Talk:Swedish language/Archive 2

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Pidgin Swedish

The heading "Immigrant varieties" has now been changed to "Suburban pidgin varieties". I can see the underlying reasoning for the change, but the argumentation faulters somewhat. All kinds of pidgin languages are always spoken outside of where the original language is spoken natively. Even though the suburbs of Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg are to great extent non-Swedish in terms of language, they are not comparable to former French, English or Portuguese colonies in Africa or Asia. The assumption that the grammar of Rinkeby Swedish is simplified seems very tentative to me. If anything I would say that the grammar is different, and actually describing it as simpler is taking somewhat of a leap. Most of the claims about inherent linguistic simplicity of true pidgin languages are usually based on subjective ideas of what sort of what "simple grammar" actually means. Considering that Rinkeby Swedish is often spoken by young people who have ethnically Swedish parents and mentioning in the article that it is bordering a pure sociolect, it seems as if actually calling it a pidgin language seems like stretching the definition of the word too far. Peter Isotalo 11:55, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

I do partly agree, but must say that this heading is to prefer over for the previous choice. Then, of course, there are even longer possibilities. What would you suggest?
When discussing the issue of "simplicity of grammar", it has to be kept in mind that there is an in this respect important difference between creole languages and contact languages.
--Johan Magnus 12:19, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
What's wrong with simply "Immigrant varieties"? It's short, simple and very descriptive. At worst I'd say that it's a very slight generalization. Despite that "immigrant" (invandrare) is often somewhat controversial as a term in Sweden, it's not the least bit controversial in English and is a very accurate description.
I don't think the identification of Rinkeby Swedish as a creole can actually be made when the speakers socialize and live alongside with speakers of the "native" language and when so many are native speakers of Swedish themselves. There might be quite a lot of segregation, but kids being raised completely isolated from other types of Swedish is most likely very rare. The vast majority of the speakers still intermix with ethnic Swedes to some extent and are at the very least exposed to the standard language through TV, radio and the press. Peter Isotalo 13:47, May 1, 2005 (UTC)


Well, I reacted against "Immigrant varieties" because
  1. far from all immigrants feel any affinity,
  2. many speakers are "second or third generation" immigrants, and thereby technically not immigrants at all, and finally since
  3. it's not restricted to immigrants but rather to speakers of a certain age of certain neighbourhoods that are densely populated by immigrants.
Suburban multiethnolects was an alternative I had in mind, but liked less than the suburban pidgin-alternative.
We agree, obviously, that Rinkebysvenska is not a creole language. A relief, isn't it?
--Johan Magnus 14:30, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
I can't help agreeing with you. How about we try building on this by going with the least complicated subsection heading and concentrating on the wording instead? I think we're translating a purely Swedish concern of the meaning of "immigrant" that would seem rather inexplicable to outsiders. In this tontext I think the term is more of a convenience than an attempt at exact definition. Peter Isotalo 14:40, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
Nope. It's more Swedish than English to expand immigrantship for generations. I therefore (and for other reasons listed above) re-worded the term "Immigrant varieties".
--Johan Magnus 15:07, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

The only Swedish issue here is the assumption that the term "immigrant" has a distinctly negative connotation. The variety is still spoken mainly by the children of first-generation immigrants (with the exception of Finns or Finland-Swedes). This term is obviously merely a descriptive convenience rather than some illicit generalization and replacing it with completely erroneous terminology like "pidgin" doesn't make it any clearer. If anything, I'd say that calling it a creole is far more likely to draw assumptions from non-Swedes of the speakers being "outsiders" (or, God forbid, "colonials") speaking some form of Swedish not actually intelligable to native Swedes. Peter Isotalo 13:44, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Nationalencyklopedin describes it under the subheader New Swedish dialects in article "Svenska dialekter". --Fred-Chess 18:50, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Swedish dialects and Standard Swedish

I rewrote the section on Swedish dialects, since the old version still tried to describe the popular notion of what riksvenska and dialects are instead of focusing on the actual linguistic definition. I've tried to describe these popular notions as best as I can, and I don't wish to supress them, but I will insist on that we stick to how dialectologists define the situation, since it can only confuse outsiders by describing the popular (but usually uninformed) notions as somehow being more "correct". If anyone feels I removed something that still fit perfectly even with the new text, please try to integrate it with the new text rather than just reverting to the old one or merely returning the old paragraphs intact.

Due to the fact the problems with the definitions of Swedish dialects as seperate languages by SIL, which has resulted in a consensus choice to move Scanian language to Scanian (linguistics), I have also hidden the following comments:

":¹ The more genuine varieties of Gutnish, Jamska, Scanian (Skånska) and Dalecarlian (Dalmål) are exceptionally considered as "separate" languages in their own right. Practically all speakers of these languages are then to be considered bilingual in Swedish, and the consideration here is principally the dialect of Swedish spoken by these individuals. None of them are recognized as separate languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. See also: Minority languages in Sweden
² Jamska belongs to the group of (Insular) West Scandinavian languages, as opposed to the other dialects of Swedish which belong to the (Continental) East Scandinavian group. The proper name of the language is Jamska, though the spelling Jämtska is sometimes used."

I seriously contest the information here, especially the division into East and West Swedish, though I welcome discussions on this matter. As with previous discussions, I would like to see sources that support any claims of this sort if they are to be included in the article. I hope to hear many opinions on this matter and I hope we can all refrain from starting yet another revert-fest. :-)

Peter Isotalo 13:00, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

Glottal stop in Swedish

There's a claim about "stød", or glottal stop occuring in some dialects of Scanian, but with no kind of reference. Considering the notions of many that Scanian could be considered a dialect of Danish, I suspect this notion has come along for the ride. Using a glottal stop instead of accent 2 is a distinctly Danish feature, so I'm surprised that it would be present in a Swedish dialect. It would be very helpful if at least the location (with some sort of reference) of these archaic dialects could be mentioned.

Peter Isotalo 08:25, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

Aha, I thought you wrote this and assumed you had a source for it (which is why I left it be). As I wrote in my comment, I hadn't heard the claim about this in Scanian before. --Fred-Chess 09:23, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Divisioning

Even if the WikiProject Language uses a specific style, do we have to use it? It seems more fitting to our purpose to divide it in three sections, as they are about equally large and are clearly distinct from one another. --Fred-Chess 09:20, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Since I really want to push this article to the level of an FA, and since the criteria for an FA demand that it adhere to the standards set by the appriopriate WikiProject, it should stick to their standard. I suppose some variations are always tolerable, but it would seem odd that one candidate all of a sudden would diverge from the standard in several other language FAs.
I must confess that I favor the Language Project template myself, though, since I think empty sections or more subsection levels than necessary (this would require a third sub-level for the subsections of "Sounds", e.i. 1.2.3) make for bad layout.
Peter Isotalo 09:41, May 15, 2005 (UTC)
I don't like the WP:Languages structure very much. For example, I think it's not a bad idea to treat the history of the language and the speakers before the phonology (in fact, I often do it that way); furthermore, I don't see an intuitive place for things like demographics, literacy and language development (it very much looks like the template is organized with languages of the 'developed world' in mind). FYI, Nafaanra language was featured without strictly complying to those standards, as was Laal language. It seems to me that amending the Wikipedia:WikiProject Language Template would be a better thing to do. — mark ✎ 11:31, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
Doesn't the demographic discussion belong in articles about the ethnic groups or the countries in question? They seem too much of a sociological issue to fit properly in the language articles. If anything, it would make them swell quite alarmingly (Peter likes everything below 40k). And the matter can always be summarized fairly well under "Geographic distribution". Personally, I think language development should definetly belong in the "History" section, while only mentioning it passingly briefly in the others.
But by all means, I welcome the discussions at the template talk page. Since I am a quite firm believer in adhering to standards and since the template fits this language very well, I would very much like to keep it until a consensus for changing the template is reached. If anything, the layout is definetly not an issue of systematic bias, but rather a pure meta-wiki issue. As long as the sections look the way they do (with all headers below "==X section==" looking too similar and sections with more than two sub-levels making the TOC look quite messy), I'd really like to keep it the way it is now.
Peter Isotalo 12:25, May 15, 2005 (UTC)
Naturally if we think it improves the article to devaite from the template, we should. The template is a general advice and may not always apply.
And that additional sub headers make that TOC look messy is, IMO, a matter of taste. --Fred-Chess 10:38, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
I'll admit it is somewhat difficult to motivate that one type of layout is inherently more useful the other, but don't you agree that the difference between ==XXX== and ===XXX=== is a lot more useful than that of ===XXX=== and ====XXX====? The divider line seems so much more helpful to me when sorting subsections of "Sounds" or "Grammar".
Peter Isotalo 12:32, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

