Swedish

Where it’s spoken

Swedish is the official language of Sweden and one of two official languages of Finland (where about 5% of the population — the Finland-Swedes — speak it as a first language, mainly in coastal areas and the Åland Islands). Swedish is largely mutually intelligible with Danish and Norwegian, especially in writing.

What it sounds like

Swedish has a distinctive pitch accent: two melodic patterns (accent 1 and accent 2) distinguish words like “anden” (the duck vs. the spirit). It has nine vowels including front rounded sounds (ö, ü-like y) and the “sj” sound — a fricative whose exact realization varies regionally and that learners famously struggle with.

How it’s written

Swedish uses the Latin alphabet plus å, ä, and ö, treated as separate letters and alphabetized at the end. Spelling reforms in 1906 modernized the orthography. Compound nouns are written as single words without hyphens, which can yield striking long compounds.

History

Old Swedish diverged from Old Norse during the 12th–13th centuries. The 1541 Gustav Vasa Bible established a written standard, and the modern language has been remarkably stable since the early 20th century.