Introduction to Swedish

Swedish belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic family of Indo-European languages, distributed in Sweden and Finland, with a population of about 8.66 million, of which less than 8 million are Swedes, and most of the immigrant population (1.028 million) are familiar with Swedish. (The data comes from the official figure 200 1). Swedish is one of the official languages of the European Union.

Immigration is very common in Nordic countries. Because the languages and cultures of these countries are very similar, the newly naturalized people are assimilated rather than isolated. According to American household registration statistics, there are about 67,000 people who speak Swedish, while there are relatively few people who speak Swedish in other countries. For example, some Swedish descendants such as Brazil and Argentina have kept their own languages and names. Outside Sweden, about 40,000 people learn Swedish.

The adult literacy rate in Sweden is as high as 99%. Standard Swedish is the official language of Sweden, which originated from the central Swedish dialect in the19th century and was fixed in the early 20th century. The spoken and written Swedish is unified and standardized. Nowadays, other language varieties evolved from ancient dialects in some remote areas still exist, and some dialects are very different from standard Swedish in grammar and vocabulary, so they can no longer be called the same language. These dialects are only used in very remote areas, and the number of people who use them is very small, and their social mobility is very low. Although there is no indication that these languages will become extinct language, many scholars have carefully studied these dialects, and the local government has also encouraged people to use these dialects. Since the last century, the number of people using these dialects has gradually decreased. Swedish and Finnish are the official languages of Finland, and only 6% of Finns in Finland speak Swedish. Swedish is the main official language of oran province, and oran province is the Swedish autonomous province of Finland. However, Finnish has no official status there and is not a compulsory language in schools. At the same time, the residents in this area are guaranteed by international treaties and Finnish laws. Finnish Swedes live in coastal areas and in southern and southwestern Finland; There are also scattered in other areas. In these areas, Swedish is the main language, and Swedish is the only official language.

The Finnish government began to use Swedish at the end of 10, and it was not until 1892 that Finnish achieved the same status. According to statistics in 2002, about 290,000 people (5.6% of the population) in Finland use Swedish. After the education reform in 1970s, Swedish and Finnish became compulsory subjects, which means that all Finns have studied Swedish at school, but their usage level may deteriorate after leaving campus. Most people can understand Swedish, although they are not proficient.

/kloc-At the beginning of the 8th century, Russia annexed the Baltic Sea, and many Swedish-speaking communities there were forced to move to Ukraine. Survivors built villages in the area until the Russian revolution broke out and they were driven back to Sweden. The dialect spoken by these people is called gammalsvenska (ancient Swedish). During World War I and World War II, Swedes living in Estonia were treated well. The legal status of Swedes is recognized in cities with a Swedish majority. Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union after World War II, and the Swedes living there fled back to Sweden. There are also a small number of Swedish speakers in other regions, such as the United States, Brazil and Argentina.