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34-705: For the most part, these dialects and the dialects spoken in Sweden are mutually intelligible , although some archaic dialects in Ostrobothnia are practically unintelligible to Swedish-speaking people in southern Finland (and in Sweden). Most Swedish-speaking Finns emphasize that Finland Swedish is not a separate language from the Swedish of Sweden. The Swedish dialects in Finland are considered varieties of Swedish, and

68-607: A single prestige variety in Modern Standard Arabic . In contrast, there is often significant intelligibility between different North Germanic languages . However, because there are various standard forms of the North Germanic languages, they are classified as separate languages. A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but

102-681: Is impossible to verify. In addition bilingualism is very common for immigrants in Sweden, so the term Swedish-speaking may be deceptive in that sense. In the spoken vernacular, especially among young people in Finnish-dominated areas, Finnish loanwords as well as calques from Finnish are frequently incorporated into Finland Swedish. There are also some words in Finland Swedish that would be considered slightly archaic in Sweden. Some government and public service terms that have been created in recent centuries also differ. The same

136-487: Is a conscious effort to adopt neologisms from Sweden, to maintain cohesion between the two varieties. Nevertheless, there are differences, which generally fall into two categories: words now considered archaic in Sweden, and loanwords and calques from Finnish or independently borrowed from other languages (nowadays mostly English). There are also some terms differing because of differing legislation. Mutually intelligible In linguistics , mutual intelligibility

170-496: Is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intelligibility is sometimes used to distinguish languages from dialects , although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. Intelligibility between varieties can be asymmetric; that is, speakers of one variety may be able to better understand another than vice versa. An example of this

204-501: Is not supposed to be very different from Swedish as found in Sweden. There are however e.g. words regarded as archaic in Sweden, but commonly used in Finland, and terms that differ from their counterparts in Sweden, often because of slight differences in the related legislation. Bilingualism of municipalities is regulated by the Language Act of 2003. If the minority has increased into at least 3,000 persons or 8% of inhabitants, then

238-604: Is one of the two official and national languages of the Republic of Finland, the other being Finnish. These two languages have formally equal status in nearly all legislation, though the status of Swedish in Finland has long been a subject of sociopolitical debate. The other minority languages (such as Sami ) are regulated separately. Finland Swedish is regulated by the Institute for the Languages of Finland . Official Swedish

272-442: Is the case between Afrikaans and Dutch . It is generally easier for Dutch speakers to understand Afrikaans than for Afrikaans speakers to understand Dutch. (See Afrikaans § Mutual intelligibility with Dutch ). In a dialect continuum , neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but differences mount with distance, so that more widely separated varieties may not be mutually intelligible. Intelligibility can be partial, as

306-436: Is the case with Azerbaijani and Turkish , or significant, as is the case with Bulgarian and Macedonian . However, sign languages , such as American and British Sign Language , usually do not exhibit mutual intelligibility with each other. Asymmetric intelligibility refers to two languages that are considered partially mutually intelligible, but for various reasons, one group of speakers has more difficulty understanding

340-406: Is true of other new words, notably loanwords from English . A common misconception among many Swedes is that Finland Swedish is simply Swedish spoken with a Finnish accent, something that can be a considerable source of frustration to most native Swedish-speakers in Finland. Any language adopts features, especially pronunciation habits, from dominant languages it comes in touch with, but many of

374-656: The aspirated stops present in Central Standard Swedish, making the contrast between "fortis" and "lenis" stops one of voicing only. The retroflexion that occurs in many dialects when /r/ precedes a coronal consonant does not occur in certain pairs in Finland Swedish (e.g. /rt/ , which is realized as [ʈ] in Standard Swedish but [rt] in Finland Swedish). Finland Swedish mostly has the same vocabulary as Swedish in Sweden, and there

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408-662: The tj sound, in modern Central Swedish a fricative /ɕ/ , is an affricate [t͡ɕ] or [t͡ʃ] in all Finland Swedish dialects, close to ch in English chin , except for some Åland dialects , in which it is a simple fricative [ɕ]. The tonal word accent , which distinguishes some minimal pairs in most dialects of Swedish and Norwegian, is not present in Finland Swedish (except around the parish of Snappertuna, west of Helsinki). Hence, Central Swedish minimal pairs like /ˈandɛn/ ("the duck") and /ǎndɛn/ ("the spirit") are both pronounced [ˈandɛn] in Finland. Finland Swedish lacks

