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114-708: The Government of the Kingdom of Sweden ( Swedish : Konungariket Sveriges regering ) is the national cabinet of Sweden , and the country's executive authority . The Government consists of the Prime Minister —appointed and dismissed by the Speaker of the Riksdag —and other cabinet ministers ( Swedish : Statsråd ), appointed and dismissed at the sole discretion of the Prime Minister. The Government
228-445: 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
342-477: 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
456-407: A vote of no confidence against any single cabinet minister ( Swedish : statsråd ), thus forcing a resignation. To succeed a vote of no confidence must be supported by an absolute majority (175 members) or it has failed. If a vote of no confidence is cast against the Prime Minister this means the entire government is rejected. A losing government has one week to call for a general election or else
570-430: A bank tax to fund the military spending. When an army based on national service (conscription) was introduced in 1901 all commissioned officers had ranks that were senior of the warrant officers ( underofficerare ) and non-commissioned officers ( underbefäl ). In a reform 1926 the relative rank of the then senior warrant officer, fanjunkare, was increased to be equal with the junior officer rank underlöjtnant and above
684-537: 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 )
798-528: 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
912-747: A group. According to the 2000 United States Census , some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on the degree of language proficiency. Similarly, there were 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Although there are no certain numbers, some 40,000 Swedes are estimated to live in the London area in the United Kingdom. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. In
1026-515: A large part of the officer corps of the Swedish Armed Forces was preoccupied with administrative tasks instead of training soldiers or partaking in international operations. They claimed that Swedish officers were mainly focused on climbing the ranks and thereby increasing their wages and that the main way of doing this is to take more training courses, which decreases the number of officers that are specialized in their field. Therefore,
1140-629: 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
1254-547: A long history, dating back to the sixteenth century, and have played an influential role in the history of Sweden. They reached their height in the seventeenth century, during the time of the Swedish Empire , when they participated in a variety of wars; these include the Scanian War , Second Northern War , and Great Northern War , among others. Since the nineteenth century, they have also played an important role in
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#17327654213171368-425: 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
1482-606: A naval force deployed to the gulf of Aden as a part of Operation Atalanta . Military observers from Sweden have been sent to a large number of countries, including Georgia , Lebanon , Israel and Sri Lanka and Sweden also participates with staff officers to missions in Sudan and Chad . Sweden has been one of the Peacekeeping nations of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission that
1596-652: A new Instrument of Government was introduced, thus creating the present government's predecessor, the Council of State . It acted as the Government of Sweden until 31 December 1974. The Government has a stronger constitutional position than the cabinets in the other Scandinavian monarchies. This is because under the Instrument of Government ( Swedish : Regeringsformen )—one of the Fundamental Laws of
1710-435: 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
1824-550: A one-track career system within a single corps called professional officers ( yrkesofficerare ). The three messes were also merged to one. In 2008 the Riksdag decided to create a two-track career system with a category called specialistofficerare . When implementing the parliamentary resolution the Supreme Commander decided that some ranks in this category should, like the old underofficerare ranks in 1960–1972, have
1938-492: A response to the expanded military cooperation the defence proposition of 2009 stated that Sweden will not remain passive if a Nordic country or a member state of the European Union were attacked. Recent political decisions have strongly emphasized the capability to participate in international operations, to the point where this has become the main short-term goal of training and equipment acquisition. However, after
2052-689: 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
2166-442: 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
2280-827: A total of 387 ships, including 4 submarines (3 Gotland , 1 Södermanland ), 7 corvettes (5 Visby , 2 Gävle ), 9 minesweepers (5 Koster , 4 Styrsö ), 13 larger patrol boats (2 Stockholm and 11 Tapper ) and 9 specialised ships with different support duties. The rest is made up of different smaller vessels such as the CB90 . Currently the Swedish Airforce has a total of 210 aircraft, 94 of those being JAS39C/D Gripen (60 JAS39E on order), 6 C130H Hercules (1 with aerial refueling capabilities), 4 SAAB 340 (2 AEW&C and 2 VIP transport), 4 Gulfstream IV (2 SIGINT and 2 VIP transport) as well as 15 UH-60 Blackhawk , 18 NH90 and 20 AgustaWestland helicopters. The rest
2394-413: 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
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#17327654213172508-492: Is responsible for its actions to the Riksdag . The short-form name Regeringen ("the Government") is used both in the Basic Laws of Sweden and in the vernacular, while the long-form is only used in international treaties. The Government operates as a collegial body with collective responsibility and consists of the Prime Minister —appointed and dismissed by the Speaker of the Riksdag (following an actual vote in
