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95-469: The Volvo Group ( Swedish : Volvokoncernen ; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo , shortened to AB Volvo , stylized as VOLVO ) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg . While its core activity is the production, distribution and sale of trucks, buses and construction equipment, Volvo also supplies marine and industrial drive systems and financial services. In 2016, it
190-533: A Volvo ÖV 4 , rolled off the production line at the factory in Hisingen , Gothenburg. Only 280 cars were built that year. The first truck, the "Series 1", debuted in January 1928, as an immediate success and attracted attention outside the country. In 1930, Volvo sold 639 cars, and the export of trucks to Europe started soon after; the cars did not become well known outside Sweden until after World War II . AB Volvo
285-445: 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
380-477: 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
475-656: A 15.8%). In December 2013, Volvo sold its Volvo Construction Equipment Rents division to Platinum Equity . In November 2016, Volvo announced its intention of divesting its Government Sales division, made up mainly of Renault Trucks' Renault Trucks Defense but also of Panhard , ACMAT , Mack Defense in the United States, and Volvo Defense. The project for selling the division was later abandoned and, in May 2018, Volvo reorganized Renault Trucks Defense and renamed it Arquus. In December 2018, Volvo announced it intended to sell
570-699: A 1994 Volvo-Renault merger deal was announced. The deal was barely accepted in France, but it was opposed in Sweden, and the Volvo shareholders and company board voted against it. The alliance was officially dissolved in February 1994 and Volvo sold off its minority Renault stake in 1997. In the 1990s, Volvo also divested from most of its activities outside vehicles and engines. In 1991, the Volvo Group participated in
665-454: A 75.1% controlling stake of its car telematics subsidiary WirelessCar to Volkswagen with the aim of focusing on telematics for commercial vehicles. The sale was completed in March 2019. In December 2019, Volvo and Isuzu announced their intention of forming a strategic alliance on commercial vehicles. As part of the agreement, Volvo would sell UD Trucks to Isuzu. The "final agreements" for
760-455: A Swedish car. They intended to build cars that could withstand the rigours of the country's rough roads and cold temperatures. AB Volvo began activities on 10 August 1926. After one year of preparations involving the production of ten prototypes, the firm was ready to commence the car-manufacturing business within the SKF group. The Volvo Group itself considers it started in 1927, when the first car,
855-537: 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 )
950-528: 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
1045-747: 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
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#17327800545671140-486: A joint venture between the two companies. In March 2021, the fuel cell business was reorganised as a joint venture called Cellcentric. In December 2021, Volvo, Daimler Truck, and Traton agreed to the formation of an equally owned joint venture aimed to build an electric vehicle charging network for heavy vehicles in Europe. In December 2022, the joint venture (called Commercial Vehicle Charging Europe) began operations under
1235-741: A joint venture with Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors at the former DAF plant in Born , Netherlands. The operation, branded NedCar , began producing the first generation Mitsubishi Carisma alongside the Volvo S40/V40 in 1996. During the 1990s, Volvo also partnered with the American manufacturer General Motors . In 1999, the European Union blocked a merger with Scania AB . In January 1999, Volvo Group sold Volvo Car Corporation to Ford Motor Company for $ 6.45 billion. The division
1330-629: 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
1425-662: A major shareholder. Volvo Group took complete ownership of Nissan Diesel in 2007 to extend its presence in the Asian Pacific market. Renault sold 14.9% of their stake in AB Volvo in October 2010 (comprising 14.9% of the share capital and 3.8% of the voting rights) for €3.02 billion. This share sale left Renault with around 17.5% of Volvo's voting rights. Renault sold their remaining shares in December 2012 (comprising 6.5% of
1520-425: 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
1615-435: 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
1710-636: 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
1805-442: 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
1900-456: A trademark in May 1911, with the intention to be used for a new series of SKF ball bearings . It means "I roll" in Latin , conjugated from "volvere". The idea was short-lived, and SKF decided to simply use its initials as the trademark for all its bearing products. In 1924, Assar Gabrielsson , an SKF sales manager, and Gustav Larson , a KTH educated engineer, decided to start construction of
1995-413: 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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#17327800545672090-676: 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
