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Hallo everybody. Please notice that the English example on the description of short "a" ('"u" in "put"') is clearly wrong, especially since the SAME example is used three lines after for the description of short "o"!

I guess that the English word "what" could be a closer example of a Swedish short "a", but I don't dare to correct the article myself as I don't actually speak swedish. Could someone more skilled than me please have look into it? Regards. Cingar 17:52 Jan 31, 2004 (UTC)

I can understand the reasoning behind disambiguating from "Swedish language" to "Swedish (language)", but I'm not sure that I would venture to undertake such a disambiguation by myself. I recognize a primary value in maintaining a systematic implementation of article names and any change also implies the same for every language articles, including disambiguation of their links. This is truly a gargantuan task. I'm not necessarily opposed to it as such, but any change that is not fully implemented would just lead to confusion. If it is to be implemented, I would like to see it that it is followed through completely. -- Mic 07:26 May 9, 2003 (UTC)

Process in progress. I'm sorry if I'm not as fast as you are. I've recently had some minor problems with the urge to do other changes at the same time (trying hard to resist! :-), and also with the urge to make use of the nice weather out-doors. :-)) -- Ruhrjung 07:54 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

Martin, regarding the written standard of South-Scandinavian Swedish (language), you changed ]s are typically ] according to (real) ] to ...]. I think it's a rather tricky case. You don't write Det snälla/snälle barnet regardless of if you know the sex or not. You don't even see Det snälle gossebarnet, but Den snälle gossen vs. Den snälla flickan. My impression is that this is a distinction between sex and gender, but of course I might be wrong. A child called barn is probably thought of as gender-less (but never sex-less). Also the gossebarn is seemingly gender-less, but the gosse isn't. This is also what my native Swedish friends seem to believe, although it's of course of limited value what native laymen say regarding their mother tongue. It would be stupid to ask me about German grammar!

You seem to understand this differently. Do you follow any published authority?

best regards!
-- Ruhrjung 06:13 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I was just trying to fix links to gender, which is a disambiguation page - I assumed that "real gender" meant sex in this case, rather than gender role, gender identity, or grammatical gender. Sounds like I mucked it up - could you fix it to point to the correct page? Martin

My problem is that I'm a student of Swedish, not a native speaker. I consider this peculiarity being one (of several) areas which I don't really understand. It would be ridiculous if I tried to correct others' corrections. This is of course further complicated by me being not a native speaker of English, why I am somewhat insecure regarding the precise distinctions about "gender" and "sex" in English.
-- Ruhrjung 06:10, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Righto. We'll have to wait for someone else to get here then :) Martin 13:40, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

-- I think that Jämska is presumably the variety of Swedish spoken in Jämtland - the area around Östersund. I have never heard of Jemtia - but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist as a word. David Martland 13:46, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

-- Interestingly, this page http://www.ima.mdh.se/personal/lln/jamtamot/dokument/jubileumsskrift1985/js1985_nr07_jamska.html suggests that the correct form for the name of the language used in Jämtland is in fact jamska - so I stand corrected. I will try to work out how to do the correction back in the main text.

-- Concerning Jamska or Jämska or whatever (there is no standardized spelling, but the Jamts often seem to prefer "jamska", since the 'ä' is a Swedish letter). Jamska is not the Swedish spoken in Jämtland (to say the area around Östersund is a bit of a stretch, the area is of the same size as Switzerland), linguistically it's correctly classified as a West-Scandinavian language, whereas Swedish is on the Eastern branch. The only reason it is often called a Swedish dialect is a political one; Jämtland happens to belong to Sweden nowadays. "Iemtia" is a Latin spelling of the province name, and one form of it can be seen on the Carta Marina, a Swedish map from 1539 ("Iempihia"). It has never really been used though, and certainly not during the last three centuries.

The article states that the definite article is a suffix. But my understanding is that they are attached if there is no adjective but a separate word, spelled slightly differently, if an adjective does intervene. — Hippietrail 01:31, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus (mouse)..." I was under the impression that 'mus' was of Latin origin - my dictionary agrees with me on this as well. - X-G, 12:48, 16 Jun 2004 UTC

Which dictonary are you refering to? Both NEO and SAOB states that 'mus' is an ancient swedish word and NEO also states that it has Germanic orgin (HIST.: sedan äldre fornsvensk tid; fornsv. mus; gemens. germ. ord, motsvarande lat. mus, grek. mys med samma bet.) --Martinl 20:35, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Translated: "common germanic word, akin to latin mus, greek mys, with the same meaning", I.e. that is a common IE root, which hasn't changed in very different ways in latin, germanic or greek.

