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174-531: The Sweden Democrats ( Swedish : Sverigedemokraterna [ˈsvæ̂rjɛdɛmʊˌkrɑːtɛɳa] , SD [ˈɛ̂sːdeː] ) is a nationalist and right-wing populist political party in Sweden founded in 1988. As of 2024, it is the largest member of Sweden's right-wing bloc and the second-largest party in the Riksdag . It provides confidence and supply to the centre-right ruling coalition. Within
348-445: 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
522-477: 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
696-428: A web log post that gained publicity and became a hot topic in the debates. In spite of promises of a solution, after the election it was decided Holmqvist will lose her illness benefits. The Moderate Party was still seen as one of the big winners of the election because of its "well-executed campaign" that emphasised Sweden's "remarkable political and economic stability in a turbulent world" after Sweden weathered
870-404: A white paper for a new party, although observers tend to see the party's foundation as part of a complex decade-long series of events, with some even calling into question whether a meeting took place. Initially, the party did not have a single centralized leader and was instead fronted by two alternating spokespeople before Anders Klarström became the party's sole official chairman and head of
1044-683: A break from his position as the party's justice policy spokesman. Almqvist and Ekeroth both took time off from their parliament seats. Sweden Democratic Youth president Gustav Kasselstrand and vice president William Hahne criticised the decision to remove Almqvist and Ekeroth in an op-ed in Dagens Nyheter , arguing that the party should not give in to media pressure. Only two weeks after Almqvist and Ekeroth were forced to step down, fellow MP Lars Isovaara reported being robbed of his backpack and pushed out of his wheelchair by "two unknown men of an immigrant background". When trying to get into
1218-537: 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 )
1392-574: A constant shift of power from Stockholm to the European Union and campaigns to protect Swedish sovereignty and financial autonomy against the EU. Until the 2000s, the SD used ethnopluralist arguments in its defense of a Swedish homeland and culture with its 2005 handbook calling for a "high degree of ethnic and cultural similarity among the population" while the party platform described the need to preserve
1566-528: 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
1740-566: A delegation of senior SD members visited Israel to hold meetings with Knesset politicians and discuss a cooperation pact with the Likud party. The party has also taken a strongly pro-Israel position following the outbreak of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war , supporting military action to remove Hamas and calling on the Swedish government to review all funding to Palestinian organizations which the SD accuse of spending aid money on terrorism. In 2011, SD
1914-548: A government in cooperation with the Sweden Democrats . A privately owned television network , TV4 , refused to air a SD campaign video, which was then uploaded to YouTube and viewed more than one million times. The SD video portrayed a track-meet, in which the race is for pension funds. In the video, a Swedish pensioner is outrun by burka -clad women with prams . Several politicians in Denmark, initially from
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#17327650228002088-692: 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
2262-629: 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
2436-553: A larger decline of European left parties. An article in Al Jazeera English asked if Western political dynamics were changing following the Swedish and United States elections. The article said that predictions after the election indicated "an entirely new political landscape" and "the beginning of an era of sharper political division in Sweden." It asked if the similar results "reflect rather an underlying continuity in
2610-467: A level where it does not "threaten national identity, the country's welfare or security." SD has also campaigned to restrict immigration from what it calls "culturally distant" countries and that temporary work visas should be limited only to skills that are impossible to find in Sweden. SD are against free movement of labour within the European Union, calling on Sweden to revise its membership of
2784-405: A living from street begging, changes in the law to enable the government to strip foreign-born Swedish nationals of their citizenship if found guilty of a serious crime or involvement in terrorism, penalties against employers who use foreign and undocumented labor to circumvent Swedish working conditions and stricter laws against family migration. In recent years, the SD has tried to approach
2958-425: 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
3132-560: A new EU strategy calling for Sweden to create a referendum lock in the Riksdag based on the UK European Union Act 2011 to prevent transfer of powers to Brussels without a referendum first and for Sweden's withdrawal from the EU to be possible by removing references to membership in the constitution. The Sweden Democrats are supportive of Israel and favors recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital and proposes moving
3306-435: 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
3480-649: A number of Swedish cities. Reports indicated that 10,000 people were estimated to have marched in Stockholm under banners reading "We are ashamed", "No racists in Parliament", and "Refugees – welcome!". In Gothenburg , 5,000 people took part in a "sorrow march against racism", and 2,000 people marched in Malmö . Support for the Sweden Democrats was strongest in the southernmost province Scania , where
3654-784: A significant transformation from the smallest elected party to the third largest party during the term, overtaking the Left Party , the Christian Democrats , the Liberals and even the Centre Party in most polls following the 2006 election. The Sweden Democrats generated controversy before the election. Both the Alliance and the Red-Greens pledged not to seek support from the SD, with Reinfeldt ruling out forming
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#17327650228003828-636: 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
4002-442: 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
4176-460: A tougher stance on gang violence with longer prison sentences. Preliminary results indicated that the Sweden Democrats had seen their strongest result to date and had overtaken the Moderates to become the second largest party with 20.6% of the vote. The result was confirmed after the election. In October 2022, the SD was allocated chairmanship of four parliamentary committees for the first time in
4350-413: 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
