian alphabet is as follows: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Æ Ø Å (29 letters) a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z æ ø å

Bokmål and Nynorsk

Like some other European countries, Norway has an official "advisory board" – Språkrådet (Norwegian Language Council) – that determines, after approval from the Ministry of Culture, official spelling, grammar, and vocabulary for the Norwegian language. The board's work has been subject to considerable controversy through the years, and much work lies ahead. Both Nynorsk and Bokmål have a great variety of optional forms, particularly Bokmål. The Bokmål that uses the forms that are close to Riksmål is called moderate or conservative, depending on one's viewpoint, while the Bokmål that uses the forms that are close to Nynorsk is called radical. Nynorsk has forms that are close to the original Landsmål and forms that are close to Bokmål.

Riksmål

Opponents of the spelling reforms aimed at bringing Bokmål closer to Nynorsk have retained the name Riksmål and employ spelling and grammar that predate the Samnorsk movement. Riksmål and conservative versions of Bokmål have been the de facto standard written language of Norway for most of the 20th century, being used by large newspapers, encyclopedias, and a significant proportion of the population of the capital Oslo, surrounding areas, and other urban areas, as well as much of the literary tradition. Since the reforms of 1981 and 2003 (effective in 2005), the official Bokmål can be adapted to be almost identical with modern Riksmål. The differences between written Riksmål and Bokmål are today comparable to Commonwealth English vs American English. Riksmål is regulated by the Norwegian Academy, which determines acceptable spelling, grammar, and vocabulary.

Høgnorsk

There is also an unofficial form of Nynorsk, called Høgnorsk, discarding the post-1917 reforms, and thus close to Ivar Aasen's original Landsmål. It is supported by Ivar Aasen-sambandet, but has found no widespread use.

Current usage

About 85.3% of the pupils in the primary and lower secondary schools in Norway receive education in Bokmål, while about 14.5% receive education in Nynorsk. From the eighth grade onwards pupils are required to learn both. Out of the 433 municipalities in Norway, 161 have declared that they wish to communicate with the central authorities in Bokmål, 116 (representing 12% of the population) in Nynorsk, while 156 are neutral. Of 4,549 Norwegian publications in 2000 8% were in Nynorsk, and 92% in Bokmål/Riksmål. The large national newspapers (Aftenposten, Dagbladet and VG) are published in Bokmål/Riksmål. Some major regional newspapers (including Bergens Tidende and Stavanger Aftenblad), many political journals, and many local newspapers use both Bokmål and Nynorsk.

Dialects

There is general agreement that a wide range of differences makes it difficult to estimate the number of different Norwegian dialects. Variations in grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation cut across geographical boundaries and can create a distinct dialect at the level of farm clusters. Dialects are in some cases so dissimilar as to be unintelligible to unfamiliar listeners. Many linguists note a trend toward regionalization of dialects that diminishes the differences at such local levels; but there is renewed interest in preserving distinct dialects.

Examples

Below are a few sentences giving an indication of the differences between Bokmål and Nynorsk, compared to the conservative (nearer to Danish) form Riksmål, and to Danish itself:
- B=Bokmål
- R=Riksmål
- D=Danish
- N=Nynorsk
- H=Høgnorsk
- E=English B/R/D: Jeg kommer fra Norge
N/H: Eg kjem frå Noreg.
E: I come from Norway. B/R: Hva heter han?
D: Hvad hedder han?
N/H: Kva heiter han?
E: What is he called? B/R/D: Dette er en hest.
N/H: Dette er ein hest.
E: This is a horse. B: Regnbuen har mange farger.
R/D: Regnbuen har mange farver.
N: Regnbogen har mange fargar.
H: Regnbogen hev mange fargar. (Or better: Regnbogen er manglíta).
E: The rainbow has many colours.

Grammar

The number of grammatical genders in Norwegian is somewhat disputed, but the official view is that Norwegian nouns fall into three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. The inflection of the nouns depends on the gender. Note that feminine nouns can be inflected like masculine nouns in Bokmål. Riksmål rejects the feminine gender and merges it with the masculine into a common gender (utrum), like in Danish.