Old Norse vs Runic Swedish

Even Nationalencyklopedin, which uses the term Runic Swedish, says that there were no differences between Runic Swedish and Runic Danish until the 12th century. In order to avoid that people misconstrue the use of Runic Swedish as signifying that it was an independent language at the time, I think we should use the term Old Norse for this period.--Wiglaf 11:50, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I will await Karmosin's comments on this, as he is the person with the references.
Frankly I don't really understand what the detailed section on Old Norse has to do with the Swedish Language. But perhaps this is because I don't understand much of it. There are many terms that need clarification. You don't have to do that though, I can fix that myself later if I have the time... --Fred-Chess 12:12, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
Just tell me which terms you don't understand, and I'll rephrase them.--Wiglaf 12:18, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
BTW, Fred Chessplayer, I have used Nationalencyklopedin as a source, so as to make it easy for others to verify the facts. All you have to do is to pick up Nationalencyklopedin and verify the facts. Good luck!--Wiglaf 12:24, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
Ok I have to repost this as our edits collided:
I will do just that, explaining all terms I don't understand in that section. Some terms may be explained in other places of the article though and need not explaining right here. Terms I don't understand: Old Norse ; proto-norse ; -- are Old West Norse and Old East Norse actually proper names or just definitions? ; Bokmål ; elder Futhark ; Younger Futhark ; and finally I don't understand what this A change that occurred in Old East Norse was the change of æi (Old West Norse ei) to 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". has to do with the Swedish language...
I'm actually only adhering to Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Think of the reader
Frankly, Fred, sometimes it is a good idea to follow the links and to do some reading. Although, I'd love to explain more in depth, it would explode the section into articles.--Wiglaf 12:38, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
So you don't think that articles need to be understandable by themselves? --Fred-Chess 12:41, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
Well, that would be the ideal situation, but on the other hand, links serve a purpose.--Wiglaf 12:42, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm quite certain you are wrong here. Detailed information of a subject should naturally be in a separate article, but not basic things. If this was a specialized article, such as "The diphtongs of Swedish Language" , then a certain freedom could of course be used. But "Swedish language" should be able to be read by anyone, yet I can't understand parts of it. If you are right, then we might need to look up 10 words from every linked articles too in an evergrowing mystical net, no? --Fred-Chess 12:56, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

OK, remove anything you think is incomprehensible then. Bye!--Wiglaf 13:00, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
This is not a problem at all. Wiglaf, I encourage you to add as much material you feel is necessary. We're not writing the Absolute and Final Canon of the Definition of Runic Swedish here, and there's no need to get alarmed about occasional passages that might be hard for non-linguists to decipher. That's what copyediting and constructive criticism is all about! :-) I know that when I'm really interested in a subject it's very easy to get carried away with jargon and assumptions of people knowing very obscure facts of linguistics.
Fred, I agree that there is some need to explain some terms, but I also agree that not every single term can be explained. Like Wiglaf pointed out; that's what the links are for.
Peter Isotalo 13:18, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
The section looks fine now. --Fred-Chess 10:37, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Wiglaf, this is not the simple: WP. If you don't understand a term, either click on its link, or look it up in a dictionary. By all means, if the same information can be expressed in a less convoluted way, rephrase it, but concerns of content must come first. That said, I find the paragraph in question is very lucid, and excellently illustrated. Hell, if you do not know the Younger Futhark nobody will blame you, just use your mouse and click on its blue link to read all about it. dab (ᛏ) 16:41, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

History

I removed some additions concerning the power struggle between supporters of Sten Sture and Christian II. It doesn't really seem all that relevant to mention this in a Swedish language article, and I must point out that the circumstances surrounding the Stockholm Bloodbath are pretty sketchy. There are (according to NE) no first hand sources on heresy trials that led to the executions of some 100 former Sture-supporters. This event was also skillfully used by Gustav Vasa as anti-Danish propaganda in his bid for the Swedish crown. Considering that civil rights as we know them were non-existant in 16th century Sweden, it's difficult to speak of innocent victims when it comes to power struggles. Christian II was certainly not the first, last or worst monarch to conduct purges of political opponents.

Peter Isotalo 22:20, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

Interesting.
The point I was trying to make is that the two languages where very similar up to that point, and that it was first now they clearly distinguished themselves from one another, which was necessary for political reasons. --Fred-Chess 08:52, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
I suspect that the independence of the new Swedish monarchy from Denmark probably accentuated the differences in the two languages, but I'm fairly convinced that this has been exaggerated in later history writing due to nationalistic tendencies.
I found a very interesting quote in the NE article danska, in the section on prosody where an unknown author from the 16th century is quoted on a description of the Danish "stød" in this way:
[the] tryckia ordhen fram, lika som the willia hosta
English: "[they] press the words out, as if they wanted to cough"
Peter Isotalo 11:07, May 17, 2005 (UTC)
Fred, I notice that you're very keen on moving text to seperate articles. While I am definetly a supporter of fairly concise articles, I would prefer if we waited until the article is as close to complete in all areas as possible before we start moving sections out. There are plenty of examples of FA articles that are closer to 60k and it seems a bit stingy to be cutting out text when we're way below 50k.
I would also recommend that you read the request for peer review. Mark explicitly asked for the translators to be mentioned, and in this case they have been extremely influential figures and are certainly worth mentioning.
Peter Isotalo 11:30, May 17, 2005 (UTC)
Do you really want two whole sections giving detailed info on the Bible translation? The section is supposed to cover 250 years.
Have you actually read the changes I made? The translators are still there.
I suggest we continue writing the article. I have not removed anything substantial as I don't do that, neither now nor later, so don't worry about that. The things I removed were really of minor importance.
--Fred-Chess 11:58, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
Sorry about that. I just read the wrong paragraph ("All three translators came from central Sweden...") and thought you removed the names.
I guess we disagree on what is substantial. For example, the mention of the Swedish verb suffix -a and it's contrast against the Danish -e is a very important detail. In fact, this suffix is still extremely productive even to this day in making new verbs. It might just be my impression, but it seems as if you're focusing on orthography a lot (particularly the features still used today), while overlooking the features that don't seemm immidiately relevant to modern Swedish.
Peter Isotalo 13:04, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

Under the sub-section "Old Swedish", the word "profane" is used. Wouldn't the word "secular" be better? I think of "profane" as suggesting "blasphemous" or "anti-religious". 23:27, January 31, 2006 (UTC)

Prosody

Isn't it a bit confusing that the section on prosody links to acute accent and grave accent although these articles does not even mention this particular meaning of these terms? Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about this could add a section to these articles about this meaning?