4524-531: A vote of no confidence in the government in 2015, albeit without success. Ahead of the 2022 Swedish general election , the SD attempted to form a conservative grouping with the Moderates , Christian Democrats and the Liberals and requested ministerial posts in government should the right-wing bloc form a parliamentary majority. During the election, the SD campaigned to reduce asylum migration close to zero, stricter policies on work permits, lower energy bills and
4698-498: A work that had begun during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Today, the SD officially rejects fascism on their platform and since 2012 has maintained a zero-tolerance policy against "extremists," "lawbreakers," and "racists." The Sweden Democrats oppose current Swedish immigration and integration policies, instead supporting stronger restrictions on immigration and measures for immigrants to assimilate into Swedish culture. The party supports closer cooperation with Nordic countries , but
4872-431: A zero-tolerance policy regarding political extremism and law breaking. After some of the SD's elected members caused controversies during the party's first term in the Riksdag, the SD also stated it would introduce a vetting procedure for its future parliamentary candidates to exclude those who had previously belonged to any extremist groups and issued updated guidelines on conduct and communication for party members. In 2011,
5046-624: 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 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
5220-411: Is a meet in the middle approach and that Swedes should not have to bear the burden over what the party claims have been reckless immigration policies. In 2017, members of the Sweden Democrats' leadership defended comments made by then US President Donald Trump in response to Trump's assertion that Sweden's migration and asylum policies had led to a rise of terrorism and crime in Sweden. However, following
5394-479: Is against further European integration and believes Sweden must have a strategy to exit the European Union if it assumes more power and that the Swedish people should be allowed to vote on future EU treaties. The Sweden Democrats are critical of multiculturalism and support having a common national and cultural identity, which they believe improves social cohesion. The party supports the Swedish welfare state but
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5568-485: Is against providing welfare to people who are not Swedish citizens and permanent residents of Sweden, a policy known as welfare chauvinism . The Sweden Democrats support a mixed market economy combining ideas from the centre-left and centre-right. The party supports same-sex marriage , civil unions for gay couples, and gender-affirming surgery but prefers that children be raised in a traditional nuclear family and argues that churches or private institutions should have
5742-892: Is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages . In the established classification, it belongs to 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
5916-503: Is based on "democratic nationalism " and social conservatism . The SD says that its core philosophy is inspired by Swedish national conservatism and "parts of the social democratic folkhemmet (people's home) idea." SD rejects any positioning of the party within the classic left-right scale, instead referring to itself as a "value-oriented" party and stating that "basic social justice with traditional conservative ideas," nationalism and desires for democratic and good governance form
6090-455: Is doing enough to reduce their emissions. The Sweden Democrats support generally increasing minimum sentences for crimes, as well as increasing police resources and personnel. The party also supports increasing the number of Swedish Army brigades and supports raising Sweden's defense spending. Support for the Sweden Democrats has grown steadily since the 1990s and the party crossed the 4% threshold necessary for parliamentary representation for
6264-477: Is enhanced. The Sweden Democrats should send flowers to the left-wing extremists, thanking them for the publicity." There were 5,960,408 valid ballots cast for a turnout of 84.63%. As exit polls conducted by the national broadcaster Swedish Television predicted, the Sweden Democrats reached the 4% threshold needed to enter parliament, making this election the first in which they were able to enter parliament. A preliminary count of 5,668 voting districts showed
6438-481: 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
6612-538: 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
6786-568: 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
6960-575: 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 )
7134-404: Is referring to Sweden as "my country, not your country", as an insult to Ismail. They are also shown arguing with a drunken man. A woman can also be seen approaching Kent Ekeroth while filming; he calls her a whore and pushes her out of the way. A few minutes later they are seen picking up iron bars. Coming only a month after party leader Åkesson had instated a zero-tolerance policy towards racism in
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7308-475: 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
7482-504: Is the least liked among other voters, so it is not surprising that people have reacted with dismay The election was a landmark for its impact on the Social Democrats, which had been in government for 65 of the last 78 years and who had never lost two consecutive elections. This was their worst result since universal suffrage in 1921. Swedish political scientist Stig-Björn Ljunggren said "The Social Democrats no longer symbolise
7656-527: 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
7830-455: 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
8004-407: 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
8178-631: 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
8352-465: 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
8526-613: The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine the SD supported accepting and accommodating Ukrainian refugees in Sweden. The SD wants European governments to construct a security wall along the European border with Turkey in response to illegal immigration, terrorism and incursions by the Grey Wolves into Greece. It also calls on Europe to commonly adopt a migration system based on the Australian model to prevent human trafficking across
8700-531: The 2022 Swedish general election , the party campaigned to tighten the rules in the Swedish Aliens Act ( Utlänningslagen [ sv ] ) to the strictest possible level within European law and encourage voluntary re-migration of asylum seekers and immigrants who are economically inactive or remain culturally unassimilated. Historically, SD sought to repatriate most immigrants and ban immigration entirely; however, these policies were moderated in