Vocabulary

Compound words are written together in Norwegian (see Nominal compositum), which can cause words to become very long, for example sannsynlighetsmaksimeringsestimator (maximum likelihood estimator). Another example is the title høyesterettsjustitiarius (originally put together of supreme court and the actual title, justitiarius). However, because of the increasing influence the English language is having on Norwegian, and inadequate computer spell checkers, this is often forgotten, sometimes with humorous results. Instead of writing for example lammekoteletter (lamb chops), people make the mistake of writing lamme koteletter (paralyzed, or lame, chops). The original message can even be reversed, as when røykfritt (smoke-free) becomes røyk fritt (smoke freely). Other examples include:
- Terrasse dør ("Terrace dies") instead of Terrassedør ("Terrace door")
- Tunfisk biter ("Tuna bites", verb) instead of Tunfiskbiter ("Pieces of tuna", noun)
- Smult ringer ("Lard calls", verb) instead of Smultringer ("Doughnuts")
- Tyveri sikret ("Theft guaranteed") instead of Tyverisikret ("Theft proof") These misunderstandings occur because most nouns can be interpreted as verbs or other types of words. Similar misunderstandings can be achieved in English too. The following are examples of phrases that both in Norwegian and English mean one thing as a compound word, and something different when regarded as separate words:
- stavekontroll (spell checker) or stave kontroll (spell "checker")
- kokebok (cookbook) or koke bok (cook book)
- ekte håndlagde vafler (real handmade waffles) or Ekte hånd lagde vafler. (Real hand made waffles.)

See also


- Differences between the Norwegian and Danish languages
- Det Norske Akademi for Sprog og Litteratur
- Noregs Mållag
- Norsk Ordbok
- Riksmålsforbundet
- Russenorsk
- List of common phrases in various languages
- Numbers in various languages

References


- Einar Haugen, editor (1965, 1967, 1974). Norwegian-English Dictionary. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
- Kristoffersen, Gjert (2000) The Phonology of Norwegian ISBN 0-19-823765-0

External links


- [http://www.dicts.info/dictlist1.php?k1=67 All free Norwegian dictionaries]
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=nob Ethnologue report for Norwegian, bokmål]
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=nno Ethnologue report for Norwegian, nynorsk]
- [http://odin.dep.no/odin/engelsk/norway/history/032005-990497/index-dok000-b-n-a.html Norway: Small country with two written languages - article from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs]
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Norwegian-english/ Norwegian - English Dictionary]
- [http://www.ordnett.no/ordbok.html Bokmålsordboken and Norsk Riksmålsordbok - Norwegian dictionary]
- [http://www.dokpro.uio.no/ordboksoek.html Bokmålsordboka og Nynorskordboka - Norwegian dictionary]
- [http://www.nynorsk.no/ nynorsk.no - News about Nynorsk (in Norwegian)]
- [http://www.lovdata.no/cgi-wift/ldles?doc=/sf/sf/sf-20050401-0277.html Forskrift om målvedtak i kommunar og fylkeskommunar] - Legal document in Norwegian listing which counties and municipalities have declared their official written standard to be specifically Bokmål, Nynorsk or undeclared. (Note that six municipalities have declared Northern Sami co-official in addition with Norwegian). Category:Norwegian language Category:Languages of Norway Category:North Germanic languages zh-min-nan:Norge-gí ko:노르웨이어 ja:ノルウェー語

Swedish language

Swedish () is a North Germanic language (also called Scandinavian languages) spoken predominantly in Sweden and in part of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Åland islands, by more than nine million people. It is mutually intelligible with two of the other Scandinavian languages, Danish and Norwegian. Standard Swedish 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 older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized, with a 99% literacy rate among adults. Some of the genuine dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are usually spoken by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities. Swedish is distinguished by its prosody, which differs considerably between varieties. It includes both lexical stress and tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory, with nine separate vowels that are distinguished by quantity and to some degree quality, making up a total of 17 vowel phonemes. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a sound found in many dialects, including the more prestigious forms of the standard language. Though similar to other sounds with distinct labial qualities, it has so far not been found in any other language.

Classification and related languages

Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. Together with Danish it belongs to the East Scandinavian group, separating it from the West Scandinavian group consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. More recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into an Insular Scandinavian and Mainland Scandinavian languages, grouping Norwegian with Danish and Swedish based on mutual intelligibility and the fact that Norwegian has been heavily influenced in particular by Danish during the last millennium and has diverged from Faroese and Icelandic. By generally accepted criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Mainland Scandinavian languages could very well be considered to be dialects of a common Scandinavian language. Due to several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long string of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian, and some of these on the border between Norway and Sweden, such as those of western Värmland, take up a middle ground between the national standard languages.

History

In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the medieval period. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.

Old Norse

Middle Low German. The red area is the distribution of the dialect Old West Norse; the orange area is the spread of the dialect Old East Norse. The purple area is Old Gutnish and the green area is the extent of the other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility.]] In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden). 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 due to the fact that the main 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, which only had 16 letters. Due to the limited number of runes, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e. A change that separated Old East Norse (Runic Swedish/Danish) from Old West Norse was the change of the diphthong æi (Old West Norse ei) to the monophthong e, as in stæin to sten. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into ø as in døðr. This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy (Old West Norse ey) diphthong changed into ø as well, as in the Old Norse word for "island". From 1100 and 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, ranging from Zealand to Svealand.

