How many People Understand Swedish?
Swedish as a Language: Swedish is the native language of Sweden and of Swedish settlers in other parts of the world, notably in Finland. Swedish belongs to the northern or Scandinavian branch of the Germanic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages. It is an eastern development of the language known as Dönsk tunga (“Danish tongue”), spoken not only in Denmark but in all of Scandinavia even before the early Middle Ages. The Swedish branch of this common tongue developed into a separate language during the period 900-1500 and is called Old Swedish. Until after 1200 the only records of the language are runic inscriptions, cut primarily on tombstones and memorial stones. The Latin alphabet was introduced in the 13th century; periods of further differentiation followed, and some approximation to Danish occurred. The written language, based on two of the most widely spoken dialects, was made uniform throughout all of Sweden in the 14th century. Aside from differences in vocabulary,