8874-767: The Centre Party and the Liberal Party left to support the Social Democratic led government. In October 2018, the Sweden Democrats went into a governing coalitions with the Moderate Party and the Christian Democrats for the first time in Staffanstorp Municipality , Sölvesborg Municipality , Herrljunga Municipality and Bromölla Municipality . In Bromölla, coalition felt apart in 2020, while new coalitions with
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#17327650228009048-627: The Danish People's Party and later from the governing Venstre and the Conservative People's Party , reacted to TV4's refusal to air the video by calling for international election observers to be sent to Sweden. Pia Kjærsgaard , leader of the Danish People's Party, claimed that the election reminded her of " Eastern Europe ", and that Sweden was the " banana republic " of the Nordic countries . Per-Willy Amundsen of
9222-474: The European Union , the party is a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party . The party describes itself as social conservative with a nationalist foundation. The party has also been variously characterised by academics, political commentators, and media as national-conservative , anti-immigration , anti-Islam , Eurosceptic , and far-right . The Sweden Democrats reject
9396-688: The European election of 2014 , SD received 9.67% of votes, winning two seats in the European Parliament and becoming the fifth largest party in the country. The party later joined the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe and the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group. In the 2014 election , the Sweden Democrats received 12.9% of the votes, doubling their support and becoming
9570-467: 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
9744-631: The Liberals , and came second overall with 20.5% of the vote. Following the election and the Tidö Agreement , it was negotiated that SD agreed to support a Moderate Party-led government together with the Christian Democrats and the Liberals. It is the first time that SD holds direct influence over the government. The Sweden Democrats party was founded in 1988 as a direct successor to the Sweden Party , which in turn had been formed in 1986 by
9918-689: The Moderate Party , the Centre Party , the Liberal People's Party and the Christian Democrats ; and the opposition centre-left coalition the Red-Greens , consisting of the Social Democrats , the Left Party and the Green Party . The Alliance received 49.27 percent of the votes (an increase by 1.03 pp from the previous election ) and 173 seats in the parliament (a decrease by 5 seats and 2 short of an overall majority), while
10092-678: The National Police Commissioner Bengt Svenson [ sv ] severely criticized the county police for failing to safeguard the Sweden Democrats: "If it is not possible to protect them [in those locales], the police have failed in its planning and execution of its mission. ... It is a serious problem when such meetings cannot be held, because it is our absolute duty to ensure that the constitutionally guaranteed rights be maintained and that all meetings can be held". These attempts to limit
10266-479: The New Swedish Movement and the neo-Nazi Nordiska rikspartiet ( Nordic Realm Party ," abbr. NRP ) and estimated that around sixty percent of party's national board members between 1989 and 1995 were connected to neo-Nazi movements in various ways both before and during their time in the party. However, the study also concluded that a majority of these members were no longer active within
10440-680: The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe , Björn Söder for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and Adam Marttinen the chairman of the joint-parliamentary group for Europol . The party also formed a deal with Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson to provide for the first time in their history parliamentary support to a Moderate Party-led government as part of the Tidö Agreement . Defunct Former The Sweden Democrats' current party programme
10614-587: The Russian invasion of Ukraine the SD leadership announced it would consider changing its policy to endorse NATO membership and support joining if Finland also applied for NATO membership. The SD has also taken a strongly pro-Ukraine position following the invasion and has called on Sweden and Western governments to help the Ukrainian people defend their homeland. Swedish language Swedish ( endonym : svenska [ˈsvɛ̂nːska] )
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#173276502280010788-566: The Schengen agreement , but support free movement between Nordic nations . As more state funds are made free from funding immigration, SD believes that Sweden will be better able to help refugees and economic migrants in their home areas. Torbjörn Kastell (former party secretary from 2003 to 2004) said in 2002 that the party wanted "a multicultural world, not a multicultural society". SD also favours assimilation over integration of immigrants from non-European backgrounds, arguing that integration
10962-542: The Sweden Democratic Youth , who were collectively expelled from the Sweden Democrats in 2015. Three Sweden Democrat members of the Riksdag , Olle Felten , Jeff Ahl and former leader Mikael Jansson subsequently defected to the party. On 2 July 2018, the two Sweden Democrats MEPs left the EFDD group and moved to the European Conservatives and Reformists Group . In the 2018 Swedish general election ,
11136-662: The Swedish embassy there. A study by the European Coalition for Israel documented that SD had the most pro-Israel voting record of the Swedish parties in the European Parliament. In 2021, the Israeli government stated that they did not maintain relations with the SD due to "its roots in Nazism" but by 2023 had dropped its non-cooperation stance after SD representatives signed a document of principle with Israeli ministers pledging to combat antisemitism. Between 2023 and 2024,
11310-547: The UNHCR resettlement programme in accordance with a quota based on each municipality 's capacity. SD has also referred to the recommendations from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which state that the return of refugees should be the solution to refugee problems. The party also supports giving priority to cases of persecuted Christian, former Muslim and other religious or sexual minorities fleeing war or death for apostasy believing that such individuals are less likely to be offered refuge elsewhere. Ahead of
11484-456: 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
11658-462: The Viking Age . It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish , although the degree of mutual intelligibility is dependent on 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,
11832-581: 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
12006-410: 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
12180-458: The recession ; despite mass unemployment, the economic growth in 2010 was the highest in Western Europe. The Alliance formed the new government with Reinfeldt continuing as prime minister. His cabinet has 24 ministers , three more than the previous one. The Moderates received 13 posts, an increase of three from their previous count, with the Liberals (4), Centre (4) and Christian Democrats (3) not gaining or losing ministers. Jan Björklund ,