Old Swedish

Svealand of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.]] Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Catholic church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Low and High German became ever more present. 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. Many naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch. Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern 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. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century. A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ – and sometimes (when writing hastily?) as a' – though it varied between individuals and regions. The combination "aa" similarly became aa, and "oe" became oe. These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, å and ö.

New Swedish

16th century New Swedish begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament came out in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri. The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally due to the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible. Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards. Capitalization was during this time not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized, due to the Gothic or black letter font which was used to print the Bible. This font was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin font (often antiqua). Some important changes in sound during the New Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into and the softening of /g/ and /k/ into /j/ and before front vowels. The dental and velar fricatives and were transformed to the corresponding plosives /d/ and /g/.

Modern Swedish

velar fricatives The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska ("Contemporary Swedish", lit. "Now Swedish") in linguistic terminology. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many authors, scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, the most influential of these being August Strindberg (1849-1912). It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations. A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("mr"), fru ("mrs") or fröken ("miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with Ni (the standard second person plural pronoun) — analogous to French. Ni wound up being used as a slightly less arrogant form of du used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 60s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts.

Former language minorities

class class Formerly, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (Hiiumaa, Saaremaa and Vormsi) along the coast of the Baltic. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of the Baltic territories to Russia in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Swedish speakers were forced to march to Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"), north of the Crimea. A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction . In Estonia, the small remaining Swedish community was very well treated between the First and Second World Wars. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, had Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden at the end of World War II when Estonia was incorporated into the Soviet Union. Only a handful of older speakers remain today.

Geographic distribution

Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Sweden-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. In mainland Finland Swedish is spoken as a first language by about 5.5% or about 300,000 people. The Finland-Swedish minority is concentrated to the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In these areas, Swedish is often the dominating language. In three cases, in the municipalities of Korsnäs (97% Swedish speakers), Närpes and Larsmo, Swedish is the only official language. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but due to the similarity between the languages and cultures (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2004 US census some 67,000 people age five and over were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency.

Official status

Sweden has had a comparatively homogeneous culture, with Swedish the dominant language for most of its modern history. Language minorities such as Samis have been small and often marginalized, during the 19th and early 20th century even actively suppressed. Although Swedish has been the administrative and liturgical language since the early 16th century, it has not been deemed necessary to formally prescribe it as the official language of Sweden. Swedish is the sole official language of Åland, an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland, where 95% of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union.

Regulatory bodies

There are no official regulatory institutions for the Swedish language. The Swedish Language Council (Svenska språknämnden) has semi-official status as such and is funded by the Swedish government, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage. In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Domestic Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden from their point of view.

Dialects

The linguistic definition of a Swedish dialect is a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Österbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to most Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmål (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately. Common Swedish terms for different mål, "(styles of) speech", are used here. parish
- Norrländska mål — Norrland, the northern half of Sweden :1. Överkalix, Norrbotten; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Norrland/Norrbotten/Overkalix/yw.html younger female] :2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Norrland/Vasterbotten/Burtrask/ow.html older female] :3. Aspås, Jämtland; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Norrland/Jamtland/Aspas/yw.html younger female] :4. Färila, Hälsingland; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Norrland/Halsingland/Farila/om.html older male]
- Sveamål — Svealand :5. Älvdalen, Dalarna; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Svealand/Dalarna/Alvdalen/ow.html older female] :6. Gräsö, Uppland; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Svealand/Uppland/Graso/om.html older male] :7. Sorunda, Södermanland; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Svealand/Sodermanland/Sorunda/ym.html younger male] :8. Köla, Värmland [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Svealand/Varmland/Kola/yw.html younger female] :9. Viby, Närke; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Svealand/Narke/Viby/om.html older male]
- Gotländska mål — Gotland :10. Sproge, Gotland; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Gotaland/Gotland/Sproge/yw.html younger female]
- Östsvenska mål — Åland and mainland Finland :11. Närpes, Österbotten; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Finland/Osterbotten/Narpes/yw.html younger female] :12. Dragsfjärd, Åboland; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Finland/Aboland/Dragsfjard/om.html older male] :13. Borgå, Nyland; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Finland/Nyland/Borga/ym.html younger male]
- Götamål — western and northern Götaland, traditionally centered in Västergötland :14. Orust, Bohuslän; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Gotaland/Bohuslan/Orust/om.html older male] :15. Floby, Västergötland; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Gotaland/Vastergotland/Floby/ow.html older female] :16. Rimforsa, Östergötland; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Gotaland/Ostergotland/Rimforsa/ow.html older female] :17. Årstad-Hedberg, Halland; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Gotaland/Halland/Arstad/ym.html younger male] :18. Stenberga, Småland; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Gotaland/Smaland/Stenberga/yw.html younger female]
- Sydsvenska mål — southernmost Sweden, including Blekinge, southern Halland and southern Småland :19. Jämshög, Blekinge; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Gotaland/Blekinge/Jamshog/ow.html older female] :20. Bara, Skåne; [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Gotaland/Skane/Bara/om.html older male] All dialect samples are from [http://swedia.ling.umu.se/ SweDia], a research project on Swedish dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers; older female, older male, younger female and younger male.