442-630: The varieties of Chinese , and parts of the Romance , Germanic and Slavic families in Europe. Terms used in older literature include dialect area ( Leonard Bloomfield ) and L-complex ( Charles F. Hockett ). Northern Germanic languages spoken in Scandinavia form a dialect continuum where the two furthermost dialects have almost no mutual intelligibility. As such, spoken Danish and Swedish normally have low mutual intelligibility, but Swedes in

476-576: The Öresund region (including Malmö and Helsingborg ), across the strait from the Danish capital Copenhagen , understand Danish somewhat better, largely due to the proximity of the region to Danish-speaking areas. While Norway was under Danish rule , the Bokmål written standard of Norwegian developed from Dano-Norwegian , a koiné language that evolved among the urban elite in Norwegian cities during

510-535: The Central Swedish [ʉ̟ː] , which is very close to the short vowel [ʏː] and is more rounded . The highly variable sj sound / ɧ / varies between [ʂ] and [ɕ ~ ʃ] on the Finnish mainland, often close to sh in English shoe . In the Åland Islands, its realization is similar to the velar (and often labialized ) pronunciations of nearby parts of Sweden. The historic k sound before front vowels and

544-438: The Swedish as spoken in Sweden and strongly phrased advice against loanwords and calques from Finnish , which are usually incomprehensible to Swedes. It is said that the municipality with the highest proportion of Swedish speakers in the world, Larsmo (93% as of 2017), is located in Finland. Korsnäs has also been cited as such. However, as there are no official statistics on the mother tongue of inhabitants of Sweden, this

578-658: The beginning of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland . From the 16th century, Swedish was the main language of jurisdiction, administration and higher education in Finland (which was then a part of Sweden ), but the majority of the population in the Finnish inland spoke Finnish outside of these sectors of society, i.e. in normal, daily life. In 1809, when Finland was conquered by the Russian Empire and became an autonomous Grand Duchy , Swedish remained

612-469: The capital. The autonomous island province of Åland is an exception, being monolingually Swedish-speaking according to international treaties. It is a matter of definition whether the Swedish dialects spoken on Åland are to be considered a kind of Finland Swedish or not. Most Swedish-speaking Finns and linguists consider them to be closer to some of the dialects spoken in nearby parts of Sweden. Swedish

646-625: The coastal areas of southern, south-western, and western Finland. During the 20th century, the urbanization following the Industrial Revolution has led to large majorities of Finnish speakers in all major cities. The capital Helsinki (in Swedish Helsingfors) became predominantly Finnish-speaking as recently as around 1900. A large and important part of the Swedish-speaking population nevertheless lives in

680-422: The context of the communication. Classifications may also shift for reasons external to the languages themselves. As an example, in the case of a linear dialect continuum , the central varieties may become extinct , leaving only the varieties at both ends. Consequently, these end varieties may be reclassified as two languages, even though no significant linguistic change has occurred within the two extremes during

714-523: The continental parts of Finland , an area which excludes Åland . In legal contexts, the relation between the mainland and Åland is depicted by the word pair the State–Åland ( Finnish : valtakunta–maakunta , Swedish : riket–landskapet ). The term "mainland Finland" is significant in the context of legal differences between Åland and mainland Finland, and in the context of differences of culture, language, history, and self-perceived nationhood between

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748-423: The dialects themselves, with the standard Shtokavian dialect , and with other languages. For example, Torlakian, which is considered a subdialect of Serbian Old Shtokavian , has significant mutual intelligibility with Macedonian and Bulgarian . Mainland Finland Mainland Finland ( Finnish : Manner-Suomi , Swedish : Fasta Finland ) is a term used in statistics and in other contexts to describe

782-518: The differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varieties may not be. This is a typical occurrence with widely spread languages and language families around the world, when these languages did not spread recently. Some prominent examples include the Indo-Aryan languages across large parts of India , varieties of Arabic across north Africa and southwest Asia, the Turkic languages ,

816-401: The extinction of the central varieties. Furthermore, political and social conventions often override considerations of mutual intelligibility. For example, the varieties of Chinese are often considered a single language, even though there is usually no mutual intelligibility between geographically separated varieties. This is similarly the case among the varieties of Arabic , which also share