12354-481: The remigration allowance given to foreign-born residents who seek to voluntarily leave the country. The Sweden Democrats support close political co-operation within the Nordic sphere, but are eurosceptic and against further EU integration and cession of Swedish sovereignty to the European Union . The party opposes EU regulation over Swedish tax and domestic affairs and calls for the national sovereignty and cultural identity of European nations to be prioritized over
12528-399: The "inhereted essence" of ethnic Swedes. However, since 2018 SD has stressed a more moderate cultural conservative position by promoting a shared national identity in which foreign-born people can become culturally Swedish through strong assimilation policies. Nordic Studies scholar Benjamin R. Teitelbaum has called the SD radical nationalist and in 2018 said the party has since evolved to
12702-428: The "softer side" of European populist parties. The party has been described by sociologist Jens Rydgren and political scientist Cas Mudde variously as xenophobic, far-right, racist or right-wing populist. In 2013, a Sveriges Radio journalist called the SD "xenophobic," which resulted in a complaint lodged to the broadcasting regulator by the party. The Swedish Broadcasting Commission determined that this description
12876-433: The 'Swedish model'" that has been represented as a "meld of liberal values, high taxes, outstanding childcare and welfare that made the country the poster boy for European social democracy?" The Social Democrats' failure reflected the party's inability to adapt, an increasingly technocratic profile, a failure to address immigration concerns, as well as Reinfeldt's success in managing the economy. The results draws parallels with
13050-399: 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
13224-490: The 1990s before being scrapped altogether. Presently, SD wishes to strongly restrict and place more controls on immigration, and instead give generous support to immigrants who do not want to assimilate into Swedish society to emigrate back to their country of origin and change laws to revoke residency or citizenship of those who engage in illegal activity. The party argues that its migration policies are not based on xenophobia towards immigrants, but believe immigration must stay at
13398-485: 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
13572-482: The Alliance a total seat count of 173, still two seats short of an absolute majority. The Alliance's Liberal People's Party were only 7 and 19 votes short from gaining additional seats in Gothenburg and Värmland respectively, but according to Svante Linusson, a professor in mathematics, the actual margin was still over 800 votes. On the day after the election, rallies against the Sweden Democrats took place in
13746-534: The Alliance with 172 seats, ahead of the Red-Greens. However, this fell short of the 175 seats needed for an absolute majority , and it appeared the Sweden Democrats would hold the balance of power in the new parliament. Reinfeldt declared that he had no intention to cooperate with the Sweden Democrats. On 23 September, the final results showed the Centre Party gaining an adjustment seat in Dalarna , giving
13920-582: The EU's political ambitions. SD rejects joining the Economic and Monetary Union by opposing the Euro currency and favors keeping the krona . They also seek to reduce Swedish financial contributions to Brussels, renegotiate Swedish membership of the Schengen Agreement , protect freedom of speech and the free access to the internet from EU copyright bills, and are against the accession of Turkey to
14094-405: The European Union . The SD states that it supports European political cooperation to combat cross-border organized crime, illegal immigration, Islamism , terrorism and environmental challenges but opposes creating an EU army or policies that could lead to the creation of a Federal European Superstate . The party also calls for Sweden to renegotiate its EU membership terms and seeks an amendment to
14268-596: The Mediterranean which the party states enables illegal immigrants and would-be terrorists to reach Sweden. SD calls for compulsory measures for immigrants to be employed, learn the Swedish language , be put through an assimilation program, and be subject to a language and social skills test before becoming eligible for citizenship. The party also supports increased spending on border patrol forces, expulsion of illegal immigrants and foreign-born criminals, repatriations of Schengen Area migrants who move to Sweden to make
14442-695: The Minister for Integration at the Ministry of Employment ; Hillevi Engström , the Minister for Employment ; Anna-Karin Hatt , the Minister for Information Technology and Regional Affairs at the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications ; Peter Norman , replacing Mats Odell as Minister for Financial Markets ; and Catharina Elmsäter-Svärd , replacing Åsa Torstensson as Minister for Communications . Tobias Krantz , former Minister of Higher Education at
14616-471: 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
14790-560: The NRP as a teenager before distancing himself from it by the time he became SD leader. The SD's logo from the 1990s until 2006 was a version of the torch used by the British National Front . Political historian Duncan McDonnell has argued that it is disputed as to whether the SD was explicitly founded to be a neo-fascist movement, but it was widely known to publicly align itself with extreme fringe politics and faced criticism in
14964-608: The Nazi Nation Europa and Nouvelle École , a newspaper that advocates racial biology and the British neo-Nazi Combat 18 movement. The SD won municipal representation for the first time during the 1991 Swedish local elections in Dals-Ed Municipality and Höör . In 1995, Klarström was replaced as party chairman by Mikael Jansson , a former member of the Centre Party . Jansson strove to make
15138-811: The Norwegian Progress Party also criticised the decision as a "violation of democratic rules." On 13 September in Gothenburg , about 500 counter-demonstrators prevented the Sweden Democrats from making a planned election rally. Police used pepper spray to disperse the counter-demonstration, which lacked a permit, and seven counter-demonstrators were detained. On 14 September, the Sweden Democrats cancelled planned rallies in three cities, Eskilstuna , Karlstad , and Uddevalla , because of security concerns. Similarly, concerns about security led to an election tour being cancelled on 15 September in Norrköping . After these cancelled election rallies,
15312-427: The Red-Greens received 43.60 percent of the vote (a decrease by 2.48 pp) and 156 seats (a decrease by 15 seats). The election also saw the nationalist Sweden Democrats entering parliament for the first time, as the sixth largest and only non-aligned of the eight parties elected to the parliament, by receiving 5.70 percent of the votes (an increase by 2.77 pp) and 20 seats. Both in terms of percentage share; 30.06%, and
