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Arlanda Line

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99-635: The Arlanda Line ( Swedish : Arlandabanan ) is a 19-kilometre (12 mi) long railway line which allows trains on the East Coast Line to reach Stockholm Arlanda Airport in Sigtuna Municipality , Sweden . The Arlanda Line branches from the East Coast Line at Rosersberg and rejoins again at Myrbacken. It is built for speeds of 200 kilometres per hour (120 mph), is electrified at 15 kV  16.7 Hz AC and

198-445: A common gender with the definite suffix -en and the definite article den , in contrast with the neuter gender equivalents -et and det . The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number . By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to

297-477: A guttural or "French R" pronunciation in the South Swedish dialects ; consequently, these dialects lack retroflex consonants . Swedish is a stress-timed language, where the time intervals between stressed syllables are equal. However, when casually spoken, it tends to be syllable-timed . Any stressed syllable carries one of two tones , which gives Swedish much of its characteristic sound. Prosody

396-537: A change from tauþr into tuþr . Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long, close ø , as in the Old Norse word for "island". By the end of the period, these innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish-speaking area as well, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas. Old Swedish (Swedish: fornsvenska )

495-528: A conversation. Due to the close relation between the Scandinavian languages, a considerable proportion of speakers of Danish and especially Norwegian are able to understand Swedish. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries , but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish ), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as

594-487: A few morning and night trains on weekends. In 2007, the line transported 4 million people, of which 2.7 million were air passengers who used the Arlanda Express, 0.6 million were employees at the airport, and 0.7 million traveled with other train operators. Between 1,200 and 1,500 passengers board and disembark Upptåget trains at the airport each day. There are no freight trains because of safety considerations in

693-747: A group. According to the 2000 United States Census , some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on the degree of language proficiency. Similarly, there were 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Although there are no certain numbers, some 40,000 Swedes are estimated to live in the London area in the United Kingdom. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. In

792-629: A large proportion of the remaining 100,000 in the Scandinavian countries, France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada and Australia. Over three million people speak Swedish as a second language, with about 2,410,000 of those in Finland. According to a survey by the European Commission , 44% of respondents from Finland who did not have Swedish as a native language considered themselves to be proficient enough in Swedish to hold

891-425: A more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e. g., jag måste tvätta hår et ("I must wash my hair"). Adjectives are inflected in two declensions – indefinite and definite – and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are usually created by adding

990-600: A non-discriminating fee for all other trains using the line. Total investment costs for the project were SEK 6 billion, of which SEK 2 billion was financed through state grants to the Swedish Rail Administration who built the quadruple track along the East Coast Line. The public–private partnership part of the project involved two new tracks at Stockholm C and the Arlanda Line, costing SEK 4.1 billion. Of this, SEK 2.4 billion

1089-435: A noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in

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1188-574: A preventative basis on the Malmbanan . New funding models and griding profiles were adopted with largely positive results, such as the extension of track life in places as well as improved comfort levels for the travelling public. In Easter of 2008, the Administration undertook the largest ever signal replacement scheme in Sweden was undertaken at Stockholm Central Station. During May 2008,

1287-437: A significant rise in ticket prices and results in a low levels of public transport use for ground transportation to the airport. The Swedish State holds an option to purchase the traffic rights from A-Train in 2010, which would eliminate the fees and allow other operators to run directly from the airport to the city center. As of 2008, the train had a 9% market share for employees and a 25% market share for passengers traveling to

1386-636: A special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok , a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and Sweden. From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia , particularly on

1485-442: A suffix ( -t or -a ) to the common form of the adjective, e. g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs"). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e. g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). Swedish pronouns are similar to those of English. Besides

1584-413: A village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak a Swedish dialect and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although their dialect is most likely facing extinction. From 1918 to 1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as

1683-407: Is double track . The 5-kilometre (3.1 mi) section under the airport runs in a tunnel, and has three stations: Arlanda South , Arlanda Central and Arlanda North . The Arlanda Express operates four times per hour, increasing to six times per hour during rush hour, to and from Stockholm Central Station , the largest railway station in Sweden and in the Nordic region. Operated by A-Train,