Rinkebysvenska

What most people call "Rinkebysvenska", is just plain Swedish with a few borrowed Turkish words, usually spoken with an accent. I barely consider it a dialect and most certainly not a derived language. Does anyone disagree? -- Ml, 16 Oct 2004

No, I fully agree. Although there are quite a number of foreign words from different origins used in the youth vernaculars of suburbs such Rinkeby, Botkyrka and Rosengård that is certainly not enough to call any one of them a "derived language". Alarm 19:27, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think we can all agree that the type of Swedish spoken by first generation immigrants isn't a proper dialect. However, making the same assumption for second or third generation immigrants makes no sense at all. There is no question that even children born and raised in Sweden speak a quite distinct and easily discernable style of Swedish which can't possibly be classified as a mere accent. Syntax (verb placement tends to differ), pronounciation (in particular the quite Arabic-influenced velar uvular fricatives) and vocabulary all differ to some degree or another, which is generally accepted as the criteria for a dialect. I know a lot of people who want to classify these mainly immigrant-spoken varieties as sociolects, but I'm not so sure about that myself. One of the main reasons is that I've heard what looked to me as ethnic Swedes use this style of speech with friends that looked to be decended from immigrants. The fact that you hear different dialects coming out of different part of the country also point to the fact that Rinkeby-Swedish and Rosengård-Swedish should be considered offspring of the respective regional dialects. Sociolect or dialect? I'm not sure, but we're definetly not talking about just accented Swedish. - karmosin 01:46, 3 Feb 2005

The question of whether these forms of speech are dialects or not is certainly debatable, and there are arguments both for and against. One argument against looking at them as dialects that I think has to be considered is the fact that they don't seem to have a stable vocabulary. To me it seems more like each speaker uses a personal array of slang and borrowed foreign words and there are no standard Swedish words that couldn't be used interchangeably with these. Compare this with Scanian, where you could definitely argue that it "would be incorrect" to use the Swedish pojke (instead of paug),

For clarification, the previous postings were a response to the fact that Rinkebysvenska was originally listed as a derived language, and not a dialect. Regardless of the discussion of it being a dialect or not, I think we can agree that was incorrect. It was later moved - see this diff. / Alarm 12:09, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be a good idea to add references, attributions and/or quotations to the section that now is called "Immigrant varieties"? /Tuomas 12:55, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Attention Estonian nationalists!

There is an ongoing debate over at the Swedish wiki about whether there are enough Swedish speakers in Estonia to merit an inclusion in the language template. I've slapped the Swedish language article with a POV-warning and asked for a reliable source on the number of current speakers. The Ethnologue puts the figure at a whopping 29, none whatsoever in the Ukraine and there are plenty of Swedish articles about the Estonian Swedophones that clearly indicate that the number was way below a few thousand as early as WW II.

Either come up with links to some groundbreaking studies or stop reinserting info that has no merit. I'm too familiar with the concept of Swedish-Estonian nationalism to let this slide. --karmosin 00:49, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Allophone

Ruhrjung, I didn't quite understand your objection. The two sounds are in effect allophones, even if all dialects and regional variations except the northern and Finland-Swedish make that distinction in speech. Why doesn't it make any sense? Peter Isotalo 09:47, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

After the text

The pronunciation of vowels, and of some consonant sounds (particularly sibilants), demonstrates marked differences in spoken high-prestige varieties.

Ruhrjung had added

This includes in many dialects, including that of the capital area, the voiceless dorso-palatal and velar fricative , (pronounced somewhere between "sh" in English she and "ch" in German doch), that in most of these dialects must be distinguished from the voiceless retroflex fricative (pronounced somewhere between "sh" in English she and "ch" in German ich). In other important dialects, the same opposition is rather differently produced.

You changed

that in most of these dialects must be distinguished from the voiceless retroflex fricative

to

that in most of these dialects must be distinguished from the allophonic voiceless retroflex fricative

(my emphasis).

So, why must allophones be distinguished? Aren't they rather much unconciously produced and perceived; and when one is produced for the other, usually no harm is done.

If and are allophones of the same phoneme in most of these dialects, then there is no reason to write about it at all, an it could be removed, couldn't it?