15486-442: The Riksdag until the late 2010s, with other parties maintaining a policy of refusing cooperation with them . In 2019, the leader of the Christian Democrats , Ebba Busch announced that her party was ready to start negotiations with the Sweden Democrats in the Riksdag, as did Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson . In the 2022 Swedish general election , the party ran as part of a broad right-wing alliance with those two parties and
15660-608: The Riksdag with party secretary Richard Jomshof appointed to head the Justice Committee , Aron Emilsson the Committee on Foreign Affairs , Tobias Andersson the Committee on Industry and Trade , and Magnus Persson the Committee on the Labour Market . SD parliamentarians were appointed as international delegation leaders for the first time, with Markus Wiechel becoming chairman of the Swedish delegation to
15834-418: The Riksdag, Isovaara was himself reported by the police for racial abuse against safety guards. The Sweden Democrats initially defended Isovaara, but backed down when Expressen revealed that Isovaara had actually forgotten his backpack at a restaurant, and that the two men had helped him when he fell out of his wheelchair. He left his seat in the Riksdag on 29 November, and was replaced by Markus Wiechel . In
16008-426: The SD as having transformed itself from an extreme past to becoming part of a broader European family of national-populist parties which combine social and cultural conservative nationalism and populism but are opposed to fascist, anti-democratic and revolutionary ideas. Within the party, the SD's leadership have rejected the extreme and "far-right" label and argued it no longer represents the party. Oscar Sjöstedt ,
16182-447: The SD does not match the description of a radical far-right party but is mistakenly labelled as such by media or opponents who focus on the party's early rather than current beliefs. She stated that the SD is now a national conservative party with populist elements but does not contradict democratic or Swedish constitutional principles. Similar observations were made in 2021 by Swedish political scientist Sören Holmberg that "extreme right"
16356-475: The SD emerged in Svalöv Municipality (2019), Bjuv Municipality (2020) and Surahammar Municipality (2021). In 2020, Mattias Karlsson , the former group leader of the Sweden Democrats in the Riksdag founded Oikos , a conservative think-tank which has been alleged to be an "extension of the Sweden Democrats' political project", supposedly also receiving funding from the party. In 2021, the SD
16530-483: The SD increased its support to 17.5% of the vote, though it did not grow as much as most polls had predicted. According to Emily Schultheis of Foreign Policy , the SD won an ideological victory, as it "effectively set the terms for debate" and forced its rivals to adopt immigration policies similar to its own, and other reporters made similar observations. The SD performed particularly well in Skåne County , having
16704-418: The SD message were described by Al Jazeera as counterproductive, in that they enabled the SD to portray itself as a victim of censorship. Similarly, Hanne Kjöller of Dagens Nyheter hypothesised that the attacks strengthened the Sweden Democrats rather than hurting the party's support base. "Jimmie Åkesson becomes a poor underdog and the picture of a party that is holding some dangerous but important truth
16878-517: The SD's financial spokesperson, places the party around the centre on the left–right political spectrum , while leader Jimmie Åkesson has stated that they are parallel with the Moderate Party . In addition, the party has in recent years increasingly distanced itself from other European ultra-nationalist or far-right parties. In spite of this, a 2022 report by Swedish researchers Acta Publica claimed to have found 289 Swedish politicians who expressed racist or neo-Nazi views, with 214 of them being members of
17052-500: The SD's policy platform. Before the 2002 election, former Member of Parliament (MP) for the Moderate Party , Sten Andersson defected to SD, citing that the party had gotten rid of its extreme-right elements. In 2003, the party declared the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be a cornerstone of its policies. In 2005, Åkesson defeated Jansson in a leadership contest. Shortly after, the party changed its logo from
17226-699: The SD. The SD itself has argued that some of these controversies with members have been as a result of the party's rapid growth since the late 2000s rather than the party being extreme. The Sweden Democrats believe that current Swedish immigration and integration policies have been a national failure. In a statement filed before the Riksdag Committee on Migration in August 2020, SD claims that Sweden's "irresponsible" immigration and asylum policies have subjected Sweden to an on-going "long-term, albeit low-intensity crisis". Their official policy brief states that
17400-468: The Sweden Democrats' national board in 1989. According to Expo , it is generally agreed that the Sweden Democrats have never been a neo-Nazi party, although some of the SD's early members and founders had previously been connected with Swedish fascist and white nationalist groups. Studies by Expo documented that around nine of the original 30 people who played a role in founding the SD had direct associations to known Nordic fascist organisations such as
17574-461: The Swedes to get themselves a new national self-image [as the election] created a new picture of Sweden". While it's hard to say that Sweden has woken up to a new self-image, one can say that this is more like a normal European situation and is similar to other western European countries with a proportional election system, where a populist right-wing party has seats in parliament. It's the party that
17748-601: 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,
17922-527: The Swedish constitution to make it mandatory that proposed EU treaties be first put to a public vote. The SD believes that if the EU cannot be reformed and tries to transform itself into a Superstate, Sweden should immediately reconsider its membership via a referendum and prepare to leave the EU. The SD's youth-wing, the Ungsvenskarna support a Swedish exit from the EU. In 2023, party leader Akesson and SD European Union spokesman Charlie Weimers unveiled
18096-472: The Swedish government conceded to some of the SD's immigration policy demands on requirements for obtaining Swedish citizenship and expanding the deportation criteria for foreign-born residents and asylum seekers. Following scenes of people in Swedish cities celebrating the Palestinian attack on Israel , the SD leadership stated that those who praised the attack should be expelled from the country and that