850-801: The later years of the union. Additionally, Norwegian assimilated a considerable amount of Danish vocabulary as well as traditional Danish expressions. As a consequence, spoken mutual intelligibility is not reciprocal. Because of the difficulty of imposing boundaries on a continuum, various counts of the Romance languages are given. For example, in The Linguasphere register of the world's languages and speech communities , David Dalby lists 23 languages based on mutual intelligibility: The non-standard vernacular dialects of Serbo-Croatian ( Kajkavian , Chakavian and Torlakian ) diverge more significantly from all four normative varieties of Serbo-Croatian. Their mutual intelligibility varies greatly between

884-684: The municipality must become bilingual. If the minority has fallen below 3,000 persons and 6% of inhabitants, then the municipality becomes monolingual, unless it decides to keep its bilingual status. At present, only one such municipality has done so, namely Lohja ( Lojo in Swedish). The status is reviewed once in a decade, and enacted by a government decree issued by the Finnish Council of State . The country's public broadcaster, Yle , provides two Swedish-language radio stations, Yle Vega and Yle X3M . The Swedish-language TV channel Yle Fem

918-607: The non-hard-of-hearing people of the United Kingdom and the United States share the same spoken language. The grammar of sign languages does not usually resemble that of the spoken languages used in the same geographical area. To illustrate, in terms of syntax , ASL shares more in common with spoken Japanese than with English . Almost all linguists use mutual intelligibility as the primary linguistic criterion for determining whether two speech varieties represent

952-569: The norm for written Standard Swedish is completely applicable also for Finland Swedish. Today, Swedish dialects are spoken in four different regions in Finland: Ostrobothnia, Åland , Southwest Finland and Uusimaa . Swedish as spoken in Finland is regulated by the Swedish Department of the Institute for the Languages of Finland . This regulation includes the officially stated aim of keeping Finland Swedish close to

986-591: The only official language. In 1863, both Finnish and Swedish became official languages with equal status, and by the time of Finland's independence in 1917, after a Finnicization campaign by the Fennoman movement , Finnish clearly dominated in government and society. See further: Finland's language strife . Finland has since then been a bilingual country with a Swedish-speaking minority (5.2% of mainland Finland 's population in December 2019) living mostly in

1020-749: The other language than the other way around. For example, if one language is related to another but has simplified its grammar , the speakers of the original language may understand the simplified language, but not vice versa. To illustrate, Dutch speakers tend to find it easier to understand Afrikaans as a result of Afrikaans's simplified grammar. Sign languages are not universal and usually not mutually intelligible, although there are also similarities among different sign languages. Sign languages are independent of spoken languages and follow their own linguistic development. For example, British Sign Language and American Sign Language (ASL) are quite different linguistically and mutually unintelligible, even though

1054-476: The same or different languages. A primary challenge to this position is that speakers of closely related languages can often communicate with each other effectively if they choose to do so. In the case of transparently cognate languages recognized as distinct such as Spanish and Italian, mutual intelligibility is in principle and in practice not binary (simply yes or no), but occurs in varying degrees, subject to numerous variables specific to individual speakers in

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1088-565: The traits of Finland Swedish exist also in monolingual areas and some are in fact preserved features of Old Swedish, as with Scots in comparison with English or Afrikaans in comparison with Dutch . Finland Swedish was a result of Swedish colonisation of Finland during the Northern Crusades in the 12th to 14th centuries. Colonisation focused on the Finnish archipelago and some of its coastal regions. This colonisation led to

1122-584: The Ålanders and the Swedish-speaking Finns in mainland Finland. However, since the population of Åland is only about 0.5% of that of mainland Finland, and below 10% of that of the Swedish-speaking Finns in mainland Finland, there are many instances when this distinction is ignored. In a geographical sense the term "mainland Finland" can be used to exclude Finland's other sea islands, but when distinguishing between Åland and

1156-567: Was merged with Yle Teema in 2017 to form Yle Teema & Fem . With the exception of the dialects spoken in Ostrobothnia along the west coast, close to the Gulf of Bothnia (example: the dialect spoken in Närpes ), Finland Swedish is not particularly different from Central Swedish. The phoneme /ʉː/ is more centralized and pronounced like [ʉː] , quite similar to how many speakers of English pronounce /uː/ (as in moon ). That should be compared to

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