Standard Swedish

Standard Swedish, which is derived from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Finland-Swedes. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"), though the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is not uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish. Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was recently conducted by [http://www.hui.se/ HUI] , the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain varieties by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several "dialects" such as gotländska or skånska were provided as alternatives in the poll. mass media

Finland-Swedish

Finland was a part of Sweden from the mid 14th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. As of 2004, 5.53% of the total population speak Finland-Swedish as their first language, according to official statistics. Since an educational reform in the 1970s, both Swedish and Finnish have been compulsory school subjects in Mainland Finland, and both were until 2004 mandatory in the final examinations. Education in the pupil's first language is officially called "mother tongue" — "modersmål" in Swedish or "äidinkieli" in Finnish — and education in the other language is referred to as "the other domestic language" — "andra inhemska språket" in Swedish, "toinen kotimainen kieli" in Finnish. The introduction of mandatory education in Swedish was chiefly intended as a step to avoid further decrease of the number of Swedish speakers and to avoid creating language-barriers between the two spoken languages. Finnish, a Finno-Ugric language, is fundamentally different from Swedish in grammar and vocabulary and there is no mutual understanding between the two. However, there is a considerable amount of borrowings from Swedish in the Finnish language. One example of the two languages merging in an unofficial sense is the classic Helsinki slang, ("Stadin slangi") which was born in the capital city of Finland in the early and middle 20th century, when both languages were almost equally widely spoken in the city area.

New dialects

Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a heavily segregated suburb of northern Stockholm) is a common name for varieties of Swedish spoken by second and third generation immigrants, especially among younger speakers, primarily in western suburbs of Stockholm and to a lesser degree in Malmö and Gothenburg. There is no consensus among linguists whether Rinkeby Swedish and similar varieties should be denominated as dialects or sociolects. The Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas has described these varieties as being most prominent among teenagers living in suburbs with a large immigrant population and particularly teenage boys. In this context it can be seen as an expression of a youth culture specific to these suburbs. Rinkeby Swedish is however not limited to the children of immigrants and is often surprisingly similar to variants in geographically distant immigrant-dominated suburbs. In a survey made by Kotsinas, foreign learners of Swedish were asked to identify the native language and time spent in Sweden of several teenage speakers living in Stockholm. The survey showed that the participants had great difficulty in accurately guessing the origins of the speakers and that they underestimated the time spent in Sweden. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.

Sounds

Swedish is notable for having a relatively large vowel inventory consisting of 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short /e/ and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which and /r/ show quite considerable variation depending on both social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody, which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect. The prosodic features of Swedish are sometimes summarized as a "melodic accent", though this term is not used by linguists and is used mostly as a descriptive, but still rather vague, term for the prosodic features of Swedish and Norwegian.

Vowels

The vowel phonemes of Standard Swedish Swedish vowels are contrastive in terms of quality, and the frontal vowels appear in rounded-unrounded pairs. Unstressed is rendered as (schwa) in most dialects, and a lowering of vowels is very common before /r/ and the various retroflex assimilations such as , . Various patterns of diphthongs occur in different dialect groups. Among the most distinguishable are those of Skåne in southern Sweden and in Gotland.

Consonants

The uniquely-Swedish phoneme (the "sje-sound" or voiceless palatal-velar fricative) and its allegedly double places of articulation is a difficult and complex issue that is still debated among phoneticians. Though the acoustic properties of the various -sounds are fairly similar, the realizations can vary considerably according to geography, social status, age, gender as well as social context and are notoriously difficult to describe and transcribe accurately. The sje-sound has a great variety of allophones in Swedish, and often quite subtle realizations. Most common are various -like sounds, with occurring mainly in northern Sweden and in Finland. can sometimes be used in the varieties influenced by major immigrant languages like Arabic and Kurdish. The realizations of /r/ are also highly variable in different dialects and varieties. In Central Swedish dialects often becomes a fricative , in consonant clusters often as , and especially in Central Standard Swedish as the approximant . Uses of taps like are also common. In southern Sweden uvular trills or voiced fricatives, , are commonly used to realize /r/. Unlike Central and most of the Finland-Swedish variants, /r/ is not assimilated into retroflex realizations in the southern variants. ("map") is hence realized as .