2622-467: Is General Michael Claesson . Before the enactment of the 1974 Instrument of Government , the King of Sweden was the de jure commander in chief ( Swedish : högste befälhavare ). Since then, King Carl XVI Gustaf is still considered to hold the honorary ranks of general and admiral à la suite , but the role is entirely ceremonial. The Swedish Armed Forces consists of three service branches;
2736-676: 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
2850-570: Is acting as the leading state for EU Battlegroups and also has a close cooperation, including joint exercises, with NATO through its membership in Partnership for Peace and Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council . In 2008 a partnership was initiated between the Nordic countries to, among other things, increase the capability of joint action, and this led to the creation of the Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO). As
2964-892: 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
3078-467: Is attacked. On June 29, 2022, Finland and Sweden were formally invited to become members of NATO , and joined respectively in 2023 and 2024. The Swedish Armed Forces have four main tasks: Sweden aims to have the option of remaining neutral in case of proximate war. However, Sweden cooperates militarily with a number of foreign countries. As a member state of the European Union , Sweden
3192-481: 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
3306-445: Is made up of different transport and trainer aircraft. The history of the Swedish Armed Forces dates back to the early sixteenth century, when they were founded by the newly crowned monarch Gustav I Vasa . Since then, they have played an important role in the history of Sweden; they have been engaged in numerous conflicts since their founding. It was in the seventeenth century that the Swedish Armed Forces reached their height, during
3420-538: 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
3534-568: 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
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3648-575: 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 )
3762-871: Is tasked with overseeing the truce in the Korean Demilitarized Zone since the Korean war ended in 1953. Swedish air and ground forces saw combat during the Congo Crisis , as part of the United Nations Operation in the Congo force. 9 army battalions were sent in all, and their mission lasted 1960–1964. A battalion and other units were deployed with the NATO-led peacekeeping SFOR in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1996–2000), following
3876-475: 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
3990-508: Is the high contracting party when entering treaties with foreign sovereign states and international organisations (such as the European Union ), as per 10:1 of the Instrument of Government. In most other parliamentary systems (monarchies and republics alike) this formal function is usually vested in the head of state but exercised by ministers in such name. Chapter 7, Article 7 prescribes that laws and ordinances are promulgated by
4104-655: Is the highest level of command in the Swedish Armed Forces. It is led by the Supreme Commander with a civilian Director General as his deputy, with functional directorates having different responsibilities (e.g. the Military Intelligence and Security Service ). Overall, the Armed Forces Headquarters has about 2,100 employees, including civilian personnel. Some of the schools listed below answer to other units, listed under
4218-527: 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
4332-455: 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
4446-407: 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
4560-631: 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
4674-457: Is then put to a vote in the chamber. Unless an absolute majority of the members (175 members) votes "no", the nomination is confirmed, otherwise it is rejected. The Speaker must then find a new nominee. This means the Riksdag can consent to a Prime Minister without casting any "yes" votes. After being elected the Prime Minister appoints the cabinet ministers and announces them to the Riksdag. Prospective ministers do not have to be sitting members of
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4788-465: 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
4902-483: The 2008 South Ossetia war territorial defence was once again emphasized. Until then most units could not be mobilized within one year. In 2009 the Minister for Defence stated that in the future all of the armed forces must be capable of fully mobilizing within one week. In 2013, after Russian air exercises in close proximity to the Swedish border were widely reported, only six percent of Swedes expressed confidence in
5016-702: The Army , the Air Force and the Navy , with addition of the military reserve force Home Guard . Since 1994, the first three service branches are organized within a single unified government agency, headed by the Supreme Commander , while the Home Guard reports directly to the Supreme Commander. However, the services maintain their separate identities through the use of different uniforms, ranks, and other service specific traditions. The Swedish Armed Forces Headquarters
5130-590: The Bosnian War . NORDBAT 2 has been studied as an example of mission command on a chaotic battlefield with conflicting national orders. Sweden had military forces deployed in Afghanistan with the NATO -led International Security Assistance Force (2002–2014), and the subsequent Resolute Support Mission (2015–2021), which ended when all NATO troops were withdrawn after 20 years of action. In mid-1995, with