Also, in my opinion, this section should definitely have a link to the article melodic accent. I'm aware that Peter has raised the question of the term's accuracy over at its talk page, but although another name might be better suited, not linking to the specific article on the phenomenon seems rather strange. / Alarm 11:37, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

We could just de-link the two accents or perhaps start seperate articles for accent 1 and accent 2 (or just a joint article for both). Do you feel anything is missing in the actual description in this article, though?
As for linking to melodic accent, I strongly disagree, since it has no proper references. As far as I can tell "melodic accent" seems to encompass only Norwegian and Swedish prosodic features which is not a valid linguistic analysis to begin with. It seems to be merely a slightly better wording of "sing-song prosody" and encompasses not just stress (linguistics) but also the tonal word accents (accents 1 and 2). When googling for it, hits concerning the prosodic feature seems to be mostly our own mirrors and one or two sites on Scandinavian languages (without proper references), but the great majority of the hits seem to be about some sort of feature of music, which do seem to have proper references [1].
Unless the content of melodic accent is actually confirmed by proper linguistic sources, I feel that linking to it would make this article unverifiable, since it is either some sort of over-simplified neologism or just original research.
I'm certainly not an expert on Swedish prosody, but from what I've read so far I doesn't seem possible to sum Swedish prosody up with just one term, since it contains several different features that need to be described seperatly to be comprehensible to anyone who doesn't already knows a lot about Swedish.
Peter Isotalo 12:36, May 18, 2005 (UTC)
We probably could link to it in lack of anything better. The proper term for it? Don't know. This is from Minnesota: sing-songy Scandinavian accents. Cute, isn't it?
The prefered method is (I think) to write first, and verify if disputed. At least that's how I do it. --Fred-Chess 13:37, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
The point is that it's not a single, uniform feature and should therefor not be summarized in one single term. It's just a non-linguistic definition that actually means something completely different in musical (and psychological?) context.
What is described in melodic accent is actually called tonal word accent and this was first recorded in the 1920s by the German linguist Ernest A. Meyer in his two volume-work Die Intonation den Schwedischen ("The Intonation of Swedish"), and systematically described in Eva Gårding's The Scandinavian Word Accents (1977), based mostly on Meyer's material.
Peter Isotalo 14:55, May 18, 2005 (UTC)
There is no doubt that what is described in melodic accent is not original research, although the term in itself may very well be. Wikipedia terminology in these matters is however generally rather confused. I've commented on Talk:Melodic accent and at WikiProject Languages - please take a look. This is rather an important lingustic phenominon and I hope we can improve the accuracy and coverage in this area. / Alarm 11:38, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
I've now written a draft for a new version of Pitch accent at User:Alarm/Pitch accent. My intention is that this should replace the current article, incorporating all the relevant and verifiable facts in the current Melodic accent article without being as narrowly focused on Swedish. Also, the Prosody section in this article should be able to link to the new Pitch accent article for a more in-depth discussion on the rather confusing terminology. All feedback on the new draft is very much welcome. / Alarm 17:23, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
It's really a good article. When will you get it peer reviewed?
I would just appreciate some some reference (resources) though.
--Fred-Chess 20:37, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

yeh mey all-ah dee-nah peng-ahr yeh-nust

Among the language examples, I find "give me all your money right now: ge mig alla dina pengar genast (yeh mey all-ah dee-nah peng-ahr yeh-nust)". At the risk of being regarded as overly non-bold I'll ask here first: Would anyone object to my removing of this rather unusual phrase? / Alarm 11:40, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

  • You're right. (Clicks.) It's gone. Arbor 11:53, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
I say remove the entire section. We have more than enough spoken samples and Wikipedia is not a usage guide. Any objections?
Peter Isotalo 13:32, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
My objection is that a couple of samples are interesting, and do now harm.
But it's not that vital info anyways, do as it suits you.
I think the article is getting better all the time. Perhaps a bit over ambtious on the history section, so have begun writing on Swedish literature instead.
Fred-Chess 14:09, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
My beef is that the samples just aren't encyclopedic and are just a big juicy target for occasionaly bouts of witty vandalism. :-)
I've asked for comments on the size of the History section at the Peer Review, but I'd say that it summarizes the history very well right now. Maybe a tad more on the early 20th century... I'd really like to thank you all (including Johan Magnus, Ruhrjung and Tuomas, despite our squabbles) for helping out, by the way! When there are no more comments at the PR, I'll make a final proof-reading and send it off to FAC.
Peter Isotalo 20:31, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I would be in favour of removing all the samples, too. Should we have an informal poll on that issue? Arbor 07:12, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
Most, but not all, language articles seem to have a small list of examples comparable to the one here. See, for instance, Italian, Spanish, French and Danish. No current consensus seems to exist. Incidentally, just a few hours ago, User:Dcljr did propose that all language articles should have examples at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages#Basic sentences in each language. Myself, I can see both pros and cons. / Alarm 09:55, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your contributions too Peter, they make up the largest part of the article, I think? --Fred-Chess 13:01, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

I think we have ourselves a VfD of Common phrases in various languages brewing, which would be a pretty good way of determining whether sections like it are to be kept in the language articles. Check out the talk page for some argumentation.
I suggest we continue the discussion there.
Peter Isotalo 15:24, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

Now for something completely different

Somewhat unrelated, there is a program on SVT2 right now about expressing clearly.

SVT2 Texter för medborgarna - direktsänd språkvårdskonferens
10.03-15.00 Direktsändning från en konferens arrangerad av regeringens klarspråksgrupp. Medverkande bland andra Olle Josephson, chef för svenska språknämnden, och Catharina Nyström Höög, forskare vid Uppsala universitet. Dessutom delar justitieminister Thomas Bodström ut priset Klarspråkskristallen. Reporter Karin Andersson.

--Fred-Chess 10:34, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikification

I've just done a round of wikification, rather strictly adhering to the principle that the first instance of a term should be wikified. However, I haven't delinked wikified the second instance in cases where it appears in a later section more closely related to the topic (e.g. vowel, orthography. There were other examples of this already present in the article. Does anyone feel that a strict wikilink-each-term-only-once rule should be excercised? / Alarm 10:30, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't think this is a strict Wikipedia rule? Not unless it gets annoying.. I would rather prefer new links for every section. --Fred-Chess 10:45, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Gammalsvenskby

I've taken out part of a sentence on Gammalsvenskby in the section "Swedish speaking minorities":

which survived until the Russian revolution when its inhabitants were deported to Sweden in 1929 in the purges of the Stalin era.

I don't think what happened could be classified as outright deportation. As the article on the subject says, it was the villagers who pleaded for the right to leave the country, actively supported by a Swedish movement. Some later chose to return to the Soviet union (where they were indeed severly affected by the Great Purge of the Stalin era, which took place in the 1930s rather than in 1929). Rather than elaborating on this rather marginal subject, I think we can keep this short here. / Alarm 10:42, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Translation of nusvenska

I have doubts about the rather unidiomatic translation of "nusvenska" into "Now Swedish". I would suggest "Present Swedish" as a better translation. (C.f. "nutiden", "the present".) / Alarm 10:47, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I strongly recommend not attempting such direct translations of specifically Swedish terms. This is a scholarly term that works in Swedish because of the very slight phonemic contrast to "nysvenska" (just a single vowel). I suspect that there is academic wordplay involved in "nusvenska", which works very well with Swedish, what with the tendency for compound nouns. "Present Swedish", however, doesn't work in English since there is no equivalent phonemic contrast to "New Swedish"; it just sounds contrived...
Peter Isotalo 11:08, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not going to stand my ground if a majority thinks otherwise, but I'm not convinced. I certainly agree that "Nusvenska" works well with Swedish. But I don't think it works at all in English. To me, "Now Swedish" is exactly such a direct translation of a specifically Swedish term that you advise against. I would suspect that a native English speaker percieves "Now Swedish" as more contrived than "Present Swedish" or (perhaps even better) "Current Swedish". Is the possibility of translating this wordplay into "New" and "Now" really more important than using idiomatic English? (Consider the fact that the contrast does not work in other languages. Would you suggest "Maintenant Suédois" and "Jetzt Schwedisch" anyway?) / Alarm 11:44, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
I'm with Isotalo here. Let's keep it until we can quote a good reference suggesting a different term. The risk is otherwise that we have to change it again. --Fred-Chess 11:48, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
I disagree. Other possible translations can be "Contemporary Swedish" or "Modern Swedish". I replaced the old translation with "Present Swedish" for a time, but now I'm changing that, while maintaining the literal translation besides the sensible translation. Eric 10:57, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

"Du-reformen"

Shouldn't the section on Modern Swedish have something of the abandonment of the second person plural pronoun "Ni" as a formal mode of address in the late 1960s - "du-reformen"? After all, this was a rather controversial instance of language reform. / Alarm 10:57, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

