Languages of Sweden - History

History

For most of its history, Sweden was a larger country than today. At its height in 1658 the Swedish realm comprised the territories of present-day Finland and Estonia as well as parts of Russia, Latvia, Germany, Denmark and Norway. Hence, Sweden's linguistic landscape has historically been very different from that of today.

Swedish evolved from Old Norse around the 14th-15th century, and historically, the Swedish dialects were generally much more different than today. Since the 20th century Standard Swedish prevails throughout the country. The Scandinavian languages constitute a dialectal continuum and some of the traditional Swedish dialects could equally be described as Danish (Scanian) or Norwegian (Jamtlandic).

Finnish was the majority language of Sweden's eastern parts, though it was used almost exclusively as a spoken language. These areas were also home of a significant Swedish-speaking minority. Finnish became a minority language in the west as well since many Finnish speakers migrated there (mostly for economic reasons).

Estonian was the language of the majority in Swedish Estonia but the province, like Finland hosted a Swedish-speaking minority and also a more significant minority of Germans.

In mediaeval Sweden, the Low German language had a very important role as a commercial language and the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league. As such, the Low German language influenced Swedish and other languages in the region considerably. In mediaeval Stockholm, half of the population were Low German speakers. Low German was also the language spoken in the 17th century Swedish territories in northern Germany i.e. Swedish Pomerania, Bremen-Verden, Wismar and Wildeshausen (as well as the rest of northern Germany) and by the German minority in Estonia and Swedish Livonia. Livonia was also inhabited by Latvians, Estonians and Livonians.

In Swedish Ingria, apart from Swedish also Finnish, Ingrian and Votian were spoken.

Latin as the language of the Catholic Church was introduced in Sweden with the Christianisation, around AD 1000. As in most of Europe, Latin remained the lingua franca and scholarly language of the educated communities for centuries in Sweden. For instance, Carolus Linnaeus' most famous work Systema Naturae, published in 1735, was written in Latin.

During the 18th century, French was the second language of Europe's upper classes and Sweden was no exception. The Swedish aristocracy often spoke French among themselves and code-switching between French and Swedish was common. The Swedish King Gustav III was a true Francophile and French was the common language at his court.

Gradually Sweden lost its overseas possessions and obtained its current borders in 1809, when it lost its eastern part (Finland) to the Russian Empire. As a consequence, Sweden became a rather homogeneous country with the exceptions of the indigenous Sami-people and the Finnish-speaking Tornedalians in the northernmost parts of the country.

During the 19th century Sweden became more industrialised, resulting in important demographic changes. The population duplicated and people moved from the countryside to towns and cities. As a consequence, of this and factors such as generalised education and mass media, the traditional dialects began to give room for the standard language (Standard Swedish). A large numbers of Swedes also decided to emigrate, especially to the United States. There, the Swedes came in contact with the English language. Since then, like in the rest of Europe and much of the world, English has grown as an important foreign language in Sweden, especially since the allied victory of World War II.

During the second half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century, Sweden has received great numbers of immigrants who speak other languages than Swedish (see: Immigrant languages below). It's unclear to what degree these communities will hold on to their languages and to what degree they will assimilate.