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Vocabulary
Most Swedish words are of Germanic origin (the oldest category, representing the most common, everyday words). All Germanic words in Swedish are mus (mouse), kung (king), and gas (goose). Other words are borrowed from Latin, French, German (first Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League, then High German), or English. New words are often formed by compounding. New verbs can also be made by adding an -a to an existing noun, as in disk (dishes) and diska « dishes). Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish.
Examples
Swedish: svenska
. hello: he} /hey/
. good-bye: he} da (hey-doh)
. please: tack (tahck)
. thank you: tack (tahck)
. that one: den ddr (den dehr)
. how much?: hur mycket (huwr muwk-eh) . English: engelska (eng-el-skah)
. yes:}a /jal (ya)
. no: ne} /nEj/ (neigh)
. generic toast: skal /skOl/ (skaal or skol)
From the mid-19th century until the Second World War more than one million people emigrated ftom Sweden, mainly to North America, and it is estimated that several hundred thousand' people now speak Swedish in various parts of the world.
Swedish is a Nordic language, belonging to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Its sister languages are Danish and Norwegian, while the other Nordic languages Icelandic and Faroese might perhaps best be described as half-sister, retaining more of their ancient character. In this perspective, English and German may be regarded as cousins
When Swedish became Swedish
From the beginning of our era until the 9th century the languages of the Scandinavian countries were on the whole identical, and are jointly referred to as Proto-Norse. There are linguistic monuments from this period consisting of a small number of runic inscriptions.
During the Viking Age (800-1050) Scandinavians still spoke what was fundamentally a common language, often referred to as the "Danish tongue", but at this time certain characteristic features were emerging to distinguish Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. We possess thousands of rune stones from the 11th century that bear witness to these linguistic developments.
Swedish has always embraced loans from other languages, but has still managed to survive as a language of its own. A number of Latin and Greek words, like kyrka (church), prost, mossa and paradis entered Swedish along with Christianity.
During the Middle Ages, Continental influences continued unabated, and the written language received an indelible impression from the complicated sentence structure and convoluted phraseology of Latin that has lasted until our own day. But it was the urban culture of the Hanseatic merchants that made the greatest impression on Swedish society, and the German spoken and written by the Hanse merchants of Lubbock and Hamburg moulded the Swedish language more than any other foreign influence before or since. The old vindlJga (window, "wind-eye") in the roof was now replaced by jlJnster (Ger. Fenster) in the wall. Eldhus ("fire-house") becamejungfru, bwja (begin) could also be begynna, golda became betala, mel and tunf!a.
The language of science and higher education was for centuries the internationally entrenched Latin. But during the 17th century, when the France of Louis XIV was the leading nation of Europe, French became the language with the biggest (status, and its influence grew even stronger during the 18th century with the Enlightenment and cultural development. The new loan words (phonetically adapted to Swedish) bear testimony to the kind of culture that was being imported: modern, journalist, mlJbel (furniture), balkong, salong, garderob (wardrobe), mustasch, parfYm, ses (sauce), kastrul/ (saucepan), baIEtt, ride (theatre curtain), pjos (play/drama) and roman (novel).
In the 19th century English started to flood into Swedish with words from the spheres of industrialization, travel and sport: jobb Gob), strejk (strike), bojkott, riJls (rail), lokomotiv, turist, sport, record.
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