Prosody

Prosody in Swedish often varies substantially between different dialects including the spoken varieties of Standard Swedish. As in most languages, stress can be applied to emphasize certain words in a sentence. To some degree prosody may indicate questions, although less so than in English. Swedish is, like English, a stress-timed language and has many words that are differentiated by stress:
- formel — "formula"
- formell — "formal" Although there are inflection rules to prevent two unemphasized syllables in a row, words may instead have two consecutive stressed syllables. Stress in most dialects differentiates between two kinds of accents. Often referred to as acute and grave accent, they may also be referred to as accent 1 and accent 2 and are described as tonal word accents by Swedish linguists. Most dialects of Swedish make this distinction, although the actual realizations vary and are generally hard for non-natives to distinguish. In some dialects of Swedish as well as all those spoken in Finland this distinction is absent or only detectable through advanced phonetic analysis. Noteworthy are some three-hundred two-syllable word pairs that are differentiated only by their use of either grave or acute accent. One rule in play is that a word that in primary form has one syllable use accent 1, whereas a word that in primary form has more than one syllable use accent 2.
- anden — "the duck"
- anden — "the spirit" Here, the first word derives from the noun "and", thus using accent 1, while the second derives from the noun "ande", thus using accent 2.

Grammar

Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in two genders and two cases, as well as number. The two cases are nominative and genitive. Nominative is the dictionary form while the genitive suffix is -s, identical to that of English. Swedish nouns belong to one of two genders: uter (also common gender) or neuter, which also determine the declensions of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is an uter noun and can have the following forms: As in other Germanic languages there are definite and indefinite articles, but indicating the definite form of a noun is done mainly by a suffix which varies according to gender (-n/-t). The separate articles en/ett and den/det are used to make more subtle variations of meaning and are part of a quite complex system of determining definitiveness. The articles are used to add an extra dimension to this system and the definitive articles also double as demonstrative pronouns, and can be further specified with adverbs such as där; "there" or här; "here". Den fisken and den där fisken would both translate as "that fish", but with the second example adding a level of definitiveness that is not distinguished in English. Swedish adjectives are inflected in two declensions: strong or weak. This depends on the presence or absence of definite articles. In the strong declension they make distinction between uter gender ("en gammal man/fru"=an old man/women) and neuter gender ("ett gammalt hus"=an old house). In the weak declension they have a general form ("den/det gamla..."= the old...) but can also take a particular masculine ending specific for males: "den gamle mannen" = the old man. Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish four genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form. Hon; "she" has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form: :hon - hennes - henne Verbs are conjugated according to tense. Some verbs have a special imperative form, though with most verbs this is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectivistic verbs are very common: :Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish" :Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish" In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb "har", "hade" ("have"/"has", "had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle): :Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted" :Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried" The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead. In a subordinate clause, this auxiliary "har", "hade" is optional and often omitted. :Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish" Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions. The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common. Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, like in English (and unlike German). Adjectives precede the noun they determine.

Vocabulary

The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Low German and to some extent English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). Much of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed through French and, as of late, English. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages is also common, at first from Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league, later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, e.g bomull from German Baumwolle, cotton (lit. tree-wool). Finland-Swedish has a set of separate terms, often calques of their Finnish counterparts, chiefly terms of law and government. A significant number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Examples include nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), ateljé; (fr. atelier, "studio"), and paraply (fr. parapluie, "umbrella"). New words are often formed by compounding, and, like many Germanic languages, Swedish compounds words freely and frequently. Like for instance nagellacksborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover"), but as in German or Dutch extremely long, though quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. A very productive method for creating new verbs is the adding of -a to an existing noun, as in bil ("car") and bila ("to drive (recreationally)").

Writing system

The Swedish alphabet is a twenty-eight letter alphabet: the standard twenty-six-letter Latin alphabet with the exception of 'W', plus the three additional letters Å / å, Ä / ä, and Ö / ö. These letters (not considered diacritics) are sorted in that order following z. 'W' is not considered a separate letter, but a variant of 'v' used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling") and is pronounced as a regular 'v'. Diacritics are unusual in Swedish: é and occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. German ü is considered a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names. Diaeresis is not considered necessary, although it might very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda").