18270-476: The Swedish model. They've lost their magic." The Dagens Nyheter postulated that electoral failure was based on internal factors, such that the Social Democrats failed to win over the middle class and had completely lost touch with their original vision, which had made them a dominant political party. The Irish Times saw the rise of the SD as sending "ripples of shock not only through the country but through European politics," and asked "Is this finally it for
18444-707: The Swedish parliament, along with the Swedish television networks, excluded minor parties from the televised political debates. The excluded minor parties included the Sweden Democrats, the June List , the Feminist Initiative , and the Pirate Party . After the election in September 2006, the Alliance slipped well behind the opposition in the polls. A Sifo poll conducted in February 2008 showed
18618-511: The Tidö Agreement clause on deporting non-citizens on grounds of poor character and not just criminal convictions should be used against those who support Hamas . The Sweden Democrats have also called for an expansion of circumstances in which citizenship can be revoked from naturalized citizens, with Åkesson mentioning individuals who commit crimes, abuse state welfare or are unintegrated into society. The Sweden Democrats support raising
18792-697: The actual vote; 1,791,766, the Moderate Party had its strongest election of the unicameral parliamentary era, narrowly missing out on beating the Social Democrats to become the largest party. The Alliance dominated the Stockholm capital region of the municipality and county and made further gains in South Sweden including narrowly flipping Malmö blue as well as winning pluralities in traditionally red towns such as Kalmar , Landskrona and Trelleborg . The Alliance lost its absolute majority in
18966-502: 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
19140-404: The characterization of the SD as radical or extreme far-right has come under dispute in recent years by scholars and political observers. Commentator on political extremism and national security Kateřina Lišaníková observed that the SD had hardline origins through its founders and initial support network, and notes the SD's leadership openly acknowledges its history, but argues the present version of
19314-504: 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
19488-543: The course of three days by Swedish newspaper Expressen (a year earlier, Expressen had released the same videos without making much noise). This came to be known as the Iron pipe scandal , although the same videos had already been released on YouTube by Erik Almqvist in 2010. The videos, recorded by MP Kent Ekeroth , featured him along with fellow Sweden Democrats MP Erik Almqvist and Christian Westling . The videos show Almqvist arguing with comedian Soran Ismail : Almqvist
19662-403: 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
19836-541: 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
20010-415: The economic right-wing. The case of Annika Holmqvist, a seriously ill 55-year-old woman who had her sickness benefits withdrawn and was requested to seek work, allegedly due to the Alliance's reforms of Sweden's social security system, gave the opposition a late boost in its campaign. The Local thinks it might have deprived the Alliance of an overall majority. Holmqvist's daughter wrote about her case in
20184-412: The far-right label, saying that it no longer represents its political beliefs. Among the party's founders and early members were several people that had previously been active in white nationalist and neo-Nazi political parties and organizations. Under the leadership of Jimmie Åkesson since 2005, the SD underwent a process of reform by expelling hardline members and moderating its platform, building on
20358-410: The final say on performing a wedding over the state. The SD also calls for a ban on forced, polygamous or child marriages and stricter enforcement of laws against honour violence. The Sweden Democrats support keeping Sweden's nuclear power plants in order to mitigate climate change but argues that other countries should reduce their greenhouse gas emissions instead of Sweden, which the party believes
20532-545: 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
20706-406: The first safe country that they arrive in. Until such legislation is realized, SD supports setting limits on the right to welfare and making cultural integration mandatory. The party opposes offering permanent residency to asylum seekers, believing that temporary residency should be the standard for those who claim asylum in Sweden. SD supports Sweden eventually accepting refugees exclusively through
20880-459: The first time during the 2010 Swedish general election , polling 5.7% and gaining 20 seats in the Riksdag . This increase in popularity has been compared by international media to other similar anti-immigration movements in Europe. The party received increased support in the 2018 Swedish general election , when it polled 17.5% and secured 62 seats in parliament, becoming the third largest party in Sweden. The Sweden Democrats were formerly isolated in
21054-503: The flaming torch to one featuring an Anemone hepatica , reminiscent of the party's very first, but short-lived, logo (a stylised Myosotis scorpioides ). In the 2010 Swedish general election , SD won representation in the Swedish Riksdag for the first time, with 5.7% of the vote and 20 MPs. In 2010, the SD leadership introduced a charter against racism on the party platform and later expanded this into
21228-465: The generation-long evolution of Euro-American politics towards a fully neoliberalised system" and that Sweden seemed to be "moving towards an outdated model." It also said that, while social policies were similarly moving to the right, economic policies were poles apart, with the emergence of far-right parties in Sweden and Denmark still supporting the welfare state and the American parties remaining on
21402-423: The high immigration figures and the European migrant crisis , the Sweden Democrats soared in all opinion polls during the summer of 2015, even topping web-based polls from YouGov and Sentio in late summer, with a little over a quarter of the vote. The party also saw rising support in phone-based polls, although the swing was lower. In early 2018, the far-right Alternative for Sweden was founded by members of
21576-473: The highest number of voters in 21 out of the county's 33 municipalities. An SVT analysis of the results found that at least 22 seats in 17 city councils would be empty as the Sweden Democrats won more seats than the number of candidates it had. The party also received its first mayor, in Hörby Municipality . Following the election, Christian Democratic leader Ebba Busch announced that her party
21750-514: The immigration policies of the Danish People's Party , which from 2001 to 2011 provided parliamentary support for the former Danish liberal / conservative governments in return for a tightening of Danish immigration policies and stricter naturalisation laws. Following the 2022 Swedish general election , the Sweden Democrats achieved this objective under the Tidö Agreement with the centre-right Moderate, Christian Democrat and Liberal Party coalition government. In exchange for SD parliamentary support,