2185-892: 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
2280-481: 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
2375-538: 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
2470-568: 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
2565-575: 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 )
2660-475: 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
2755-464: 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
2850-455: 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
2945-407: 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
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3040-580: 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
3135-465: 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
3230-467: 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
3325-518: 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
3420-585: 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,
3515-606: The Wallenberg family group of companies. The merger meant that Saab no longer had to import the British Triumph Slant-4 engine , and could instead use the engine production facilities of Scania. In 1972 they started manufacturing the 2.0 L B version . In 1977, Saab took advantage of Scania's experience with turbochargers and added one to the engine, thus creating one of the earliest turbocharged automobile engines to be produced in large numbers. When
3610-581: 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
3705-410: 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
3800-549: The trade name Milence. In April 2021, Volvo announced that it had signed up a new partnership with steel manufacturer SSAB to develop fossil fuel-free steel for future use in Volvo's vehicles. The partnership is derived from SSAB's own green steel venture, HYBRIT. In November 2023, Volvo acquired Proterra 's battery business for US$ 210 million. Volvo has announced that it is developing trucks with combustion engines that run on hydrogen. Commercial tests will begin in early 2026. Volvo Group's operations include: According to
3895-494: The "Epic Split", Volvo Trucks aimed to demonstrate the durability of one of their trucks by handing over the controls to a four-year-old girl named Sophie. Conceptualized by the Swedish agency Forsman and Bodenfors, the widely shared video clip features Sophie using a remote control to navigate the truck through various obstacles, showcasing the vehicle's robustness and precision. Swedish language Swedish ( endonym : svenska [ˈsvɛ̂nːska] )
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3990-399: 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
4085-750: The 1970s onwards, Volvo set up various facilities ( Bengtsfors , Lindesberg , Vara , Tanumshede , Färgelanda , Borås ), most of them within a 150 kilometer radius of Gothenburg, and gradually acquired the Dutch DAF car plants. It also established its first South American plant in Curitiba , Brazil. From the mid-1970s onwards, Volvo began building assembly plants with smaller assembly lines, more worker-centric and with better use of automation, leaving Fordism . These were Kalmar (car assembly, built in 1974), Tuve (truck assembly, 1982) and Uddevalla (car assembly, 1989). Kalmar and Uddevalla were closed down in
4180-401: The 1990s, Volvo also increased its construction equipment assets by acquiring the Swedish company Åkerman and the construction equipment division of Samsung Heavy Industries . In 1998, the company opened an assembly facility for its three main heavy product lines (trucks, construction equipment, and buses) near Bangalore , India. Volvo sold all its car manufacturing assets in 1999. Following
4275-485: 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
4370-670: The Hisingen island, was owned by SKF until it was made part of the Volvo company in 1930. That year, Volvo acquired its supplier of engines in Skövde (Pentavarken). In 1942, Volvo acquired its supplier of transmissions, Köpings Mekaniska Verkstad, located in the town of Köping . In 1954, Volvo built a new truck assembly plant in Gothenburg and, in 1959– 1964, a car assembly plant in Torslanda . The first truly branched away plant of Volvo
4465-471: 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
4560-601: 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,
4655-572: The University of Gothenburg , Mälardalen University College , and the University of Skövde . In November 2013, Volvo Trucks enlisted Jean-Claude Van Damme to perform a split between two moving trucks in reverse. The goal of this campaign, titled "Epic Split," was to demonstrate the stability and precision of their "Dynamic Steering" model. In just three weeks, the video went viral, garnering over 61 million views on YouTube . Two years after
4750-544: The Volvo trademarks. The main business is also to act against unauthorised registration and use (including counterfeiting ) of trademarks identical or similar to the Volvo trademarks on a global basis. Volvo has a strategic collaboration within research and recruitment with a number of selected colleges and universities, such as Penn State University , INSA Lyon , EMLYON Business School , NC State University , Sophia University , Chalmers University of Technology , The Gothenburg School of Business, Economics and Law at