1782-672: Is also served by 70 daily long-distance trains operated by SJ . SJ operates northbound X 2000 trains from Stockholm, which may continue southwards to destinations in southern Sweden. SJ Norrlandståg, a subsidiary of SJ, operates Norrlandståget ("The Norrland Train") with two daily connections from Stockholm to Narvik . From 2006 to 2012, Upptåget operated a commuter train service every 30 minutes between Upplands Väsby and Uppsala via Arlanda C. At Upplands Väsby, passengers could transfer to Stockholm commuter rail. When Stockholm commuter rail started its service from Älvsjö ( Tumba ) to Uppsala C, Upptåget ended its commuter service, except for

1881-722: Is co- official language . Swedish was long spoken in parts of Estonia , although the current status of the Estonian Swedish speakers is almost extinct. It is also used in the Swedish diaspora , most notably in Oslo , Norway, with more than 50,000 Swedish residents. Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages . In the established classification, it belongs to

1980-532: Is considerably higher than that of a ticket to Uppsala, which is twice as far away. Swedish language This is an accepted version of this page Swedish ( endonym : svenska [ˈsvɛ̂nːska] ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family , spoken predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland . It has at least 10 million native speakers, making it

2079-481: Is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible. Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. Capitalization during this time

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2178-538: Is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles . The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative , a highly variable consonant phoneme . Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number . Nouns are of common gender ( en form) or neuter gender ( ett form). The gender determines

2277-568: Is often one of the most noticeable differences between dialects. The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages , V2 , which means that the finite verb (V) appears in the second position (2) of a declarative main clause . Swedish morphology is similar to English; that is, words have comparatively few inflections . Swedish has two genders and is generally seen to have two grammatical cases – nominative and genitive (except for pronouns that, as in English, also are inflected in

2376-638: Is one of the official languages of the European Union , and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council . Under the Nordic Language Convention , citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for interpretation or translation costs. The Swedish Language Council ( Språkrådet )

2475-618: Is owned by the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications . The Arlanda Express is the main operator of the line and offers a direct service from Stockholm Central Station to Arlanda North Station and Arlanda South Station up to six times per hour. Travel time is 20 minutes using the company's seven X3 trains. Since 9 December 2012, Stockholm commuter rail trains stop at Arlanda Central every 30 minutes (60 minutes on weekend mornings and nights). It takes 38 minutes from Arlanda C to Stockholm C, and 18 minutes to Uppsala C. The station

2574-542: Is responsible for paying for all maintenance and operating costs of the line. In 2004, A-Train was bought by Macquarie Group, who paid SEK 70 million for the company, in addition to taking over debt worth SEK 330 million. In 2004, the Swedish National Audit Office criticized the process of building and financing the Arlanda Line, and stated that the State had taken more financial risk than

2673-475: Is termed nusvenska (lit., "Now-Swedish") in linguistics, and started in the last decades of the 19th century. It saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written form that approached the spoken one. The growth of a public school system also led to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally, "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With

2772-527: Is the predominant language; in 19 municipalities , 16 of which are located in Åland , Swedish is the sole official language. Åland county is an autonomous region of Finland. According to a rough estimation, as of 2010 there were up to 300,000 Swedish-speakers living outside Sweden and Finland. The largest populations were in the United States (up to 100,000), the UK, Spain and Germany (c. 30,000 each) and

2871-455: Is the regulator of Swedish in Sweden but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French . However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up

2970-407: Is the sole official language of Åland (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland), where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland as a whole, Swedish is one of the two "national" languages, with the same official status as Finnish (spoken by the majority) at the state level and an official language in some municipalities . Swedish

3069-631: Is the term used for the medieval Swedish language. The start date is usually set to 1225 since this is the year that Västgötalagen ("the Västgöta Law") is believed to have been compiled for the first time. It is among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script and the oldest Swedish law codes . Old Swedish is divided into äldre fornsvenska (1225–1375) and yngre fornsvenska (1375–1526), "older" and "younger" Old Swedish. Important outside influences during this time came with

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3168-465: The Gustav Vasa Bible , a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri . The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to

3267-679: The East Scandinavian languages , together with Danish , separating it from the West Scandinavian languages , consisting of Faroese , Icelandic , and Norwegian . However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian (Faroese and Icelandic), and Continental Scandinavian (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish), based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particularly Danish) on Norwegian during

3366-467: The French vous (see T-V distinction ). Ni wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du , the singular second person pronoun, used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these class distinctions became less important, and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though

3465-610: The Riksdag had been informed about. It also criticized the Government for giving additional financial support to A-Train in the form of guarantees without informing the Riksdag, and having an unclear management strategy. It also commented that the traffic forecasts during planning were incorrect. The original plans showed an economic benefit of SEK 4 billion. However, because A-Train is free to set its ticket prices as it wishes,