See also


- Standard Swedish
- Mandatory Swedish
- Finland-Swedish
- Minority languages of Sweden

Notes

# entry for "Scandinavian", The Penguin Dictionary of Language # Pettersson (1996), pg. 151 # The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Russian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna , but the number of native speakers is closer to 20 according to the association [http://www.svenskbyborna.com/foreningen.htm Svenskbyborna]. # Pettersson (1996), pg. 184 # Poll conducted by HUI in December of 2005, reported 2005-05-03 in Dagens Industri # Kotsinas (1994) pg. 151 # Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996), pg. 171-172, 329-330 # [http://www.webgraph.se/bosse.thoren/prosodi_eng.html Thorén 1997]

References


- Bolander, Maria (2002) Funktionell svensk grammatik ISBN 91-47-05054-3
- Crystal, David (1999) The Penguin Dictionary of Language ISBN 0-14-051416-3
- Engstrand, Olle (2004) Fonetikens grunder ISBN 91-44-04238-8
- Elert, Claes-Christian (2000) Allmän och svensk fonetik ISBN 91-1-300939-7
- Garlén, Claes (1988) Svenskans fonologi ISBN 91-44-28151-X
- Hällström, Charlotta af (2000) Finlandssvensk ordbok ISBN 951-50-1136-1
- Kotsinas, Ulla-Britt (1994) Ungdomsspråk ISBN 91-7382-790-8
- Ladefoged, Peter & Maddieson, Ian (1996) The sounds of the world's languages ISBN 0-63-119815-6
- Pettersson, Gertrud (1996) Svenska språket under sjuhundra år ISBN 91-44-48221-3
- Svensson Lars, (1974) Nordisk Paleografi, Studentlitteratur Lund ISSN 3683420;28
- Thorén, Bosse (1997) [http://www.webgraph.se/bosse.thoren/prosodi_eng.html Swedish prosody]
- Dagens Industri 2005-05-03
- [http://www.stat.fi/index_en.html Statistics Finland]
- [http://www.kommunerna.net Kommmunerna.net] (in Swedish)
- Nationalencyklopedin, articles svenska, du-tilltal, ni-tilltal, svenskbyborna
- [http://www.svenskbyborna.com/foreningen.htm Svenskbyborna] (in Swedish)
- [http://www.us-english.org/foundation/research/lia/languages/swedish.pdf US English Foundation, English in America: A Study of Linguistic Integration] (Washington DC: US English Foundation, 2005)

External links


- [http://www.hello.to/swedish101/ Swedish 101] Swedish phrases for beginners and travelers
- [http://www.ielanguages.com/swedish.html Swedish Language Tutorial at ielanguages.com]
- [http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=swe Ethnologue report for Swedish]
- [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/swedish.htm Omniglot entry on Swedish]
- [http://www.dicts.info/dictlist1.php?k1=91 All free Swedish dictionaries]
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/translation/Swedish/ Dictionary] with Swedish- English Translations from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Online Dictionary] - the Rosetta Edition
- [http://lexin.nada.kth.se/swe-eng.shtml Online dictionary] founded by the Swedish government
- [http://web.hhs.se/isa/swedish/ An introduction to Swedish]
- [http://www.ling.lu.se/persons/JohanF/dialects/laryngograph.html Laryngograph recordings and resynthesis of different dialects of Swedish] - Sound files that illustrate the differences between prosody in Scandinavian dialects
- [http://www.kb.se/ENG/F1700/Start.htm Digitally remastered Swedish imprints before 1700 ] from the webpage of the Royal Library in Stockholm
- [http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/1290/ Swedish course] by Björn Engdahl Category:Languages of Finland Category:Languages of Sweden
- Category:North Germanic languages ko:스웨덴어 ja:スウェーデン語

1397

Events


- February 10 - John Beaufort becomes Earl of Somerset.
- September 29 John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon is created Duke of Exeter by his half-brother Richard II of England.
- September 29 - Thomas Holland, 3rd Earl of Kent is created Duke of Surrey by Richard II of England.
- Richard Whittington aka Dick Whittington is elected Lord Mayor of London
- The Kalmar Union unifies Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

Births


- May 6 - Sejong the Great of Joseon, ruler of Korea (died 1450)
- June 29 - King John II of Aragon (died 1479)
- August 10 - Albert II of Germany, Holy Roman Emperor (died 1439)
- November 15 - Pope Nicholas V (died 1455)
- Chimalpopoca, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlán (died 1427)
- Tlacaelel, Aztec nobleman (died 1487)
- Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, Italian mathematician (died 1482)
- Paolo Uccello, Florentine painter (died 1475)

Deaths


- January 11 - Skirgiello, Grand Prince of Lithuania
- June 3 - William Montacute, 2nd Earl of Salisbury, English military leader (born 1328)
- June 16 - Philip of Artois, Count of Eu, French soldier (b. 1358)
- September 2 - Francesco Landini, Italian composer
- September 21 - Richard FitzAlan, 11th Earl of Arundel, English military leader (executed) (born 1346)
- King Peter IV of Aragon (born 1319)
- Enguerrand VII de Coucy (born 1340)
- Robert de Vere, 1st Duke of Ireland
- Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent (born 1350) Category:1397 ko:1397년 simple:1397