4845-535: The acquisition of Renault Véhicules Industriels and Nissan Diesel in the 2000s, Volvo gained various production facilities in Europe, North America, and Asia. In 2014, Volvo's Volvo Construction Equipment acquired the haul truck manufacturing division of Terex Corporation , which included five truck models and a manufacturing facility in Motherwell , Scotland. Volvo Trademark Holding AB is equally owned by AB Volvo and Volvo Car Corporation. The main activity of
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#17327800545674940-502: 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
5035-457: The alliance were signed in October 2020, with UD Trucks sale pending on regulatory clearances. The sale was completed in April 2021. In the early 2020s, Volvo partnered with other manufacturers to deploy infrastructure for non- hydrocarbon energies. In April 2020, Volvo and Daimler (later Daimler Truck ) announced that the former planned to acquire half of Daimler's fuel cell business, forming
5130-614: The automotive company Geely Holding Group . Both AB Volvo and Volvo Cars share the Volvo logo and cooperate in running the Volvo Museum in Gothenburg, Sweden. The corporation was first listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1935, and was on the NASDAQ indices from 1985 to 2007. Volvo is one of Sweden's largest companies by market capitalisation and revenue. The brand name Volvo was originally registered as
5225-504: 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
5320-400: The company is to own, maintain, protect and preserve the Volvo trademarks, including Volvo , the Volvo branding symbols (grille slash and iron mark), Volvo Penta , on behalf of its owners and to license these rights to its owners. The day-to-day work is focused upon maintaining the global portfolio of trademark registrations, and to extend sufficiently the scope of the registered protection for
5415-517: The company, in 2021 almost two thirds (62%) of its revenue came from trucks and services related to them. Second came construction equipment (25%), and the rest was from buses, marine engines, and minor operations, each of them below 5%. Volvo has various production facilities. As of 2022, it has plants in 19 countries, with 10 other countries having independent assemblers of Volvo products. The company also has product development, distribution, and logistics centers. Its first plant for vehicle assembly, on
5510-403: 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
5605-541: 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
5700-645: The early 1990s, following yearly losses. The Tuve plant (called the LB plant) replaced the Gothenburg plant (X plant) for truck assembly through the 1980s, as the former could produce more technologically complex models. In 1982, Volvo gained its first plant in the United States, the New River Valley plant in Dublin , Virginia, after acquiring the assets of the White Motor Corporation. Starting in
5795-545: 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
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#17327800545675890-430: 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
5985-614: 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
6080-484: 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
6175-490: 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
6270-485: The late 1980s, Volvo expanded its limited bus production capabilities through acquisitions in various countries (Swedish Saffle Karroseri, Danish Aabenraa, German Drögmöller Karroserien, Canadian Prévost Car, Finnish Carrus, American Nova Bus, Mexican Mexicana de Autobuses). In the late 1990s, after a short-lived joint venture with Polish manufacturer Jelcz , Volvo built its main bus production hub for Europe in Wroclaw . In
6365-495: The latter company rejected it. Between 1978 and 1981, Volvo acquired Beijerinvest , a trading company involved in the oil, food, and finance businesses. In 1981, those sectors represented about three quarters of Volvo's revenue, while the automotive sector amounted for most of the rest. In 1982, the company completed the acquisition of White Motor Corporation 's assets. In the early 1970s, French manufacturer Renault and Volvo started to collaborate. In 1978, Volvo Car Corporation
6460-525: 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
6555-421: 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
6650-424: 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
6745-441: 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
6840-402: 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
6935-480: 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
7030-468: 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
7125-595: The share capital and 17.2% of the voting rights at the time of transaction) for €1.6 billion, leaving Swedish industrial investment group Aktiebolaget Industrivärden as the largest shareholder, with 6.2% of the share capital and 18.7% of the voting rights. That same year, Volvo sold Volvo Aero to the British company GKN . In 2017 Volvo Cars owner Geely became the largest Volvo shareholder by number of shares after acquiring an 8.2% stake, displacing Industrivärden. Industrivärden kept more voting rights than Geely (Geely getting