5244-563: The Congo Crisis and the military intervention in Libya . The Swedish army has 121 tanks ( Leopard 2/Strv 122 ), roughly 1,540 APCs (Patria XA-360 / 203 / 180 , RG-32 Scout , Bv410 , Bv308/309 )), 450 IFVs ( CV9040 ), 11,300 utility vehicles (ex. Bv206/208 , MB G-Class 6x6 and 4x4 , MB sprinter ), 84 towed and 40 self-propelled mortar ( 12 cm grk m/41 , grkpbv90 ) and 26 self-propelled artillery guns ( Archer ). It also consists of several different specialized vehicles. The Swedish Navy has
5358-467: 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
5472-580: The Middle Ages when the Privy Council of Sweden was formed in the 12th century. It functioned in this capacity until 1789 when King Gustav III had it abolished when the Riksdag passed the Union and Security Act . The old privy council had only had members from the aristocracy . Gustav III instead instituted Rikets allmänna ärendens beredning . It functioned as the Government until 1809 when
5586-723: The Resolute Support Mission and in Kosovo (as part of Kosovo Force ). Moreover, Swedish Armed Forces contribute as the leading state for a European Union Battlegroup approximately once every three years through the Nordic Battlegroup . Prior to 2024 Sweden had close relations with NATO and NATO members, and participates in training exercises like the Admiral Pitka Recon Challenge , and Exercise Trident Juncture 2018 . In 2024,
5700-414: The Riksdag before an appointment can be made)—and other cabinet ministers ( Swedish : Statsråd ), appointed and dismissed at the sole discretion of the Prime Minister. The Government is responsible for its actions to the Riksdag . Following the adoption of the 1974 Instrument of Government on 1 January 1975—the Government in its present constitutional form was constituted—and in consequence thereof
5814-539: The Swedish Monarch is no longer vested any nominal executive powers at all with respect to the governance of the Realm, but continues to serve as a strictly ceremonial head of state . At the same time, the bicameral parliament was changed into a unicameral (Swedish: Riksdag ). The present Government is formed according to the laws set out in the 1974 Instrument of Government . But it traces its history back to
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#17327654213175928-518: The United States , particularly during the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a significant Swedish-speaking immigrant population. This was notably true in states like Minnesota , where many Swedish immigrants settled. By 1940, approximately 6% of Minnesota's population spoke Swedish. Although the use of Swedish has significantly declined, it is not uncommon to find older generations and communities that still retain some use and knowledge of
6042-585: 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,
6156-581: 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
6270-410: 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
6384-541: The ordinance named Förordning (1996:1515) med instruktion för Regeringskansliet . Since the issuance of that ordinance in 1996, all the ministries are technically entities within the Government Offices (headed by the Prime Minister ), rather than as separate organisations even though they operate as such. Below follows a short summary of the current structure. Swedish language Swedish ( endonym : svenska [ˈsvɛ̂nːska] )
6498-399: 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
6612-485: 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
6726-537: The Government (by the Prime Minister or other cabinet minister), and are subsequently published in the Swedish Code of Statutes ( Swedish : Svensk författningssamling ). Following a general election , Speaker of the Riksdag begins to hold talks with the leaders of the parties with representation in the Riksdag , the Speaker then nominates a candidate for Prime Minister ( statsminister ). The nomination
6840-481: The Government, including the Armed Forces , Coast Guard , Customs Service and the police . While the judiciary technically sort under the Government in the fiscal sense, Chapter 11 of the Instrument of Government provides safeguards to ensure its independence. In a unique feature of the Swedish constitutional system, individual cabinet ministers do not bear any individual ministerial responsibility for
6954-471: 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
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#17327654213177068-564: The Realm—the Government is both the de jure and de facto executive authority in Sweden. In Denmark and Norway, the monarch is at least the nominal chief executive, but is bound by convention to act on the advice of the cabinet. However, Chapter 1, Article 6 of the Instrument of Government explicitly states: The Government governs the Realm. It is accountable to the Riksdag The Instrument of Government sets out
7182-408: The Riksdag, but if one accepts a nomination, they would surrender their seat to a substitute member. The new Government takes office at a special council held at the Royal Palace before the monarch , at which the Speaker of the Riksdag formally announces to the monarch that the Riksdag has elected a new Prime Minister and that the Prime Minister has chosen his cabinet ministers. The Riksdag can cast
7296-475: The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the defence forces stated that there is a need for significantly more than the current. By December 2022, it was announced to increase the yearly conscripted to 10,000 by the end of 2035. In addition, figures from 2022 show that 79% of Swedes support in some form, an increase in the number of people who are conscripted. 47% of the respondents said that the majority of 19/20 year-olds should perform conscription. Military personnel of
7410-420: The Swedish Armed Forces consists of: K = Continuously T = Part-time P = Conscript, for personnel drafted under the Swedish law of comprehensive defence duty Annual recruitment of GSS is assumed to be about 4,000 persons. Source: In 2008, professor Mats Alvesson of the University of Lund and Karl Ydén of the University of Göteborg claimed in an op-ed , based on Ydén's doctoral dissertation , that