"Ni" was never the proper formal adress in Swedish. It was introduced on trial in the early 20th century in an attempt to model the French "vous" and German "Sie", but wound up being used to adress only people of lower status, like cab drivers and was just slightly less insulting than "du" ("you"). The proper formal adress was always the title and family name of the person. "Herr", "fru" or "fröken" (mr, mrs, ms) seldom sufficed. You had to know the occupation, military rank or academic title of the person you adressed; professor Gradin, bankdirektör Karlsson, inspektör Ehrenius etc. It was required for everyone to keep very close tabs on everyone else's social status and was one of the reasons it was finally abandoned. The idea of a formal "ni" is a modern construction, and only sporadically used by younger people who work in the service industry.
But you're right. A short summary would certainly be very interesting in the "Modern Swedish" section.
Peter Isotalo 11:23, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
Couldn't resist the temptation, so I wrote it myself (with reference added).
Peter Isotalo 12:47, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
I suspected you wouldn't... :) Looks very good, just one thing: The way the sentence is phrased, the parallel with German might be a little confusing here since German actually uses a third person singular pronoun as the formal mode of adress. It might be better to just have French (or possibly substitute Spanish for German). / Alarm 14:11, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
The NE articles mentions it, and I think the idea behind the usage is close enough despite the slight difference in the choice of person. The common idea is to use a special pronoun for formal address rather than title+name. And Spanish is the same as German; usted/ustedes is third person.
Peter Isotalo 14:31, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, you're right about Spanish. We could use Russian, I suppose... Anyway, if German is going to stay as an example, "An attempt to replace this system with Ni (the standard second person plural pronoun) as in German or French in the early 20th century was not successful and it was rather used as slightly less insulting form of du, mostly to people of lower social status." should be rephrased (the sentence is also way to long). I'd suggest: In the early 20th century an attempt was made to replace this system with a personal pronoun, as in German and French. But the use of Ni, the standard second person plural pronoun, as a formal mode of address never gained popularity. Rather, it was used as slightly less insulting form of du, mostly to people of lower social status.


In books from the 19th century, "ni" was commonly used to address people. So I am a little surprised where you have gotten this from? --Fred-Chess 13:15, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
NE's article ni-tilltal. Fredrik Lindström has mentioned it in his popular TV-series on linguistics Värsta språket as well. I think that's where I got the part about calling cab drivers ni from.
Peter Isotalo 13:26, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
You take some liberties in your conclusions... good thing there are proof readers on wiki. A Ni-reform was attempted to be introduced in the 19-th and early 20-th century, but never managed to get support. The word "ni" itself actually was formed by combining "-n" + I , such as "saden I" became "sade ni". This is according to NE article. -- Fred-Chess at the library in Malmö
Perhaps you would be interested in reading Knights who say Ni and T-V distinction if you haven't already. --Fred-Chess 13:22, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Maybe it should be mentioned that "du-reformen" wasn't an actualy _reform_ as in a politically mandated change.

Swedish speaking minorities

There is info in this section that is useful while the section itself seems superfluous. Part of it belongs in History and some of it in Geographical distribution. Could the Finland-Swedish part be summarized? I'm not sure if I'm too keen about finlandization either. While I do understand some of the frustrations of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, it seems to occasionally result in fairly obvious POV here on Wikipedia.

Peter Isotalo 13:21, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

I think a section on the position of Swedish in Finland today might be warranted, although it might be slightly shorter and possibly moved to a subsection of Geographical distribution. However I would say that the part about Estonia and Gammalsvenskby is even more marginal and could be more heavily pruned. / Alarm 14:20, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't get the sentence about Finlandization. I looks like POV and doesn't make sense. I think it should be removed unless someone have some referenses for it. bbx 23:32, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, it makes no sense to me either. I suggest removal. - Mustafaa 17:34, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Breaking out the dialect examples to a separate article?

Although opinions differ on whether the 32 K rule is hard or soft, I'd say the page is a bit on the long side. Highest on my list for things possible to move out are the map and the list of dialect examples, which could easily be moved to a separate Dialects of Sweden article. 20 examples seem like a little more detail than needed in a general, top-level article. This would also have the benefit that the subject could be allowed to grow freely. / Alarm 14:28, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I disagree as I see no reason. -- Fred Chess.
Actually, thinking a little (yes, I prefer to write first and think later) you could copy info into a new article for the reasons mentioned, but I don't want info to be removed from here for the reason that the article is too long. -- Fred Chess
Duplicating longer sections is generally Not A Good Idea, since its hard to keep two parallel versions "in sync", leading one (or both) to lack important additions.
My main concern is readability. If I'm looking for a specific piece of information it's much easier to find if the page aren't immense. This from Wikipedia:Article size:
In the past, technical considerations with some now-seldom-used browsers prompted a firm recommendation that articles be limited to a maximum size of precisely 32KB. With the advent of section editing, and the availability of upgrades for the affected browsers, this hard and fast rule has been softened.
However, do note that readers may tire of reading a page in excess of 20-30 KB of readable prose (tables, lists and markup excluded). Thus the 32KB recommendation is considered to have stylistic value in many cases; if an article is significantly longer than that, then sections probably should eventually be summarised and the detail moved to other articles (see Wikipedia:Summary style). For most long pages division in sections is natural anyway; even if there is no "natural" way to split a long list or table, it should be done anyway, to allow section editing.
The current article is 46KB. I simply think it might be time to discuss what belongs in an overview and what is suited for specialized pages. / Alarm 15:47, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
I think you're getting the priorities a bit mixed up, Alarm. I totally agree that article size can be a major problem in Wikipedia. Anything over 50k, for example, should be trimmed. This article is comparable to a lot of other language articles and certainly not extreme in size. Readability is something that should be kept in mind, but I just don't see that this article is in anyway difficult to take in; it has good structure and each section and subsection is of decent size and scope. I don't mind adding more details to the sub-articles like Swedish grammar or Swedish dialects (yeah, I know it's a redirect) but I don't think we need to cut down on the size as it is right now. It's well-balanced and has a very good general coverage of all the important aspects of any language.
If anything I'd say that we're forgetting about the average reader. I really don't think the anonymous non-participating user expects to go to an article about a language to find only the barest minimum of information and links to the "real information".
And as for trimming the dialect-section or the map; not a chance. It's probably the best part of the article due to the map (which was a specific PR request) and the sound samples (it's what language is all about) and the current list represents the major dialect groups very well without going into ridiculous minutiae. Removing just a handful won't make much of a difference but it will make the list a lot less complete; removing an amount that would actually matter for article size would just ruin it.
Peter Isotalo 19:21, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
Take it easy. I don't want to cut for the sake of cutting. I've never said that we should strip the article to the barest minimum of information and links to the "real information" - that would certainly be stupid. But despite it being rather well balanced, I do think that the article might be on the verge of being longer than what is optimal. And when I say that, I'm thinking precisely of the average reader's possibility to easily access the information at hand. Most featured articles on languages, e.g. Russian language are in fact considerably shorter. No worries though, I won't do anything single-handedly. / Alarm 21:21, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
Take it easy? You're threatening to maim my darling here! :-)
Jokes aside, have you noticed that Russian language is not particularly good right now? At the time that the last FAC-comment was made it was gigantic; over 80k [2]! When it was featured on the main page, it was down to 40k [3], but only at expense of the entire phonology section. Right now the article is of very questionable quality. Some sections are good, but Grammar is completely subpar and Sounds still hasn't recovered from the brutal trimming; they're both just bare-bone, minimalist summaries. My rough estimate is that it would take at least another 10k to get it to decent quality, but probably closer to 15k, which would bring it to something very close to the size of our article.
As for the rest of the languages FAs, they average at around 30-40k with 47k for Aramaic language (very recent). Laal language and Nafaanra language strike me as exceptions since they are most likely not as well documented as the bigger languages.
And as for ease of access for readers: it's what we have TOCs for.
Peter Isotalo 22:22, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

While you're at it, could you please justify classification of Värmland dialect as sveamål rather than götamål. - Daniel Dahlborg

I looked it up and the dialects in Värmland are considered to be transitional, so either way is good (or bad). Dialect groups are always pretty sketchy and shouldn't be taken too seriously.
Peter Isotalo 13:50, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Critique

Just some general bashing. If you think it sucks, don't bother reading. I don't want "dab" on my back this time. I don't care how other articles do it. Ok here we go. Remember, my sole intention is to hurt everyones feelings. No seriously, I want to give feedback but I may be wrong.