7220-444: 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
7315-428: 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
7410-425: The subject in a clause, a trait that is restricted to North Germanic languages: Saab-Scania Saab-Scania AB was a Swedish vehicle manufacturer that was formed from the 1969 merger of Saab AB and Scania-Vabis . The company was split in 1995. Truck and bus manufacturer Scania AB of Södertälje merged with car and aeroplane manufacturer Saab AB of Trollhättan on 1 September 1969, under
7505-534: 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
7600-517: 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
7695-439: 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
7790-584: 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
7885-484: 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
7980-656: 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
8075-413: Was introduced at the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1935 and SKF then decided to sell its shares in the company. By 1942, Volvo acquired the Swedish precision engineering company Svenska Flygmotor (later renamed as Volvo Aero). Pentaverken, which had manufactured engines for Volvo, was acquired in 1935, providing a secure supply of engines and entry into the marine engine market. The first bus, named B1,
8170-662: Was launched in 1934, and aircraft engines were added to the growing range of products at the beginning of the 1940s. Volvo was also responsible for producing the Stridsvagn m/42 . In 1963, Volvo opened the Volvo Halifax Assembly plant, the first assembly plant in the company's history outside of Sweden in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada . In 1950, Volvo acquired the Swedish construction and agricultural equipment manufacturer Bolinder-Munktell . Bolinder-Munktell
8265-523: 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
8360-572: Was placed within Ford's Premier Automotive Group alongside Jaguar , Land Rover and Aston Martin . Volvo engineering resources and components would be used in various Ford, Land Rover and Aston Martin products, with the second generation Land Rover Freelander designed on the same platform as the second generation Volvo S80. The Volvo T5 petrol engine was used in the Ford Focus ST and RS performance models, and Volvo's satellite navigation system
8455-557: Was renamed as Volvo BM in 1973. In 1979, Volvo BM's agricultural equipment business was sold to Valmet . Later, through restructuring and acquisitions, the remaining construction equipment business became Volvo Construction Equipment . In the 1970s, Volvo started to move away from car manufacturing to concentrate more on heavy commercial vehicles. The car division focused on models aimed at upper middle-class customers to improve its profitability. In 1977, Volvo tried to combine operations with rival Swedish automotive group Saab-Scania , but
8550-575: Was sold to Volvo during January 2001, and Volvo renamed it Renault Trucks in 2002. Renault became AB Volvo's biggest shareholder, with a 19.9% stake (in shares and voting rights) as part of the deal. Renault increased its shareholding to 21.7% by 2010. AB Volvo acquired 13% of the shares in the Japanese truck manufacturer Nissan Diesel (later renamed UD Trucks) from Nissan (part of the Renault-Nissan Alliance ) during 2006, becoming
8645-502: Was spun off as a separate company within the Volvo group and Renault acquired a minority stake, before selling it back in the 1980s after a restructuring. In the 1990s, Renault and Volvo deepened their collaboration and both companies partnered in purchasing, research and development and quality control while increasing their cross-ownership. Renault would assist Volvo with entry-level and medium segment vehicles and in return, Volvo would share technology with Renault in upper segments. In 1993,
8740-530: Was the Floby gearbox plant (100 kilometers to the northeast of Gothenburg), incorporated in 1958. In the 1960s and early 1970s, Volvo and its assembly partners opened plants in Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, and Australia. In the early part of that period Volvo also started to venture into vehicles other than passenger cars and road-going commercial vehicles by acquiring the Eskilstuna plant (Bolinder-Munktell). From
8835-537: 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
8930-509: Was the world's second-largest manufacturer of heavy-duty trucks with its subsidiary Volvo Trucks . Volvo was founded in 1927. Initially involved in the automobile industry, Volvo expanded into other manufacturing sectors throughout the twentieth century. Automobile manufacturer Volvo Cars , also based in Gothenburg, was part of AB Volvo until 1999, when it was sold to the Ford Motor Company . Since 2010 Volvo Cars has been owned by
9025-612: Was used on certain Aston Martin Vanquish, DB9 and V8 Vantage models. In November 1999, Volvo Group purchased a 5% stake in Mitsubishi Motors, as part of a partnership deal for the truck and bus business. In 2001, after DaimlerChrysler bought a large Mitsubishi Motors stake, Volvo sold its shares to the former. Renault Véhicules Industriels (which included Mack Trucks , but not Renault's stake in Irisbus )
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