3564-657: The Swedish National Debt Office , the Swedish Export Credit Corporation and the Nordic Investment Bank . In addition, 20% of the share capital was secured through Vattenfall's equity in the company. The Arlanda Line and the Arlanda Express started operations on 25 November 1999. After the construction was completed, the ownership of the infrastructure was transferred to A-Banan Projekt. However, A-Train

3663-518: The United States , particularly during the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a significant Swedish-speaking immigrant population. This was notably true in states like Minnesota , where many Swedish immigrants settled. By 1940, approximately 6% of Minnesota's population spoke Swedish. Although the use of Swedish has significantly declined, it is not uncommon to find older generations and communities that still retain some use and knowledge of

3762-529: The fourth most spoken Germanic language , and the first among its type in the Nordic countries overall. Swedish, like the other Nordic languages , is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age . It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish , although the degree of mutual intelligibility is dependent on

3861-581: The nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies , dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän , Dalsland , western Värmland , western Dalarna , Härjedalen , Jämtland , and Scania , could be described as intermediate dialects of

3960-410: The object form) – although it is debated if the genitive in Swedish should be seen as a genitive case or just the nominative plus the so-called genitive s , then seen as a clitic . Swedish has two grammatical numbers – plural and singular . Adjectives have discrete comparative and superlative forms and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness . The definiteness of nouns

4059-399: The 1950s, when their use was removed from all official recommendations. A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen . Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr." or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs." or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was considered

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4158-438: The 6 billion Swedish krona (SEK) to build the line. The private consortium was granted a 40-year permit to operate the line in exchange for all direct traffic and the right to collect usage fees from other train companies. The line opened in 1999 and A-Train holds the sole right to operate to Stockholm, and collects a fee from other train operators using the line. The line itself is owned by Arlandabanan Infrastructure AB , which

4257-485: The 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse , evolved into Old Norse. This language underwent more changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects: Old West Norse (Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden). The dialects of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden are called Runic Swedish , while

4356-568: The Administration signed contracts with several companies, including Bombardier Transportation , Balfour Beatty , and Ansaldo for the roll-out of the European Railway Traffic Management System (ERTMS). Under these contracts, two pilot ERTMS Level 2 installations were deployed as part of the modernisations of the Ådalsbanan and of the Haparandabanan routes; furthermore, these pilot lines were

4455-477: The Arlanda Express until 2040. The legal responsibility for the project was transferred from the consortium to A-Train in 1995. As part of the agreement, A-Train received from the Swedish Government 850 million Swedish krona (SEK) in a grant and SEK 1 billion in a loan to help finance the project. The company was also allowed to operate a shuttle service from Stockholm C to Arlanda and charge

4554-471: The Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative [ʃ] and later into [ɧ] . There was also the gradual softening of [ɡ] and [k] into [j] and the fricative [ɕ] before front vowels . The velar fricative [ɣ] was also transformed into the corresponding plosive [ɡ] . The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today

4653-598: The Stockholm area ( Roslagsbanan & Saltsjöbanan ), and the tramways in Gothenburg , Norrköping and Stockholm . Its headquarters was located in Borlänge . Banverket was formed in 1988, when Swedish State Railways (Statens Järnvägar - SJ) was split in two parts, leaving SJ as mainly a train operator (both passenger and freight) and as a real estate owner, only to be split again in 2001. During 1988, Banverket

4752-601: The Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the spelling dictionary Svenska Akademiens ordlista ( SAOL , currently in its 14th edition) and the dictionary Svenska Akademiens Ordbok , in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Although the dictionaries have a prescriptive element, they mainly describe current usage. In Finland,

4851-491: The Swedish State Railways. By 2005, this arrangement had become politically controversial and the Swedish parliament hotly debated the issue that year autumn. Beyond the operations, various services such as train maintenance and overhauls was also partially privatised; the Swedish State Railways' X 2000 fleet of tilting trains was overhauled during the mid-2000s by Euromaint, a private company spun off from

4950-502: The administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of speakers remain. Swedish dialects have either 17 or 18 vowel phonemes , 9 long and 9 short. As in the other Germanic languages, including English, most long vowels are phonetically paired with one of

