Monday, 16 November 2009

The Swedish language


Swedish is an Eastern Nordic language. More than 10 million people talk this language both in Sweden and Finland and it’s very much like Norwegian and Danish. Swedish and the other Scandinavian languages derive from Old Scandinavian. It’s the common language stock for the Germanic people in Scandinavian. On the 8th century the Scandinavians/the Vikings started to express themselves by cutting runes. Runes are a type of graphical signs cut in stones.


Here are a few examples that show how the Swedish, Norwegian and Danish languages are comprehensible with each other.


English: I live in Sweden and I usually eat blueberries.

Swedish: Jag bor i Sverige och jag brukar äta blåbär.

Norwegian: Jeg bor i Sverige og jeg pleier spise blåboer.

Danish: Jeg bor i Sverige og jeg plejer spise blåboer.


We have 28 letters in our alphabet, three of them are kind of special. The last two letters ä and ö are only used in Sweden. The other letter is å is used by Swedes, Norwegians and Danes. We pronounce the letters:


Å = [o]

Ä = [ae]

Ö = [oe]


/Fanny and Ellen

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