1. is North Germanic Language the same as Scandianavian language? Because I know what the latter is, but not the former. North germanic makes me think German belongs to the category. 2. When I wanted a footnote to "More recent analyse" I wanted to know just what the recent analyses are, and from what time. Have these analyses been done by two-three people or by SIL, and in the 70's? Or 90's? Or last year?

Also, where are the editors of this article from? I'm from Malmö but don't speak a marked Scanian.

Regards, --Fred-Chess 08:32, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, I just listed this on VfD Swedish word "Ni". Feel free to vote.. --Fred-Chess 12:40, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
<engage lecture mode>
Swedish belongs to the supergroup of languages called Indo-European languages. There are many different so-called phyla of this superfamily of languages, and one of these are the Germanic languages (others include Indo-Aryan languages and Romance languages. The name is as far as I know based on the name of Roman province of Germania, where Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of all Germanic languages is believed to have been spoken some 2000 years ago. The Germanic languages are then further divided into three distinct sub-groups:
While it is very common to refer to the North Germanic languages as Scandinavian, it is far better to refer to call them North Germanic, analogous to the other phyla, and especially considering that not all Scandinavian languages are actually spoken in Scandinavia. This can be a tad confusing for us Scandinavians, because the languages are often refered to, even by linguists, as Nordic languages (nordiska språk).
As for the reclassification from East/West Scandinavian (I guess you understand why "East/West North Germanic" isn't used :-)), it is not at just fringe SIL-theories. Try a Google search if you'd like. It's quite common terminology among linguists. While the East/West distinction is made on historical grounds and is certainly still valid, the Mainland/Insular division is equally valid because of mutual intelligibility and the heavy influence from East Scandinavian languages on the historically West Scandinavian Norwegian. I don't know how old it is, but I know it's generally accepted.
<disable lecture mode>
I live Jakobsberg, just north of Stockholm right now, but I grew up on Södermalm and later in the southern suburbs of Hägersten and Älvsjö. I was born in Moscow, having moved back and forth between Sweden and the USSR several times during the 80s, and I have once been fluent in Russian, but never spoken it with my parents, so it's kinda decrepit right now. I'd say my accent is fairly typical of the younger generation of native Stockholmers, but probably influenced by the blander type of Central Standard Swedish spoken by my parents.
Peter Isotalo 14:02, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for the explanation, and thank you for the info about you. I think it is nice to know where people are from when writing an article such as this to know what their view on the Swedish language is. As Alarm hasn't responded I will assume he is from Stockholm just for the heck of it. And Bishonen too, although he/she seems a little more humble than the average Stockholmian :-)
To focus on the article a little -- I assume that you intend to write this article for linguists? I can let you know that if I and people like me had written it, it would have looked quite different. But don't take it as criticism, this is just a statement of facts.
Incidentally I actually was born in Berlin (East). I have met few other Swedish people from the East block. I remember it fondly, and think it was a great place for children because of its innocence and simplicity. I since grew up in Norrköping, Malmö, Trelleborg (9 years), and am now currently living in Malmö again.
--Fred-Chess 19:00, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
Well, you're actually right... I'm from Stockholm, although I did go to university in Gothenburg.
About the article: This being an encyclopedia, my opinion is that the information should be accessible for someone who does not know anything about linguistics, provided this person is prepared to click on some wikilinks to get explanations of the terms used (and possibly again, in the articles on these terms, and then again...). This is why I try to wikilink all relevant terms used. Do point out if you find something totally incomprehensible for the average reader. / Alarm 22:52, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Merging sections

Having thought about it, I think that Peter's proposal above to merge the section "Swedish-speaking minorities" with other sections, primarily "Geographic distribution", is extremely well-founded - especially since it duplicates some of the information given there. I also note that the subsection below "Geographic distribution", "Official status", contains duplicated info from right above this header. (The sections start with "Swedish is the national language of Sweden" and "Swedish is the de-facto national language of Sweden". There's also "In Mainland Finland, where Swedish and Finnish are the official languages" vs "In Finland, Swedish is the second official language alongside Finnish.") I'd suggest all three sections are merged into one, "Geographic distribution and official status". Here's a draft, where I've removed all duplicate info and also trimmed the sections on Ukraine and Estonia:

Swedish is the de-facto national language of Sweden, but does not hold the status of an official language (similarly to English in the United States). It is the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Sweden-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants.
In Mainland Finland, which for centuries was a part of the Kingdom of Sweden, Swedish and Finnish are the official languages. Swedish is spoken as a first language by a relatively small minority of about 5.5% or around 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 the Finnish municipality of Korsnäs, 97% of the population is Swedish-speaking. In Korsnäs and the municipality of Larsmo, Swedish is the sole administrative language on the municipal level.
Since an educational reform in the 1970s, both Swedish and Finnish have been compulsory school subjects in Mainland Finland, and until 2004 both were 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.
Swedish is also the sole official language of the Åland Islands, an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland, where 95% of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language.
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 occupied by the Soviet Union. Only a handful of older speakers remain today.
There are small numbers of Swedish speakers in other countries, such as the United States. Swedish descendants in Brazil and Argentina have maintained a distinction by language and names.
Swedish is one of the official languages of the European Union.

I'm not terribly happy with the last, one-sentence paragraph, but I can't find a better solution right now. I welcome suggestions on this and all other aspects on the proposed restructuring/copyedit.

Also, a few sentences from "Swedish-speaking minorities", namely "Finland was a part of Sweden for some 700 years, and during this period Swedish was the administrative language. In 1892, Finnish was given equal status with Swedish, following Russian determination to isolate the Grand Duchy of Finland from Sweden" should be added to an appropriate part of the History section. / Alarm 18:40, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I got bold again. I simply merged the language minorities-section with Geographic distribution, creating a new Finland-Swedish section and put the rest of the info under the appropriate subsections. As for changing the section structure, it's a very widely used standard and should be complied with as far as I'm concerned. Really long titles for section headers should definetly be avoided, and in this case it's used in most language articles and seems to me as a rather logical one. I'm not entirely sure if Standard Swedish and Finland-Swedish should be seperate sections altogether, but I just don't know where to put them.
In any case, I made the last reference to the HUI poll, and I'm certainly satisfied with the article as it is now. All the issues raised in the Peer Review have been addressed and if there are further requests in the FAC, I think these could be dealt with without much hassle.
Peter Isotalo 20:45, May 26, 2005 (UTC)
Ok, so there might be need for the "Official status" section header. But the placement of "Former language minorities" is completely illogical, inbetween "Official status" and "Regulatory bodies". Also, if "Finland-Swedish" is to be placed between "Standard Swedish" and "Dialects" I'd expect more on the properties of Finland-Swedish, instead of mainly dealing with the distribution and use of it. (Note that your edit kept the duplication of "In mainland Finland Swedish is spoken as a first language by a relatively small minority of about 5.5% or about 300,000 people" in "Geographic distribution" vs "5.6% of the total population are Swedish speakers" in "Finland-Swedish" that my suggestion above got rid of.) I think both "Finland-Swedish" and "Former language minorities" belong directly under "Geographic distribution", because that's what they're about. I'd suggest a disposition along these lines:
  • Geographic distribution
      • Swedish in Sweden
      • Finland-Swedish
      • Former Swedish minorities in other countries
    • Official status
    • Regulatory bodies
    • Standard Swedish
    • Dialects
Also, the current state of "Former language minorities" has a rather confusing backwards chronology, that begins with the interwar period and then goes on to the 18th century. Also, I the two paragraphs on the subject I proposed above are slightly trimmed, which in my opinion improves them. Could you possibly consider looking at them again? / Alarm 21:41, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
Looks like more sub-sections than is actually necessary to me. "Geographic distribution" can cover everything in the current paragraph. What would be the difference, besides creating three extra sub-levels of sub-sections (most of which would contain quite little information)? If it's a problem for layout, I'd much rather move the entire "Former language minorites"-section and put it in "Modern Swedish".
It is a question of where the topic logically belongs. If you're principally opposed to using third-level subsections, we can put it all directly under "Geographic distribution". My main point is that most of the text under "Finland-Swedish" and "Former language minorities" belongs right in the section that talks about where the language is spoken. / Alarm 22:38, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
As for the properties of Finland-Swedish, it would be very difficult to motivate such coverage unless we started describing the much larger dialect groups of Swedish spoken in Sweden. And then we'd definetly have problem with size. It does, however, seems to be important to explain the political status of Finland-Swedish, since it is quite different from Sweden-Swedish.
Actually, that was my point, although I can see I did not express it very clearly. I was merely arguing that with the current placement of the subsection, you might expect that sort of content. It was only intended as an argument for why the topic should be placed directly under "Geographic distribution". I'm not proposing such additions. /Alarm 22:38, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
As for your draft, what exactly is different about it, except that it has three very short paragraphs and conflicts with the standard layout for most language articles?
Peter Isotalo 22:02, May 26, 2005 (UTC)
I was not asking you to consider the whole of the draft but specifically the two paragraphs on Swedish-speaking minorities in Estonia and Ukraine. (I've now gone back and made them bold for clarity.) I edited the original text, and I think it's better than the current text of "Former language minorities" on two accounts: First, they don't start with the interwar period and then jump back to the 18th century. Secondly, as I wrote above, they've been slightly trimmed, which in my opinion improves them. (It got rid of "the long march", avoided repeating "Ukraine" twice, etc.) Just compare them to the current wording, and you'll see what I mean. / Alarm 22:38, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
I agree. It's much better and I inserted it into the article with a footnote (requested at the FAC).
Peter Isotalo 16:17, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

