Standard Swedish - History

History

Standard Swedish evolved from the high prestige dialects of the Mälaren Valley region around Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.

In Sweden the concept of a unified standard language based on a high prestige dialect spoken in the capital region was primarily understood in terms of the written language as exemplified with the Swedification of the Danish and Norwegian provinces that were acquired in the 17th century. The people were taught Swedish hymns and prayers, but with a phonology that remained largely Danish or Norwegian.

During the latter half of the 19th century, the use of a standardized written language increased with each new innovation of communication and transportation. It was however not until the 1960s, when the major demographic situation of Sweden had changed from a quite rural and agrarian society to the highly urbanized society it is today, that the spoken varieties closed up towards unified dialects whose vocabulary and grammatical rules adhered to that of the (written) Standard Swedish. The different phonologies, particularly the different realizations of the tonal word accents, have however proved to be more variable.

With respect to other aspects of the spoken language, there are developments towards a unification that however is not always the effect of standardization or centripetal influence. For instance, realization of fricatives in the Central Swedish Standard has undergone a change in recent decades moving in the direction of the Southern Standard rather than that of northern Sweden and Finland.