5049-426: The airport. Commentators and politicians have stated that the business model results in a low utilization of the line because of the high ticket prices, which has caused the airport to not reach its targeted emission goals. The CEO of A-Train, Per Thorstensson, stated that it would be a waste of tax payers' money to purchase the line in 2010, as the state would receive the line free of charge in 2040. Originally A-Train

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5148-504: The colloquial spoken language of its day, it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography . It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden, which

5247-403: The declension of the adjectives . For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a noun of common gender ( en fisk ) and can have the following forms: The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix ( -en , -n , -et or -t ), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den , det , and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of

5346-508: The dialect and accent of the speaker. Standard Swedish , spoken by most Swedes , is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century, and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties and rural dialects still exist, the written language is uniform and standardized . Swedish is the most widely spoken second language in Finland where its status

5445-541: The dialects of Denmark are referred to as Runic Danish . The dialects are described as "runic" because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet . Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which had only 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes , such as

5544-441: The entirety of Sweden's mainline railway. Two years later, the construction of radio infrastructure to cover the remaining 2,500 kilometres of low traffic lines was completed, after which all communication pertaining to railway operations was run upon MobiSIR. In the early 2000s, the Administration adopted a new strategic solution for the grinding of across many of Sweden's conventional lines after successful use of railgrinders on

5643-545: The firm establishment of the Christian church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, Middle Low German became very influential. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of Low German -speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their native languages into

5742-426: The high prices resulted in too few passengers taking the Arlanda Line for it to be of economic benefit to the Swedish community, and the line failed to maximise its economic impact through reduced road congestion and emissions. In 2006, Upptåget started operating on the Arlanda Line. In 2008, A-Banan Projekt changed its name to Arlanda Infrastructure. Storstockholms Lokaltrafik stated in 2008 that they intended to use

5841-430: The industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature . Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the emerging national language, among them prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding , Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg . It

5940-614: The islands (e. g., Hiiumaa , Vormsi , Ruhnu ; in Swedish, known as Dagö , Ormsö , Runö , respectively) along the coast of the Baltic , communities that today have all disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament , and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine , where they founded

6039-484: The language, particularly in rural communities like Lindström and Scandia . Swedish is the official main language of Sweden. Swedish is also one of two official languages of Finland. In Sweden, it has long been used in local and state government, and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language with no official status in law until 2009. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by

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6138-490: The last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars from the 16th to 18th centuries, and

6237-600: The line for a new branch of the Stockholm Commuter Rail . In a motion passed by the Riksdag on the 7 October 2008, the Arlanda Line Agreement was unanimously criticized and characterized as the "worst possible agreement Arlanda could have". A-Train is free to set whatever fees its sees fit on the line, both regarding their own ticket prices on the Arlanda Express and what fees it charges other train operators. This framework had resulted in

6336-455: The line was taken in 1993. Estimates at the time gave a ridership of 5.1 million passengers per year in 2005. The Swedish Rail Administration had proposed that the line was to be built with the government agency as owner and with either SJ or private railway companies as train operators. However, the Cabinet of Carl Bildt wanted private sector involvement in the construction and operation of

6435-619: The line. In 1993, the Government put in place a public tender to build and operate the line. In 1994, Arlanda Link Consortium was chosen, consisting of the Nordic Construction Company , SIAB  [ sv ] , Vattenfall , GEC-Alsthom and Mowlem . A-Banan Projekt AB was established as a limited company in 1994 to oversee the project. The consortium established A-Train AB to be the project developer and then operate

6534-456: The major railway companies based in the Swedish rail sector. Early on, this process was organised around regional action groups along clear geographical boundaries that largely focused on causes of disruption and the necessary measures to improve punctuality. As the process of deregulation took hold, various operators disappeared and were created, while it came to be recognised that these regional action groups were not effectively concentrating on

6633-523: The narrowest possible margin (145–147) due to a pairing-off failure. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag , and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Swedish

6732-421: The national standard languages. Swedish pronunciations also vary greatly from one region to another, a legacy of the vast geographic distances and historical isolation. Even so, the vocabulary is standardized to a level that make dialects within Sweden virtually fully mutually intelligible. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish In

6831-424: The north. An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é , as in stæinn to sténn "stone". 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 a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as

6930-441: The only acceptable way to begin conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni —the standard second person plural pronoun)—analogous to

7029-402: The original Germanic three- gender system. Nouns , adjectives , pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the extant nominative , there were also the genitive (later possessive ), dative and accusative . The gender system resembled that of modern German , having masculine, feminine and neuter genders. The masculine and feminine genders were later merged into