Obligatory

allow me to be the first to say: BØRK BØRK BØRK!

(good work guys, great article, really deserved to be in the main page :)

Project2501a 01:41, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

From the section on geographic distribution: "Swedish is the national language of Ohio." This is an odd statement given that Ohio is a state, not a nation -- for those unfamilar with the particularities of American federalism, we've already had a debate on this one) -- and as far as I can tell affords Swedish no special privileges. Perhaps it is meant that Swedish speakers form a sizable minority in Ohio?

Or perhaps just a silly joke. We might never know for sure...
Peter Isotalo 13:45, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Finland-Swedish distribution map

I have added a map distributed by the Schildts company depicting in red the areas where Swedish-speakers are dispersed in Finland. Eric 11:09, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

  • That map was a copyvio. I have re-drawn it on a Gnu licensed map, and changed the links. --Janke | Talk 14:35, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Map of Ukraine with geographical markers to "Gammalsvenskby"

I have added a map. Eric 12:19, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

Map of Estonia's once prominently Swedish islands

A map added once again, courtesy of myself. Eric 12:39, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

North Germanic = Scandinavian

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about the different terminology for the classification of the North Germanic languages, so I guess I'd just point it out here for reference. "Scandinavian" is just another term for "North Germanic" in this context. "Scandinavian" seems to be used primarily when dividing the five languagages (including Faroese and Icelandic, mind you) into either East and West Scandinavian or Insular/Mainland Scandinavian. Never "West North Germanic" or "Mainland North Germanic". This is described both in this article and to some extent in North Germanic languages.

"North Germanic" has to do with the division of the Germanic languages, that have three branches, the West Germanic, the East Germanic (all extinct) and North Germanic. In Sweden, the term nordiska språk — "Nordic languages" — is by far the most common among scholars, but neiter skandinaviska språkor nordgermanska språk are entirely unknown.

Peter Isotalo July 6, 2005 12:44 (UTC)


Unrefenced classification of Norwegian

Please provide some form of references for the claim that Bokmål and Nynorsk are classified separatly as an East and West Scandinavian langauge respectively. For further discussion, please reply at Talk:Scandinavian languages, where this has already been discussed for a while.

Peter Isotalo 19:11, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

SIL code

It seems that someone takes ISO 639-2 code for Swedish (swe) for the real SIL code (SWD). Pay attention, that even if you download language code tables from ethnologue.com (in association with SIL), they provide ISO 639-2 codes, and so it can't be a reference for the SIL code. That's why I have to revert the SIL code to SWD again. — Oleg326756 07:51, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

very bad phrasing

"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 /ɛ/ coincide)."

I needed to read this several times and excamine the chart provided to find out what in the world this sentence is supposed to mean, namely that there are 8 short and 9 long vowels.

It's because the vowels differ in quality, not only in length.
Actually, short /e/ and /ä/ may coincide in some dialects but I sure wouldn't pronounce e in peng the same way as ä in dämpa. - Daniel Dahlborg
They are differentiated in very few dialects as far as I know, and certainly not in Standard Swedish. The difference in the vowels in peng and dämpa is quite subtle and most likely due to the differing phonetic context. The first is followed by a velar nasal and the other by a bilabial nasal. I'm guessing you don't pronounce dämpa the way you pronounce märka. The latter is lowered to an [æ] because of the /r/.
Peter Isotalo 13:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I wouldn't pronunce the stem vowel significantly different in the examples given above (peng, dämpa and märka); they would be all approximately [ɛ]. But the e in e.g. bett, vett, sett and ä in lätt, tätt would be like [e]. Thus, e.g., peng [pʰɛŋː] but lätt [letʰː]. As far as I know, in Standard Swedish, e and ä are supposed to be denoting the same sound when being short. My pronunciation is regiolectal, or more probable even dialectal, in this sense. (My [ɛ] derives from Old Norse e or æ in front of a consonant which is long today, and my [e] from Old Norse i or é in front of a consonant which is long today. In Swedish, ON æ and é are today always spelled ä, ON e is Swe e or ä and ON i is Swe e. Obviously, Swedish seems to have had a fundamentally different evolution than my dialect in this sense.)
Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 20:19, 20 February 2006 (UTC))

Vocabulary

What would this mean? "Finland-Swedish has a set of separate terms that are close cognates of their Finnish counterparts, chiefly terms of law and government." I have trouble understanding it completely. Since Finnish and Swedish are unrelated languages with most basic vocabulary being completely different (although Finnish has borrowed thousands of Words from Swedish or Scandinavian during the ages). I believe that these words referred probably either are calques or loanwords from Finnish. Could someone explain this, I would believe these words are calques rather than cognates.

(contributed by anonymous user, signed by Peter Isotalo 11:09, 3 September 2005 (UTC))

Good point. Please correct it.
Peter Isotalo 11:09, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Swedish in US?

This article needs a subchapter on Swedish language in USA. A historical account on Swedish language enclaves, Swedish language media etc. --Soman 18:04, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Information Swedish language media belongs in the respective articles such as Sveriges Radio, TV3 (Viasat) and Aftonbladet. This is a linguistic article, though it is relevant to explain how Swedish media have effected the language. I would not encourage to do this in a separate section, though.
As for historical accounts on Swedish language enclaves, just read the article. If you want to include information on Swedish in the USA, then please go ahead as long as you can provide proper source for it.
Peter Isotalo 20:22, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Removed an incorrect example

Great work, Peter and all others, making this an article to be proud of!

I was looking it over and found one of my own brilliant contributions from way back, which is, strictly speaking, not true:

Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish., e.g bomull from German Baumwolle, cotton (lit. tree-wool).

Yes, ull=wolle, but to be a calque, I think both parts of the word must be translated literally, and I can't find any evidence that bom = baum. As far as I know, there's no Swedish word for tree that sounds like "bom".

So happy as I am that it passed all those reviews from native speakers, I have provisionally removed this example, hoping that someone will either:

  • Reassure me that "bom" is indeed a Swedish word for "tree", though perhaps in a dialect or sense I don't know about, or
  • Find another German => Swedish calque example that we can be proud of.

