Standard Swedish
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Standard Swedish (standardsvenska, rikssvenska or högsvenska) denotes Swedish as a spoken and written standard language in Sweden and Finland. While Swedish as a written language is uniform and standardized, acquiring proficiency in Swedish is somewhat complicated by the existence of at least three prestige dialects, in the meaning that the speakers of their respective speech communities do not usually consider other varieties of spoken Swedish to be more prestigious.
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Rikssvenska and Högsvenska
In Swedish the terms rikssvenska and högsvenska may apply, but both terms are ambiguous. The direct translation of "Standard Swedish", standardsvenska, is not much used, and then primarily in scholarly contexts.
Rikssvenska has come to denominate all Swedish as spoken in Sweden opposite to the Finland-Swedish spoken in Finland, although for speakers in Sweden this term is often, maybe primarily, indicating "un-dialectal" (spoken) Swedish. There is however no common agreement on how such a rikssvenska should sound. What appears as rikssvenska for one Swede may appear dialectal for another. (Etymologically, "riks-" is a cognate of the German Reich.)
The meaning of högsvenska (literally "High Swedish") was formerly the same as for rikssvenska, i.e. the most prestigeous dialect spoken in (the capital of) Sweden. During the 20th century its meaning changed to denominate the prestige dialect of the Swedish speakers in Helsinki.
Until the late 19th/early 20th century, Swedish was the primary language of status, government, and education in Finland, however spoken as a mothertounge by a relatively small minority of the Finns. Since the 1970s, both domestic languages have been mandatory topics for all Finnish pupils in primary and secondary schools, although since 2004, the requirement to include Swedish in the upper-secondary final examination has been lifted.
Varieties of Standard Swedish versus dialects
Some Swedish speakers, including leading dialectologists, reserve the term Swedish dialect for what they consider genuine rural dialects uncompromised by influence from the standard language. Among Swedish speakers in general, however, even other prestige dialects than their own would typically be considered as "dialects" aswell as all intermediary forms.
Although the Swedish phonology in principle is uniform, its phonetic realizations are not. Contrary to the situation with German, Danish, or Finnish there can't be said to exist any all-encompassing spoken Standard Swedish. Instead there are (at least) three "regional standard varieties" (acrolects or prestige dialects), i.e. the most intelligible or prestigious forms of spoken Swedish, each within their area. No commonly accepted terms exist, not even in Swedish, but in this article they will be designated as (in order of significance):
- Central Swedish Standard (5-7 million speakers)
- South Swedish Standard (2-4 million)
- Finland Swedish Standard (300 000)
These standard varieties are primarily used for communication with people from distant towns and regions aswell as in more formal contexts such as public speeches, artists' performances, and in broadcast media. They are signified by differences in prosody aswell as phonetics.
A Westcoast variety, centered in Gothenburg, has a prosody that is close to that of Southern Swedish and may be considered a separate standard variety, then refered to as Western Swedish Standard with 2 million speakers. Although the more genuine dialects of the area are closer related to the genuine dialects of Southern Sweden, the prestige dialect is not, and its speakers are usually considered to speak the Central Swedish Standard variety. The boundary of the area goes in the South through Northern Halland, Northwestern Småland and follows Lake Vättern in the East. Its northern boundary goes through Värmland.
The boundary for the South Swedish Standard goes, unless the Westcoast variety is included, through Northern Halland and Northern Småland approximately at the latitude of Jönköping at the southern tip of Lake Vättern across the Scandinavian Peninsula.
Official status
The Swedish language as such has official status only in Finland (including the autonomous region of Åland), and unlike for instance French no officially sanctioned standard actually exists, although the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland (http://www.kotus.fi/inenglish/) also has the purpose of "language planning" and dictionary compilation.
In Sweden, the Swedish Language Council is similarly funded by the Swedish government and may be said to have a semi-official status as a regulatory body being a join effort that includes the Swedish Academy, Swedish Radio, Swedish Broadcasting Corporation and several other organizations representing journalists, teachers, actors, writers and translators. The recommendations of these bodies are not legally binding, though they are generally respected.
It may be argued that singing and acting instructors at the teater academies in Stockholm, Malmö, Gothenburg, and Luleå all teach the Central Swedish Standard; although on scenes outside of Stockholm–Uppsala, adherance to this standard may appear less strict. The teater academy of Finland teaches in Finnish and Finland-Swedish.
History
Standard Swedish evolved from the high prestige dialects of the Mälaren Valley region around Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.
The creation of the (semi-) autonomous Russian Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809/1812 led to drastically decreased communication between Sweden and Finland, where virtually all administration and higher education would continue to be executed in Swedish until the end of the 19th century, when Finnish was given first an equal status with that of Swedish, and soon a strong dominance due to the small size of the diminishing Swedish speaking minority. The reaction was a strong urge among the Finland-Swedes to retain the connection with Sweden and Swedish as it developed there, which was why högsvenska in the first half of the 20th century primarily meant Swedish as spoken by educated people in Sweden. This would however change, maybe under impression of the feeling of "separateness" caused by numerous events culminating in the disappointment over Sweden's failure to live up to expectations of solidary help against the Soviet Union during the Winter War. In effect, Högsvenska came to be understood as the prestige dialect of Finland-Swedish. In the second half of the 20th century, tensions between center and periphery in Finland made the concept of a spoken standard variety less popular, and the spoken Swedish in Ostrobothnia again oriented towards Sweden, particularly when switching to more elevated registers, resulting in a relation between Standard Swedish as spoken in Southern versus Eastern Finland that by and large echoed the relation between Standard Swedish as spoken in Central versus Southern 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 was 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. I 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 whos vocabulary and grammatic 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 viable.
Also with respect to other aspects of the Swedish phonology, there are developments towards a unification, that however not always is the effect of standardization or centripetal influence. So has for instance realization of fricatives in the Central Swedish Standard undergone a change in recent decades moving in direction of the Southern Standard rather than that of Northern Sweden and Finland.
See also
External links
- The official website of the Swedish Language Council (http://www.spraknamnden.se/) (mostly in Swedish with some sections in English, Finnish, French and German)
References
- Bolander, Maria Funktionell svensk grammatik (Liber AB, Falköping 2002) ISBN 91-47-05054-3
- Engstrand, Olle Fonetikens grunder (Studenlitteratur, Lund 2004) ISBN 91-44-04238-8
- Definition of the goals of the Swedish Language Council (in English) (http://www.spraknamnden.se/andrasprak/english.htm)