7128-433: The precursor to the wider deployment of ERTMS, under which several major lines would be equipped with the system, a process that would continue into the following decade. Throughout the late 2000s, the Administration adopted an increasingly customer-centric focus; this included the pursuit of ever-greater levels of reliability and punctuality while also making efforts to stop spiraling costs of major investment schemes. This

7227-418: The railway network; however, the revenue from this approach was at no point viewed as a suitable replacement for state-provided funding of the railways. The Administration set about introducing competition on Sweden's railways; Swedish regional authorities were able to issue competitive tenders to operate their local railway networks. While the rolling stock generally belonged to these regions, its operation

7326-480: The reform was not an act of any centralized political decree, but rather the result of sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years, from the late 1960s to early 1970s. The use of ni as a polite form of address is sometimes encountered today in both the written and spoken language, particularly among older speakers. Swedish is the sole official national language of Sweden , and one of two in Finland (alongside Finnish ). As of 2006, it

7425-506: The resolution of disruption or addressing the causes of such. Accordingly, in 2004, the regional orientation was discarded in favour of focusing on individual journeys and modes of transport for evaluating punctuality and the corresponding improvement efforts. Furthermore, specially appointed train administrators became responsible for following up on, and drawing attention to, those trains that frequently had problems with punctuality while operators started specifying their own quality targets for

7524-408: The right to transport passengers to the airport from other towns and cities. In 2008, the cost of a boarding or embarking passenger at Arlanda C was SEK 75. This results in a ticket from Uppsala to Arlanda costing SEK 136, while a ticket on the same train but traveling onwards to Stockholm C only costs SEK 64. Similarly the cost of a ticket to the airport with the Arlanda Express

7623-468: The rune for the vowel u , which was also used for the vowels o , ø and y , and the rune for i , also used for e . From 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark, creating a series of minor dialectal boundaries, or isoglosses , ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland , Österbotten and northwestern Finland in

7722-452: The service uses seven X3 trains and calls at the north and south stations. The line is also served by 70 other regional and intercity trains daily, operated by SJ , SJ Norrlandståg and (with very limited service) Upptåget , and since December 2012 also by Stockholm Commuter Rail . These all stop at Arlanda Central. In 1994, A-Train was awarded the right to build the line in a public–private partnership , where A-Train financed about half

7821-444: The short /e/ (transcribed ⟨ ɛ ⟩ in the chart below). There are 18 consonant phonemes, two of which, / ɧ / and /r/ , vary considerably in pronunciation depending on the dialect and social status of the speaker. In many dialects, sequences of /r/ (pronounced alveolarly) with a dental consonant result in retroflex consonants ; alveolarity of the pronunciation of /r/ is a precondition for this retroflexion. /r/ has

7920-428: The short vowels, and the pairs are such that the two vowels are of similar quality , but with the short vowel being slightly lower and slightly centralized. In contrast to e.g. Danish, which has only tense vowels, the short vowels are slightly more lax, but the tense vs. lax contrast is not nearly as pronounced as in English, German or Dutch. In many dialects, the short vowel sound pronounced [ɛ] or [æ] has merged with

8019-461: The state-owned operator. A key responsibility of the Administration was to ensure that the state-owned railway infrastructure was safeguarded and appropriately maintained to ensure operations inline with established policies and government targets; it directed substantial efforts into increasing the efficiency of maintenance operations. Starting in 1998, Banverket initiated a continuous programme of joint punctuality improvement work between itself and

8118-494: The subject in a clause, a trait that is restricted to North Germanic languages: Swedish Rail Administration Banverket ( Swedish for 'rail administration') was a Swedish state administrative authority which acted as owner on behalf of the State and maintained virtually all main railway lines in Sweden ; except for short sidings for freight, heritage railways, the Stockholm Metro , local railways in

8217-405: The tendered regional networks. The franchises for operating local lines typically last five years, although in some cases these lasted for as long as ten years. Competition in the regional rail market was pursued more rapidly than in the longer distance inter-regional routes; for a time, train travel between major city pairs such as Stockholm and Gothenburg , was effectively a monopoly held by

8316-649: The trains so that all parties could know when acceptable quality levels had been achieved. During 1997, the Administration launched the Swedish International Railway radio (SIR) project, being the first railway organisation in the world to do so and thus played a pioneering role in the field. Throughout much of the following decade, construction of the resultant MobiSIR (Mobiles in SIR) GSM-R radio communication network proceeded; by 2005, approximately 800 sites had been completed alongside