Apologies for pulling the bomull over everyone's eyes for so long! --Steve Rapaport 00:34, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Followup: According to my Swedish etymological dictionary, it may be a legal calque after all -- "bom" is "stång" in Swedish and is used mainly in calques from German such as "bomull", "buxbom" and "bomolja". So the example can stand like a stång after all. Comments from real Swedes? Steve Rapaport
Yeah, "bom" is an older term for tree and SAOB has it recorded in text as late as 1686 [4]. I'd call "bomull" a proper calque, but it seems as if pure sound imitation could've played an important part. Similar examples I can think of right now are snälltåg ("express train") based on Schnellzug and the proverb ont krut förgås inte lätt, which literally translates to "bad gunpowder doesn't perish easily", where "ont krut" actually is a misinterpretation of the German Unkraut; "weed(s)". Snäll (today mostly "of good will; nice; pleasant") was used in it's earlier meaning of "speedy" as late as 1971.
Peter Isotalo 15:40, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, it usually means "stång" (bar/beam/pole) nowadays. I think the word was borrowed from Low German initially.81.232.72.53 02:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

A sentence I find unclear

Originally I wrote this in the Swedish phonology talk page, but since I've got no answer so far, I thought I should ask here. In the article on Swedish language, there is the sentence:

Although there are inflection rules to prevent two unemphasized syllables in a row, words may instead have two consecutive stressed syllables.

1. I assume "unemphasized" means unstressed, but why not write so, then? "Emphasis" usually refers to a pragmatic feature, overlapping with logical focus and the like. 2. Examples are needed to illustrate the statement. Does it refer to forms like vinter-vintrar (<*vinterar) and, say, kvarskatt? If yes, I think it should be mentioned that two unstressed syllables actually CAN occur in a row, (fjäril - fjärilar), otherwise people could get the wrong impression. 3. Finally, I'm not a professional linguist, but I'm not sure if the reason for the inflection rules in question is indeed the "desire" to prevent two unstressed syllables in a row - even though that is clearly the result of them. After all, a vast number of languages have phenomena like English "dif'rent", "Marg'ret", "garden-gardner" etc.. "Preventing two unstressed syllables" would suggest that such a sequence is prohibited, which is clearly not the case. Of course, a scientific source would disperse my doubts. :) Best regards, --85.187.203.123 08:07, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I removed the sentence rather than trying to analyze it further. I'm not sure who wrote it.
Peter Isotalo 23:42, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh my goodness! I never thought it would go that far. :) I shudder at the thought of an entire meaningful sentence being lost just because of my ignorance. Never mind. It's your decision! Regards, --85.187.203.123 18:22, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, you need to learn to be bolder, I'd say. To me it seemed like near-truth, but since I don't know who wrote it (it might even have been me) and since it really doesn't add anything crucial, there's no need to make a big investigation into it.
Peter Isotalo 22:52, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Diphtongs and West Norse vs East Norse

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".

Actually, the lack of diphtongs is not a feature of East Norse! Indeed, we can find perfectly preserved diphtongs in Gotland, in Finland and in Norrland and until at least 13th, and probably even until 14th, century they for sure existed in large parts of Eastern Svealand as well. (Remember where the swedish speaking finns come from and when they migrated.) I propose that references to East Norse and West Norse are removed here and that one simply mentions that a monophtogisation process occured in Old Swedish. A second thing is that it is hardly true that one only had the process au > ø as in dauðr > døðr. (Whatever this means - ø without a length mark ´ or doubling øø suggests a short vowel here which contradicts the fact that au was effectively a long vowel.) In large parts of Sweden the au first turned into a levelled öu (here ö denotes [ɔ], i.e. same vowel as in Old Icelandic lönd 'lands') and then into a monophtong öö (i.e. [ɔː]). The au > øø evolution was a pure danish one which spread northwards, especially amongst nobles and literates (and in the end, though probably quite late, also amongst ordinary peasants). Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 20:41, 20 February 2006 (UTC))

South American speakers

I hid the statement about South American speakers since the source Concordia Language Village only mentions it in passing and without any sign that they could back the statement up. I'm sure there are plenty of people in South America that have Swedish ancestry, but I feel that it's appropriate to use reliable surveys or statistics as soruces to that confirm that there are sizeable South American minorities that actually speak Swedish before we put it in the article. That CLV puts the figure of Swedish speakers at 10 million, conjuring up about 700,000 speakers that aren't accounted for by anyone else, does not make them seem more reliable. Hence I reverted the figure in the infobox.

Peter Isotalo 10:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

This is a reiable source and even though it does not state the number of people who speaks it, It still states it does so at least it should say that. Denying it just wrong. (24.60.161.63 00:19, 21 March 2006 (UTC))
It's a language teaching program, not a linguistic institute. They don't cite their sources nor do they claim to be an authority on these issues. The lack of detail and the 10 million-figure doesn't exactly make them seem more reliable. The existance of South American Swedish-speaking communities has been stated before in this article, but without any kind of specification of either number of speakers or even an approximate location, and above all, without any reliable source to back it up.
Peter Isotalo 09:58, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I think you completely missed the point. An authoritive source on linguistics has to actually be about linguistics. You changed your source from a language course company website to a translation company website. Both are almost equally irrelevant as sources for these kinds of things. What's worst, though, is that it's blatantly obvious that Translation Services USA has simply ripped off a previous version of this very article. All the wordings are very familiar to me, even if they managed to produce the following nonsense in no less than two flavors:
Swedish is the language of the land Islands, an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland.
Swedish is the official language of the small autonomous territory of the land Islands, under sovereignty of Finland, protected by international treaties and Finnish laws.
The statement about Swedish-speakers in Brazil and Argentina is simply the very same unsourced statement that used to be in this article.
In the future, please use sources written by linguists, that have referenced linguistic sources or that at least are written by people who are engaged in linguistics (not merely translation and language courses). The similarities between this article and the translation company's site are so obvious that you would've noticed if you had taken the time to actually read this article.
Peter Isotalo 00:22, 22 March 2006 (UTC)


Wow Now I know you have not read the site. If you read the about us page it clearly states and shows what companies they have done business for including target and a bunch of other big busniess also if you read they say they are professional linguists. I have reverted the page because you have not read my source clearly obviously. (24.60.161.63 01:18, 22 March 2006 (UTC))

The source is not reliable, as Peter said, and the assertion that there are Swedish-speaking people (minorities, that is) in South America is just wrong, and it's not supported by that link either. Saying "there are people as far away as Brazil who speak Swedish", does not mean Brazil has any kind of significant Swedish-speaking minority. (Which the article Demographics of Brazil will also attest to) --BluePlatypus 06:25, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
And judging from the remark you left on Peter's talk page, it seems like you are pushing a non-neutral point of view. Noone is disputing that there are Swedish speakers in Argentina, as in most countries in the world. That doesn't mean they constitute a significant minority of encyclopedic relevance to an article on the Swedish language. By comparison, Argentinians aren't a significant minority in Sweden, and aren't mentioned in the articles on Sweden or Spanish or Swedish demographics. That doesn't mean they don't exist (I've met Spanish-speaking Argentinians in Sweden), just that there simply isn't very many of them in comparison to other minorities. Given the fact that you've failed to give any reliable sources on this, and judging from your edit history, it seems to me that you are "vanity-editing". --BluePlatypus 06:44, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

# of speakers = 9.3×106?

Exactly how is the # of speakers (claimed to be = 9.3×106 for Swedish) defined? Yes, there are = 9.0×106 inhabitatants in Sweden and offcially some = 0.3×106 Finland-swedes, but do really all inhabitants in Sweden master Swedish and are there really not more than only Finland-swedes in Finland who master Swedish? And what about Swedish speaking people outside Sweden and Finland? There must be hundreds of thousands of emigrated Swedish speaking persons out there. (I am not speaking about people with some diffuse Swedish ancestry here, but rather people who have actually emigrated as adults or who have at least one parent who has emigrated.)

The best thing would be so simply write something like 1×107 speakers.