1520

Events


- January 18 - King Christian II of Denmark and Norway defeats the Swedes at Lake Asunde.
- June - Moctezuma II, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan is declared deposed due to his captivity by conquistador Hernán Cortés. His brother Cuitláhuac rises to the throne.
- June 7 - Field of Cloth of Gold. Famous meeting between King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France.
- July 1 - The forces of Cuitláhuac, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan gain a major victory against the forces conquistador Hernán Cortés. This La Noche Triste (Night of Sorrow), results in the death of about 400 conquistadors and some 2,000 of their Native American allies. However Cortés and the most skilled of his men manage to escape and later regroup.
- September 22 - Suleiman I succeeds his father Selim I as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
- October - Cuitláhuac, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan dies from smallpox. He is succeeded by his nephew Cuauhtémoc.
- November 8 - Stockholm Bloodbath begins: A successful invasion of Sweden by Danish forces under the command of Christian II of Denmark results in the execution of around 100 persons (mostly nobility and clergy involved in the previous Swedish war effort).
- November 28 - After navigating through the South American strait, three ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific (the strait was later named the Strait of Magellan).
- December 10 - Martin Luther burns a copy of The Book of Cannon Law (see canon law) and his copy of the Papal bull Exsurge Domine.

Births


- March 3 - Matthias Flacius, Croatian protestant reformer (d. 1575)
- August 1 - King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland (died 1572)
- August 10 - Madeleine de Valois, queen of James V of Scotland (died 1537)
- September 13 - William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, English statesman (died 1598)
- October 5 - Alessandro Cardinal Farnese, Italian cardinal (d. 1589)
- Choi Hyong Ung, Korean monk
- Jean Ribault, French navigator (died 1565)
- Vincenzo Galilei, Italian music theorist, lutenist, and composer (died 1591)
- Aben Humeya, last independent king of Granada (died 1568)
- Bess of Hardwick, jailor of Mary I of Scotland (died 1608)
- Denis Lambin, French classical scholar (died 1572)
- Frans Floris, Flemish painter (died 1570)
- Giovanni Battista Moroni, Italian mannerist painter (died 1578)
- Hans Eworth, Flemish portrait painter (died 1574)
- Ijuin Tadaaki, Japanese nobleman
- Jacques Cujas, French legal expert (died 1590)
- Johannes Acronius Frisius, German doctor and mathematician (died 1564)
- Jorge de Montemayor, Spanish novelist and poet (died 1561)
- Leonard Digges, mathematician and surveyor
- Sigismund II of Poland (died 1572)
- William Somerset, 3rd Earl of Worcester (died 1589)

Deaths


- February 5 - Sten Sture the younger, Viceroy of Sweden (born 1493)
- April 6 - Raphael, Italian painter and architect (born 1483)
- June 24 - Hosokawa Sumimoto, Japanese samurai commander (born 1489)
- September 22 - Selim I, Ottoman Sultan (born 1465)
- Cacamatzin, king of Texcoco
- Cuitláhuac, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan
- Filippo de Lurano, Italian composer (born 1475)
- Jan Lubranski, Polish bishop (born 1456)
- Moctezuma II, Aztec ruler
- Raphael Urbinas, Italian artist
- Sheikh Hamdullah, calligrapher (born 1436) Category:1520 ko:1520년

Norway

The Kingdom of Norway (Norwegian: Kongeriket Norge / Kongeriket Noreg) is a Nordic country on the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, bordering Sweden, Finland and Russia, with territorial waters bordering Danish and British waters. Norway's extensive coastline along the North Atlantic Ocean is home to its famous fjords. The country has a very elongated shape. The arctic island territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen are under Norwegian sovereignty and are part of the Kingdom. Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic Ocean and Peter I Island in the South Pacific Ocean are also external dependencies, but these are not considered part of the Kingdom. Additionally, Norway has a claim for Dronning Maud Land in Antarctica.