7524-443: The Swedish Armed Forces were subject to severe downsizing during the interwar years. When World War II started, a large rearmament program was launched to once again guard Swedish neutrality, relying on mass male conscription as a source for personnel. After World War II, Sweden considered building nuclear weapons to deter a Soviet invasion. From 1945 to 1972 the Swedish government ran a clandestine nuclear weapons program under
7638-460: 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,
7752-441: The ability of the nation to defend itself. The Supreme Commander ( Swedish : Överbefälhavaren , ÖB) is a four-star general or flag officer who is the agency head of the Swedish Armed Forces and the highest ranking professional officer on active duty. The Supreme Commander reports, normally through the Minister of Defence , to the Government of Sweden , which in turn answers to the Riksdag . The current supreme commander
7866-449: 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
7980-448: The armed forces were downsized, with conscription taking in fewer and fewer recruits until it was deactivated in 2010. This small size is often considered one of the major strategic weaknesses of the Swedish Armed Forces. The Russo-Georgian War of 2008 and the events in Ukraine in 2014 gradually shifted Swedish debate back in favour of increased defence spending, as concerns grew over Russia's military buildup and intentions. Conscription
8094-412: The authors claimed, the Swedish Armed Forces were poorly prepared for their mission. Major changes have been made to the officer system since then. The transformation of the old invasion defence-oriented armed forces to the new smaller and more mobile force has also been criticized. According to the Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces the present defence budget will not be enough to implement
8208-504: 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
8322-458: The country formally became a member of NATO. Sweden also has a strong cooperation with its closest allies of the Nordic countries being part of the Nordic Defence Cooperation and joint exercises such as Exercise Northern Wind. Sweden has not participated in an officially declared war since the 1814 Swedish–Norwegian War , although its forces, under the UN flag, have been involved in conflicts like
8436-403: 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
8550-541: 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
8664-545: 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
8778-505: The guise of civilian defence research at the Swedish National Defence Research Institute . By the late 1950s, the work had reached the point where underground testing was feasible. However, at that time the Riksdag prohibited research and development of nuclear weapons, pledging that research should be done only for the purpose of defence against nuclear attack. The option to continue development
8892-430: 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
9006-614: 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
9120-484: 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
9234-490: 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
9348-583: The main responsibilities and duties of the Government (including the Prime Minister's and other cabinet ministers') and how it relates to other organs of the State. The Chancellor of Justice and other State administrative authorities come under the Government, unless they are authorities under the Riksdag according to the present Instrument of Government or by virtue of other law. Most state administrative authorities ( statliga förvaltningsmyndigheter ), as opposed to local authorities ( kommuner ), sorts under
9462-599: The maintenance of Swedish neutrality , especially during the Cold War . The Swedish Armed Forces are made up of 25,600 active personnel, 11,800 military reserves, 22,200 Home Guard and 6,300 additional conscripts yearly into the Reserves (set to increase to 8,000 conscripts yearly by 2024) as of 2023. Units of the Swedish Armed Forces are currently on deployment in several international operations either actively or as military observers , including Afghanistan as part of
9576-438: The most junior officer rank fänrik . In 1960 the relative rank of the warrant officers were elevated further so that In 1972 the personnel structure changed, reflecting increased responsibilities of warrant and non-commissioned officers, renaming the underofficerare as kompaniofficerare , giving them the same ranks as company grade officers ( fänrik , löjtnant , kapten ). Underbefäl was renamed plutonsofficerare and given
9690-460: The name was changed to the Government Offices ( Swedish : Regeringskansliet ) on 1 January 1975 with the current Instrument of Government entering into effect. The Instrument of Government briefly mentions in Chapter 7, Article 1 that there is a staff organization supporting the Government known as the Government Offices. The present organizational charter for the Government Offices is found in
9804-523: 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
9918-479: The national service system based on universal military training, the Swedish Army consisted of 15 maneuver brigades and, in addition, 100 battalions of various sorts (artillery, engineers, rangers, air defence, amphibious, security, surveillance etc.) with a mobilization-time of between one and two days. When national service was replaced by a selective service system, fewer and fewer young men were drafted due to
10032-421: 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