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 20:36, 19 April 2006 (UTC))

It's fairly safe to assume that the overwhelming majority of people living in Sweden know enough Swedish to reach a figure of close to 9 million, since the language is so dominant, even if you exclude all those English speakers who tend to get away with only speaking English. The biggest problem is judging exactly how many Swedish citizens are living abroad. Does, for example, the official population statistics include all citizens or not? We have official statistics of Swedish-speakers in the US (around 60,000), but there's no way of knowing the exact proficiency of those speakers. The measuring standards of the US Census are highly subjective and largely up to the people answering the questionnaires to decide.
Either way, 10 million sounds very high for a guesstimate to me and I have seen no reliable sources that use such a high end figure.
Peter Isotalo 15:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

IPA for Swedish name

There is a non-standard pronunciation warning on Mikael Åkerfeldt. I am not familiar enough with Swedish to transcribe this name into IPA. I was wondering if any editors on this article could lend a hand. Thanks!.--Andrew c 00:53, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


If you´re still out there, Andrew... The pronounciation warning probably comes from the fact that Å is different from A. IPA should be o:kɛrfɛlt. (The e:s doesnt show here but it should be one of those backturned e:s that sound like "fell")

"Mutual Intelligibility": Nordic Baloney on Steroids

This article flatly states that Swedish and Danish are mutually intelligible. Several times. We even get to read that Swedish and Danish are actually dialects of a single language.

This is Nordic nonsense and wishful thinking. It is also an assertion based on academic dogma which has very little to do with the way language is used in the real world. There is a fine Swedish term for this sorry condition: paragrafrytteri.

The simple fact is that the vast majority of native speakers of Swedish, regardless of dialect, can not understand spoken Danish, regardless of dialect. The reverse is also true.

All the yakking in the world about orthography won't change this fact.

Two possibilities: this article is using a defective definition of mutual intelligibility or the speakers in the sample are telepathic. Take yer pick. Youssef51 09:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome to nuance the statement, but I would appreciate if you would tone down your ranting. You should also consider basing whatever edits you make on something other than your own very strong opinions. There are many dialects around the world that are far more different from one another than the Mainland Scandinavian languages, but are still not considered separate languages. If it weren't for the existence of three separate nation states with separate orthographies, language regulators, dictionaries, etc. there would probably be just one Mainland Scandinavian language.
The definition of mutual intelligibility is not set in stone. Neither is it true that most Swedes simply don't understand (spoken) Danish. It's highly dependent on context and something as simple as tolerance for the language with the listener (that is, not just experience of Danish). It doesn't take that much effort for a Swede and a Dane to make themselves understood to one another without resorting to a third language, even if it means speaking a bit slower and a bit clearer. To contrast with an example: the same simply can't be done with for example German or Dutch. Not even if the speakers speak extremely clearly and slowly would it be possible for the average Swede to understand more than a handful of words.
And please mind your manners and focus on factual discussion.
Peter Isotalo 10:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

A few simple points:

1) Please document or reference your claim "Neither is it true that most Swedes simply don't understand (spoken) Danish."

2) A first reference for my claim that most Swedes don't understand spoken Danish: I've recently asked more than twenty native Swedish speakers if they understand Danish. All answered "no". I'm sorry I haven't published my research.

3) I speak Swedish on a daily basis. I've given university courses in Swedish. I don't understand spoken Danish.

4) Every conversation I have ever wittnessed between Danes and Swedes has ended up taking place in English or in Swedish. I have wittnessed several comic attempts to speak "Scandinavian" which rapidly gave way to one of these alternatives. When 90% of the intended meaning is falling on the ground ( "Va? Va? Va sa han?") people wisely switch languages.

5) Your statement "there would probably be just one Mainland Scandinavian language" illustrates the wishful thinking I refer to above. Please tone down your wishful thinking.


Youssef51 19:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

1) There was a very good survey of how well speakers of Nordic languages understand one another a few years ago, but unfortunately the site that hosted the survey is now gone. The conclusions were that Norwegians udnerstand Swedish and Danish the best, and that Swedes and Danes understand Norwegian reasonably well but have more difficulties with Danish and Swedish respectively.
2) Asking your friends is not how to reference statements. We rely no statistical surveys or academic literature on Wikipedia, not hearsay.
3) If you've decided that you don't understand it, then nothing can be done, I suppose. Understanding another language is also to a great extent about making an effort to understand it. I.e. a concious choice to give it a chance. When it comes to judging how well a Swede understands written Danish compared with written English you'd have to be either better at English than Swedish or simply give up in advance and never even try to claim that Swedes can't understand Danish.
4) Resorting to English probably has more to do with a fear of socially awkward situations (something Swedes according to surveys fear even more than death) than actual lack of understanding.
5) The beginning of that statement was "If it weren't for the existence of three separate nation states with separate orthographies, language regulators, dictionaries, etc..." and it's an opinion that is held by most, if not all, Scandinavian linguists. I recommend checking out some basic linguistic literature.
Peter Isotalo 12:06, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
1) It's gone, I'll just take your word for it.
2) We rely no what?
3) I can not understand this statement. I've read it several times and I'm getting nowheres with it. Please clarify.
4) This is very speculative. The characterization of Swedes is troubling to me. I don't accept the stereotype you put forth without reference. Such a comment would prompt outraged reactions if it were made about Africans.
5) Most, not all. I adhere to the minority.

Youssef51 20:32, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I have noticed a big difference in the abilities of people from Stockholm on the one side and people from Göteborg (Gothenburg), Halmstad and Lund on the other when it comes to being able to communicate with Danes without resorting to English. A similar difference is found in Norway, where people south of (roughly speaking)Molde and Lillehammer have an easier time communicating with Danes than people further north. A great deal of this seems to be related to linguistic distance. Basically, it seems that Trøndsk and Sveamål — are less “compatible” with Danish... (But then Götamål and Kalixmål can also cause some trouble within Swedish for the same reason — or Østfolding and Sognamål within Norway...) An additional factor is probably the Stockholm tendency to be less understanding of neighbouring accents. Nothing unique about that, though — you'll find that in many capital cities... -- Olve 18:38, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I think there may be some help to find here: [5]. I have problems with Acrobat, so unfortunately I can't open the report. Jakob 18:38, 24 June 2006

textbooks

I know this is a very poor place to ask, but those who know the answer are probably reading this: how on earth can an English speaker learn this language? It seems that no textbooks are available (I've searched universities, online bookstores, amazon, ebay, everything). I assume that they believe that Americans need to learn another European language, like German or French, first, and then learn Swedish through a textbook written in German or French. Am I missing something here?

Yup. Amazon seems to have plenty of material for English-speakers who want to learn Swedish. I can't comment on the quality, but there seems to be a reasonably wide selection to choose from.
Peter Isotalo 09:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, there are some resources available, but it's all audio CDs and tourist phrasebooks. I'm looking for a comprehensive textbook to really learn the language and culture.
If you want to set such ambitious goals I think you'll have to take that frightful dive into the unknown and actually go to Sweden. No book can teach you foreign culture and customs properly. Until then I suspect that the audio CD courses have a reasonable amount of information on Swedish culture.
Peter Isotalo 13:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I have every intention of going to Sweden, but I don't want to go there as a tourist. I understand that the Swedes are particularly welcoming and speak English well, but I think I owe them the respect of learning as much of their native language and culture as possible before I actually venture there. Thanks for all your help!
Everything published in Sweden can be found in http://websok.libris.kb.se/websearch/form?lang=eng. Try searching on the keywords "swedish foreign language". --futhark 14:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Official language

I have added a reference regarding the official language vote: [6]. The article mentions "en kombination av kvittningsfel, feltryck och skilda uppfattningar" (roughly, "a combination of pairing-off failures, misvotes and differing opinions"), but I believe the latter two reasons are in relation to the second vote, the one regarding the status of Swedish in European Union. See [7] for the full vote results (small dictionary: röst = vote, nej = no, ja = yes, frånvarande = absent). If the link is broken, search for "Betänkandenr" KrU04 at [8], year 2005/06.

I also removed the reference to 2003/04:Kr280 since it is only one of many mentioned by the parties m, fp, kd and c in reservation 1 at [9] (in Swedish). (If you wonder why mp, who later voted with them, didn't join the reservation: it is because they don't have any ordinary members in Kulturutskottet (the Cultural Committee)).

Regarding a future vote (mentioned in the next sentence), the article [10] might be of interest.

-- Woseph 12:20, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Isn't it "Betänkanden"? 惑乱 分からん 14:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
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