21924-430: 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
22098-614: 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
22272-484: 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
22446-490: 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
22620-436: The late 1980s and early 1990s for attracting skinhead gangs to its public events. The SD also encountered controversy for some of its early policy ideas before 1999, which included a proposal to repatriate most immigrants who came to Sweden from 1970, banning adoption of foreign born children and reinstating the death penalty. The party promoted concerts by the Swedish offshoot of Rock Against Communism and sponsored music of
22794-497: The leader of the Liberal Party, was promoted to Deputy Prime Minister replacing Maud Olofsson . Carl Bildt remained Foreign Minister and Anders Borg remained Minister for Finance. The new ministers are Stefan Attefall , the Minister for Public Administration and Housing at the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs ; Ulf Kristersson , replacing Cristina Husmark Pehrsson as Minister for Social Security ; Erik Ullenhag ,
22968-540: The merger of Bevara Sverige Svenskt (BSS; in English: "Keep Sweden Swedish") and a faction of the Swedish Progress Party . The SD continued to use Keep Sweden Swedish as its slogan until the late 1990s. The SD claims 6 February 1988 as the date of its foundation and that the party was formally registered after a meeting in Stockholm designed to bring together various nationalist movements who issued
23142-567: The more radical National Democrats which in turn resulted in many of the SD's remaining hardline members leaving for the new party. During the early 2000s, the so-called "Scania gang", also known as the "Gang of Four" or "Fantastic Four," which consisted of the youth wing chairman Jimmie Åkesson , as well as Björn Söder , Mattias Karlsson and Richard Jomshof continued and expanded the moderation policy, which included ousting openly extremist members, banning neo-Nazi activists from attending party events or obtaining membership, and further revising
23316-523: 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
23490-421: 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
23664-669: The nationalist Viking rock band Ultima Thule . Various party officials today acknowledge that being fans of Ultima Thule's music factored prominently in their decision to become politically engaged. Early on, the party recommended international connections to its members such as the National Democratic Party of Germany , the American National Association for the Advancement of White People (founded by David Duke ) and publications like
23838-424: 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
24012-441: 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
24186-524: The opposition leading the Alliance by 19.4%. However, this lead steadily eroded during the second half of the Alliance's term, despite the opposition's uniting in the Red-Green co-operation in December 2008. The Sweden Democrats were expected to enter the Parliament for the first time, as the party's polling results had exceeded the 4% entry threshold since June 2009. The Green Party had also made
24360-402: 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
24534-418: The parliament but continued to govern as a minority government . The new parliament held its opening session on 5 October, with Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt presenting the annual government policy statement , along with changes to his cabinet. This was the first time in almost a century that a Swedish centre-right government that had served a full term was reelected. One of the main campaign themes
24708-512: The party "welcomes those who contribute to our [Sweden's] society, who follow our laws and respect our customs. On the other hand, anyone who comes here and exploits our systems, commits crimes or exposes our citizens to danger is not welcome." When handling asylum seekers, the party supports protecting national sovereignty in regards to Sweden's decisions on migration and border control, as well as "the principle of first safe country", meaning that asylum seekers should only be able to seek asylum in
24882-524: The party also changed its self-description from "nationalist" to "social conservative". Sweden Democrat MP William Petzäll was persuaded to leave the party on 26 September 2011 while still retaining his parliamentary seat. This was done because of Petzäll's substance abuse and the problems this might cause for SD's public image. Petzäll later died of an overdose and his seat was turned over to Stellan Bojerud in September 2012. In November 2012, videos from August 2010 were released, in segments, over
25056-545: The party by the mid-to-late-1990s. The party's first auditor, Gustaf Ekström , was a Waffen-SS veteran and had been a member of the national socialist party Svensk Socialistisk Samling in the 1940s. The SD's first chairman Anders Klarström and deputy board members and party co-founders Fritz Håkansson and Sven Davidson (politician) [ sv ] had all been active in the Nordic Realm Party. Klarström later elaborated he had briefly been part of
25230-409: The party more respectable and, after skinheads started to impose on party meetings, the wearing of any kind of political uniform was formally banned in 1996. Also in 1996, it was revealed that a party member, Tina Hallgren , had been to a party meeting of National Socialist Front posing in a Nazi uniform. Opposition to the party have mistakenly mixed these two events together and falsely claim that she
25404-413: The party received about 10% of the vote, and in the neighbouring province Blekinge , where they received 9.8%. Liberal evening tabloid Expressen wrote in an editorial "The banner of tolerance has been hauled down and the forces of darkness have finally also taken the Swedish democracy as hostage. It's a day of sorrow." Liberal conservative morning newspaper Svenska Dagbladet said "[It is] time for
25578-470: The party was the second largest in "Scania North & East" while being the third largest party in 25. Although relying heavily on rural areas and the deep south, the party also made strong inroads and results above 15% in some medium-sized central Sweden cities such as Norrköping , Eskilstuna and Gävle , indicating a widening of its voter base in all areas. Some time after that, Åkesson announced he would go on sick leave due to burnout . Mattias Karlsson
25752-426: The party's main principles. Nevertheless, the party is often described as being right-wing to far-right . In policy, SD articulates its main focus to be the areas of immigration, law and order and the elderly. The party also attaches particular importance to its economic and family policy. The SD criticizes multiculturalism in Sweden and emphasizes preserving national heritage. It is also opposed to what it sees as