10146-467: The new defence structure by 2019. And that even when finished the armed forces will only be able to fight for a week at most. During 2013 several Russian Air Force exercises over the Baltic Sea aimed at Swedish military targets have made the future of the Swedish Armed Forces a hot topic and several political parties now want to increase defence funding. In August 2019, the government announced
10260-424: 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
10374-441: 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
10488-402: 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
10602-454: The performance of the agencies within their portfolio; as the director-generals and other heads of government agencies report directly to the Government as a whole, the ministers also cannot intervene in matters that are to be handled by the specific government agencies, unless otherwise provided for in law; thus the origin of the pejorative, in Swedish political parlance, ministerstyre (English: "ministerial rule"). The Government of Sweden
10716-500: The procedure of nominating a new Prime Minister starts anew. Each appointment of a new Prime Minister is considered to result in a new cabinet, irrespective if the Prime Minister is reappointed or not. However, there is no automatic resignation following a defeat in a general election , so an election does not always result in a new cabinet. Previously known as the Royal Chancery ( Swedish : Kunglig Majestäts kansli ),
10830-443: The rank titles of sergeant and fanjunkare , although their relative rank were now placed below fänrik . The commissioned officers were renamed regementsofficerare , beginning with löjtnant . The three-track career system was maintained, as well as three separate messes. A major change in the personnel structure in 1983 (NBO 1983), merged the three professional corps of platoon officers, company officers, and regimental officers into
10944-538: The reduction in size of the armed forces. By 2010 the Swedish Army had two battalions that could be mobilized within 90 days. When the volunteer system had been fully implemented by 2019, the army consisted of 7 maneuver battalions and 14 battalions of various sorts with a readiness of one week. The Home Guard was reduced in size to 22,000 soldiers. In 2019 the Swedish Armed Forces, now with a restored national service system combined with volunteer forces, aimed to reach 3 brigades as maneuver units by 2025. After having ended
11058-480: 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
11172-468: The rune for the vowel u , which was also used for the vowels o , ø and y , and the rune for i , also used for e . From 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark, creating a series of minor dialectal boundaries, or isoglosses , ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland , Österbotten and northwestern Finland in
11286-444: 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
11400-428: 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
11514-721: The subject in a clause, a trait that is restricted to North Germanic languages: Swedish Armed Forces The Swedish Armed Forces (Swedish: Försvarsmakten , literally Defence Force ) is the armed forces of the Kingdom of Sweden . It consists of four separate military branches, the Swedish Army , the Swedish Navy , the Swedish Air Force and the Home Guard . The Swedish Armed Forces have
11628-551: The time of the Swedish Empire. During this time, they were among the leaders in military innovation, and engaged in many wars; among the Swedish wars of the seventeenth century were the Thirty Years' War , Second Northern War , Scanian War and Great Northern War . The military of the Swedish Empire was one of the most important institutions in the empire. After a period of enhanced readiness during World War I ,
11742-534: 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
11856-517: 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
11970-468: The universal male conscription system in 2010, as well as deactivating conscription in peacetime, the conscription system was re-activated in 2017. Since 2018 both women and men are conscripted on equal terms. The motivation behind reactivating conscription was the need for personnel, as volunteer numbers proved to be insufficient to maintain the armed forces. The Swedish defence forces are currently educating 5,000-6,000 conscripts per year. However, after
12084-682: The various branches of the Armed Forces: The Nordic Battlegroup is a cooperative formation of the Swedish Armed Forces alongside mainly the other Nordic countries but also some of the Baltic countries as well as Ireland , tasked as one of the EU Battlegroups . The headquarter garrison for this group is currently situated in Enköping , Sweden . Sweden is part of the multinational Kosovo Force and has
12198-439: 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
12312-584: 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
12426-670: Was abandoned in 1966, and Sweden subsequently signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968; the program was finally concluded in 1972. During the Cold War , the wartime mass conscription system was kept in place to act as a deterrent to the Soviet Union , seen as the greatest military threat to Sweden. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that the perceived threat lessened and
12540-484: 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
12654-656: 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
12768-523: 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
12882-546: Was reintroduced in 2017 to supplement the insufficient number of volunteers signing up for service. Unlike in the past, the current conscription system applies to both men and women. Following the United Kingdom leaving the European Union in 2020, the EU's mutual defence clause ( Lisbon Treaty Article 42.7) ceased to apply to the UK. In 2022, Sweden and the UK signed a mutual security deal, re-pledging support if either state
12996-537: 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
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