8415-534: The two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ – and sometimes as a' – though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a , and "oe" became o . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä , å and ö . The first time the new letters were used in print

8514-517: The two natural genders han and hon ("he" and "she"), there are also the two grammatical genders den and det , usually termed common and neuter . In recent years, a gender-neutral pronoun hen has been introduced, particularly in literary Swedish. Unlike the nouns, pronouns have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form. Hon , for example, has the following nominative, possessive, and object forms: Swedish also uses third-person possessive reflexive pronouns that refer to

8613-420: The underground station. Before construction there was a plan to transport aviation fuel to the airport, which was transported by truck from the port of Stockholm. Since 2006 the fuel is transported by train on the old line to Märsta and transported by pipeline to the airport. Plans for an airport rail link from the central business district of Stockholm and the airport was launched in the early 1980s. The goal

8712-439: The vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration, general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. The League also brought a certain measure of influence from Danish (at the time Swedish and Danish were much more similar than today). Early Old Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and also retained

8811-599: Was a part of the Swedish Rail Administration; it ceased to be following the formation of the Swedish Rail Agency ( Swedish : Järnvägsstyrelsen ) which took over its responsibilities. That agency was in turn incorporated into the newly formed Swedish Transport Agency ( Swedish : Transportstyrelsen ) in 2009. During 2010, the Swedish Government directed a merger with the Swedish Road Administration ( Swedish : Vägverket ) to create

8910-431: Was created, its functions having been previously carried out by the Swedish State Railways. The restructuring was a politically-driven move, Swedish politicians and industry officials having successfully advocated for adopting the model of a vertically-separated railway. Conceptually, the newly created Administration would act similar to the pre-existing Swedish roads authority, charging operators for licenses to operate upon

9009-484: Was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography finally stabilized and became almost completely uniform, with some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish of today. The plural verb forms appeared decreasingly in formal writing into

9108-506: Was financed by the state. In addition, the state held a financial guarantee to Nordea for the X3 trains, should A-Train fail to meets its financial obligations to the bank. A-Train was also granted an interest-free deferral on the payment of the fees at Stockholm C and Arlanda, costing the state SEK 90 million. Of A-Train's capital loan for SEK 2.2 billion, SEK 1.8 billion was borrowed from three state-owned financial institutions:

9207-656: Was in Aff dyäffwlsens frästilse ("By the Devil's temptation") published by Johan Gerson in 1495. Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska ) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation . After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible . The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as

9306-603: Was in part directed by the Swedish government as well as being the result of market changes and lessons learnt. The vast majority of its staff, approximately 1,530 people in 2007, belonged to the Operations Division, which delivered track access to the various operators along with various functions from planning to daily traffic management and maintenance. Prior to 2004, the Swedish Railway Inspectorate ( Swedish : Järnvägsinspektionen )

9405-423: Was interchangeable from one operator to the next. Various private sector companies, such as the native company BK Tag and French-owned Connex , entered the train operator market; while Connex operated several major commuter services around Stockholm , BK Tag did not last long in the business. The Swedish State Railways was permitted to compete for these tenders as well; it was able to retain roughly 70 per cent of

9504-523: Was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface that was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often Antiqua ). Some important changes in sound during

9603-470: Was required to accumulate capital of SEK 600 million before it could pay dividends , but this was changed to SEK 150 million in 2008, after an agreement was made with Arlandabanan Infrastructure. The Arlanda Line in its entirety is owned by the state-owned Arlanda Infrastructure, which also owns platforms 1 and 2 at Stockholm C. A-Train holds a monopoly on the right to transport passengers from Stockholm to Arlanda; other train operators only have

9702-537: Was the sole native language of 83% of Swedish residents. In 2007, around 5.5% (c. 290,000) of the population of Finland were native speakers of Swedish, partially due to a decline following the Russian annexation of Finland after the Finnish War 1808–1809. The Fenno-Swedish - speaking minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish

9801-446: Was to reduce road congestion and emissions while allowing Arlanda to keep increasing passenger numbers. The Swedish Rail Administration made a specific plan in the late 1980s which involved the construction of a branch from the existing East Coast Line. This resulted in a project plan which was launched in 1990, which specifically suggested Rosersberg and Odensala as the intersections with the existing line. The political decision to build

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