25926-434: The party's policies are fascist or anti-democratic. Sweden-based British journalist Richard Orange noted in 2018 that the SD stands out due to its neo-Nazi roots but in the present is comparably less extreme than other European populist forces and now endorses more inclusive "cultural nationalism" over ethnic homogeny while calling for stricter immigration policies. In 2022, British political scientist Matthew Goodwin described
26100-416: The party, the release of the video caused Almqvist to leave his position as the party's economic policy spokesperson and his place in the executive committee on 14 November. He excused himself as having been under a lot of pressure and threats of violence at the time. As more segments of the video were released, revealing the other two men's involvement, the party announced on 15 November that Ekeroth would take
26274-480: 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
26448-413: 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
26622-444: 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
26796-428: 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
26970-408: The subject in a clause, a trait that is restricted to North Germanic languages: 2010 Swedish general election Fredrik Reinfeldt Moderate Fredrik Reinfeldt Moderate General elections were held in Sweden on 19 September 2010 to elect the 349 members of the Riksdag . The main contenders of the election were the governing centre-right coalition the Alliance , consisting of
27144-466: The then called French National Front, and became active in Le Pen's Euronat from the same time. By the end of the decade, the party took further steps to moderate itself by softening its policies on immigration and capital punishment. In 1999, the SD left Euronat although the youth wing remained affiliated until 2002. In 2001 the most extreme faction was expelled from the party, leading to the formation of
27318-574: The third-largest party. The party remained big in Scania and Blekinge ; for example in Malmö the party received 14% of the votes, in Landskrona it received 19% of the votes and in Sjöbo a total of 30% rendering the party the largest in that municipality. Other parties, however, remained firm in their decision to isolate them from exerting influence. Out of 29 constituencies electing parliamentarians,
27492-534: 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
27666-517: 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
27840-439: 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
28014-530: The written language is uniform and standardized . Swedish is the most widely spoken second language in Finland where its status 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
28188-401: Was a better term for the SD. Swedish sociologist Göran Adamson has also argued some political opposition conflate the SD's national conservative image as being right-wing extremist, and argued the SD today is not comparable to European extreme-right or neo-fascist parties since the SD has a more liberal direction in several areas, and there is no evidence to suggest that the current incarnation of
28362-572: Was acceptable to use. According to Sveriges Radio in 2017, a European research agency classed the party as "extreme" using the Swedish GAL-TAN [ sv ] political scale, arguing that the SD is more traditionalist, socially authoritarian and nationalist and less progressive compared to other Swedish parliamentary parties and described the SD as similar to the French National Rally in some of its policies. However,
28536-505: Was appointed to temporarily take over Åkesson's duties as party leader. On 23 March 2015, it was announced that Åkesson would return from his leave of absence to resume his duties as party leader following an interview to be broadcast on the Friday, 27 March instalment of the Skavlan program on SVT , and a subsequent press conference with the Swedish media. Amid media coverage regarding
28710-484: 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
28884-656: 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
29058-464: Was invited to participate in alternative budget agreement talks with the Christian Democrats and the Moderates for the first time. That same year the SD also issued a vote of no confidence against the Löfven II cabinet citing the government's handling on immigration, the economy and housing which was carried by the other opposition parties and led to Löfven's impeachment. The SD had previously issued
29232-471: Was not a good description for the SD when placed within the traditional left-right scale, since the party contains centre-left and centrist policies on some issues compared to the other centre-right parties in Sweden. Holmberg furthermore argued that while SD can be considered a right-wing populist party, the label "populist" has become unstable due to some of the other parties in the Riksdag adopting populist ideas of their own. He concluded national-conservative
29406-523: 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
29580-555: Was the Economy of Sweden . The Sweden Democrats (SD) stated that it wished to cut political asylum and family reunification immigration by 90 percent. The SD leader Jimmie Åkesson wrote, in an opinion piece for the social-democratic tabloid Aftonbladet that the growth of the country's Muslim population "is the greatest foreign threat to Sweden since the Second World War ." The parties already represented in
29754-771: Was the only Swedish political party to vote against Swedish involvement in the 2011 military intervention in Libya . SD has advocated a "neutral" position on the Syrian civil war and sent a delegation to meet with Syrian officials in 2017. SD also supports the creation of an independent Kurdish state and for the Armenian genocide to be formally recognised by the international community. The party supports closer military cooperation with neighboring Nordic countries and previously opposed Swedish membership of NATO , instead calling for an alignment without full membership. However, following
29928-537: 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
30102-542: Was wearing the uniform at a rally of the Sweden Democrats and that it was because of this that the uniform ban came about. During the early 1990s, the party became more influenced by the French National Rally , as well as the Freedom Party of Austria , the Danish People's Party , German The Republicans and Italian National Alliance . SD received economic support for the 1998 election from
30276-482: Was willing to enter negotiations with the Sweden Democrats in the Riksdag. In December 2019, Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson held an official meeting with the Sweden Democrat leadership for the first time, despite having previously ruled out negotiating with the party. This led to speculation that the SD could be included in a new centre-right grouping to replace the Alliance which had collapsed after
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