History

In the 9th century Norway consisted of a number of petty kingdoms. According to tradition, Harald Fairhair gathered the small kingdoms into one and in 872 with the battle of Hafrsfjord, he established a feudal state. The Viking age (8th to 11th centuries) was one of national unification and expansion. The Norwegians settled on Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and parts of the British Islands and attempted to settle at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada (perhaps the Vinland of The Saga of Eric the Red). Norwegians founded the modern day Irish cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford and captured the Anglo-Saxon city of Eoforwic renaming it Jorvik, today known as York. The Norwegian Rollo invaded and was ceded Normandy by the French king Charles the Simple in 911. Rollo's great-great-great-grandson William the Conqueror successfully invaded and conquered England in 1066. The Norwegian royal line died out in 1387, partly because of the grand recession after the black plague in 1349, wiping out the majority of the population, and partly because Queen Margrethe's son, heir to the throne, died at barely 17 years of age. The country entered a long period as the weaker part of a union first with Denmark and Sweden – the Kalmar Union – then with Denmark. Margrethe was also queen of Denmark and Sweden. With the forced introduction of Protestantism in 1537, Norway lost the steady stream of pilgrims to the relics of Saint Olav at the Nidaros shrine. With them, ironically, went much of the contact with the cultural and economical life of the rest of Europe. Also, the 17th century saw Norway's total area decrease with the loss of the territories Bohuslän, Jämtland and Härjedalen to Sweden. In the light of national romanticism during the 19th century, this period was by some called the "400-year night". After Denmark-Norway sided with Napoleon in the Napoleonic Wars, Norway was ceded to the king of Sweden in 1814. However, Norway declared her independence, adopted a constitution based on American and French models and elected the Danish prince Christian Fredrik as king on 17 May 1814. Norway was forced into a personal union with Sweden, but kept its liberal constitution and independent institutions, except for the foreign service. Growing Norwegian dissatisfaction with the union during the late 19th century, national romanticism, growing national culture, literature (Henrik Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson), painting (Hans Gude, Adolph Tiedemand), and music (Edvard Grieg) spawned the dissolution of the union on 7 June 1905. The Norwegian government offered the throne of Norway to Danish Prince Carl. After a referendum confirming the monarchy, the Parliament unanimously elected him king. He took the name of Haakon VII, after the medieval kings of independent Norway. In 1913, Norwegian women gained suffrage. Norway was a neutral country during World War I. Norway also attempted to claim neutrality during World War II, but was invaded by German forces on the 9th of April 1940 (Operation Weserübung). The Allies also had plans to invade Norway, in order to take advantage of her strategically important Atlantic coast, but were thwarted by the German operation. Norway put up a stiff fight against the German occupation and armed resistance in Norway went on for two months. King Haakon and the Norwegian government continued the fight from exile in Rotherhithe, London. On the day of the invasion, the collaborative leader of the small National-Socialist party Nasjonal Samling — Vidkun Quisling — tried to seize power, but was forced by the German occupiers to step aside. Real power was wielded by the leader of the German occupation authority, Reichskommissar Josef Terboven. Quisling, as minister president, later formed a government under German control. During the five years of Nazi occupation, Norwegians built a strong resistance movement which fought the German occupation forces with both armed resistance and civil disobedience. In 1944, the Germans evacuated the provinces of Finnmark and northern Troms, using a scorched earth tactic to create a vast area of No-man's land in response to the Red Army attacking their positions in eastern Finnmark. The Soviets attacked into eastern Finnmark to create a buffer zone after pushing the German forces out of the arctic Kola peninsula. The Russians peacefully returned the area to Norwegian control after the war. The German forces in Norway surrendered on 8 May 1945. The occupation during World War II disturbed the Norwegians' confidence in neutrality, and they turned instead to collective security. Norway was one of the signatories of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 and was a founding member of the United Nations, providing its first secretary general – Trygve Lie. Norway has twice voted against joining the European Union (in 1972 and 1994), but is associated with the EU via the European Economic Area. However, Norway is a member of the much smaller European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

Politics

Norway is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government. The Royal House is a branch of the princely family of Glücksburg, originally from Schleswig-Holstein in Germany. [http://www.kongehuset.no/dt_kongehuset_allAtOnce.asp?ogid=21&mgid=21&gid=54&aid=] The functions of the King, Harald V, are mainly ceremonial, but he has influence as the symbol of national unity. Although the constitution of 1814 grants important executive powers to the king, these are almost always exercised by the Council of State in the name of the King (King's Council, or cabinet). The reserve powers vested in the Monarch by the constitution are however significant and an important security part of the role of the Monarchy, and were last used during World War II. The Council of State consists of a Prime Minister and his council, formally appointed by the King. Since 1884, parliamentarism has ensured that the cabinet must have the support of the parliament, so the appointment by the King is a formality. parliamentarism The Norwegian parliament, Stortinget, currently has 169 members (increased from 165, effective from the elections of 12 September 2005). The members are elected from the 19 counties for 4-year terms according to a system of proportional representation. After elections the Storting divides into two chambers, the Odelsting and the Lagting, which meet separately or jointly depending on the agenda. Laws are proposed by the Odelsting and decided by the Lagting or, in case of disagreement, by the joint Storting. Impeachment cases are raised by the Odelsting and judged by the Lagting as part of the High Court of the Realm. Apart from this, the Storting functions as a unicameral parliament. The regular courts include the Supreme Court or Høyesterett (17 permanent judges and a chief justice), courts of appeal, city and district courts, and conciliation councils. Judges attached to regular courts are appointed by the King in council