However, in my book and are allophones of different phonems, the sje-phoneme and the assimilation of /r/+/s/.

/Tuomas 12:09, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, that makes sense. I guess I got somewhat confused by your earlier statement of minimal pair excercises with and . Peter Isotalo 14:39, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Standard Swedish variations or dialects?

I think we need to start clearly defining the difference between Swedish dialects and the regional variations of Standard Swedish. The term rikssvenska should be defined in a separate article, and we should avoid confusing popular notions of what the word actually means with the linguistic definitions, which are hardly as vague as are implied in this article. It should certainly be noted that there are misunderstandings of the term among the general public, but it should only follow after a thorough explanation of the linguistic definitions.

The sources I've checked seem to be quite clear and unanimous on the matter. A Swedish dialect is defined quite seperatly from the regional variations.

Here are some citations, my translations from Swedish with my comments enclosed in brackets:

from NE's article rikssvenska:

rikssvenska, the Swedish national language . It has mainly developed from the upper class language of the Mälar Valley region. It can no longer be attributed to any certain regions. The word is used commonly among both laymen and scholars.

from NE's article riksspråk (roughly "national language):

riksspråk, a form of language that is common to one state which is constrasted to dialects. Usually refering to both spoken and written languages. (...) Today the term standard language is the most common in the scientific litterature.

Both these articles in turn link to the article "standardspråk" (standard language) and a further defining of "riksspråk" mainly as a term for standard languages in general as well as refering to Standard Swedish.

Engstrand, Olle, "Fonetikens grunder", 2004, pg. 120:

All languages have more or less significant regional variations in pronunciation. In Swedish there are differences in the spoken varieties of the standard language ("Scanian", "Gutnish" or "Dalmål") as well as variations specific to certain cities like "Stockholmska" or "Göteborska". By "dialect" Swedish dialectologists are refering to those bygdemål or landsmål that have a straight lineage that can be traced back to Old Norse, a history shared with all other Scandinavian dialects - these form a continuum while the distinct "National languages" like Swedish, Danish and Norweigan are relativly recent constructions.

Since the linguists seem to be quite clear that "rikssvenska" is more or less the same as "Standard Swedish" and that this term is by no means as rigid and chauvinistic as a lot of our articles here seem to hint at, I think we should start the article Standard Swedish where we can explain these matters properly. Peter Isotalo 14:44, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

May I remind you, Peter, that this seems to be a repetition of our recent discussion in :sv:Diskussion:Svenska#Sveamål. It would be nice if the confusions from that discussion could be avoided this time.

--Johan Magnus 08:44, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely. That's why I'm citing Engstrad this time. Peter Isotalo 10:20, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

Former capitalisation of common nouns?

I've either read or heard that several Germanic languages besides German used to capitalise all common nouns. In Danish this practice was abolished in a spelling reform in the late 1940s. Can anybody tell me if this was ever practiced in Swedish and if so when was it abolished? — Hippietrail 06:09, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I would guess that it was no later than the 19th century. Before that I'm not sure Swedish orthography was all that standardized. I'm pretty sure I've seen it in older texts from the the 18th century or before. Most likely influenced by German. Peter Isotalo 10:27, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

I do agree with Peter, and it might be added that influence from Low (and High) German has been considerable, which is why it rather is an interesting question why capitalisztion of common nouns disappeared!

--Johan Magnus 12:31, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Minor rewrite

I simply removed the Trivia-section in my latest edit. The category doesn't fit with the standard recommended by the Languages Project and a lot of the facts were either non-encyclopedic or very speculative.

A lot of the rewrite is based on the discussions at Talk:Standard Swedish and Talk:Swedish phonology. If anything something important got lost, just give a holler and we'll sort it out. Peter Isotalo 10:27, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

A few questions about your rewrite, Johan:

• Wouldn't at least a table of the phonemes be a good idea? Moving the sje-example also doesn't seem to have much of a point since there already is an example at Swedish phonology. As far as I know it is recommended that a minimum of sound samples be placed in language articles.
  • Why? You have yourself created a specific phonology-article. I would however be prepared to move back the phonology content again. --Johan Magnus 12:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• The removal of the passage that explains the "u"-vowel to be unique for Swedish and Norweigan was explained with this edit summary: "removing nationalist proudness". Could you explain how it is nationalist to claim that a sound is unique for a particular language? Is the fact actually contested (by any sources)? Will speakers of other languages feel less proud of their own language because they're missing that particular vowel? Is the "u" a particularly prestigious vowel among phoneticians? Labeling comments about unique features as nationalism (on the sole basis that I happen to be a native speaker) just doesn't seem like a valid objection.
  • Without going into too much details, there is no need to appear too much bragging about alleged uniqueness. It looks pretty childish to me. And the allegation is obviously hard to prove. You are however misinterpreting me when you (this time) believe it has anything with you personally to do. Not at all. I would have the same opinion regardless of who had written it, although I may have tempered my edit somewhat differently if it was a student of Swedish who had made the proposal. --Johan Magnus 12:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• The melodic accent is as far as I know not too unusual a feature in the UPSID languages. I guess that it's probably not too common among the top 100 languages, but that doesn't seem to be a good way of judging if a feature is unusual or not.
  • Yes it is. English speakers and other students of Swedish as a foreign language are likely to be more acquainted with the more common languages than with the less common. --Johan Magnus 12:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• I wrote the history section specfically for the introduction. Introductions are as far as I know intended to be fairly comprehensive, if still general enough to be brief. The actually history section has a lot more room for information than just that brief summary.
  • As you see, I disagree with your judgement. I think the history-information is relevant in a history section, when there now exists one. That's where a reader would look for it. In my opinion (and that's what it is: your and my opinions!) Your history-content took far too much of the space of the introduction. --Johan Magnus 12:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• In general, we have a lot more room in this article. I don't think we need to limit ourselves all that much here considering that most sections are still very brief.
  • Also on this point I disagree with you. In fact, I think User:Graculus had a good manifesto — although I came to disagree very much with one of his attempts to implement it. --Johan Magnus 12:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've noticed I didn't explain everything that I changed on the talk page, but then again, I didn't see it as particularly controversial. I'll do a full summary of my edits on the talk pages from now on. Do you thin you could do the same? Peter Isotalo 18:48, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

I am sure that would clogg the talk page and make it harder to follow discussions. --Johan Magnus 12:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Melodic accent"

I added some information and rephrased a lot of the Sounds-section. The term "prosody" is probably better to use, and there seemed to be a confusion in the old version about vocal stress in general. All forms of Swedish have melodic accent, it's just not the same in all varieties. Finland-Swedish, however, does not differentiate between accents 1 and 2 as do all (I think) varieties in Sweden.

I don't think we want too many subsections either, and in since we should be fairly brief about stress, it's better to stick to just "Stress". Peter Isotalo 15:42, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

The melodic accent is one of the features of Swedish that is most distinctive and best known abroad. The exact wordings and layout of the article can of course be discussed, and inaccuracies ought of course to be eliminated, but it does not at all seem advisable to "stick to just 'stress'".

What's your source for "all (I think) varieties in Sweden"?

It would also be nice to include an apostrophication or a link to an authorative quote on Finland-Swedish. Can you propose any?

--Johan Magnus 12:03, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If you want any changes to the previous statements to be supported by quotes, then you might want to think about quoting sources yourself. Melodic accent seems to be totally void of any source references at all, for example. Especially when it's about issues that are really not the least bit controversial.

After all, it's you who proposes changes to texts and wordings that have stood the test of time. And it's you who often have appeared quite eager to request scholarly quotations from others. Hence I think you have more reason to present support for your proposed changes than do others have for conservativeness. I am sure you will understand this basic principle some day, in case you don't do this already now.

With regard to Finland-Swedish, specifically, you may be interested in Non-native pronunciations of English#Finnish, given that you agree that some of the basic difference between Finland-Swedish and rikssvenska can be explained linguistically by a Finnish substratum.

You may also consider the difference between providing a link as a means to convince other wikipedians of your point (on the talk page), and to provide a attribution of a point of view to an authority (in the actual article). For the former, googling is useful, for the latter: not so much.

--Johan Magnus 14:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

But here goes:

• Melodic accent seems like a somewhat nonstandard phonetic term that could mean anything that has to do with either stress or acccent.
  • Inasmuch as it is a feature alien to English, this is true. Textbooks on linguistics I've read (English textbooks, that is) have also been more concerned about "proper" tone languages, i.e. the wellknown examples from the Far East.
  • See also the introduction to the article on intonation and Non-native pronunciations of English#Swedish. --Johan Magnus 14:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• All varieties of Swedish can stress syllables in a number of ways to achieve a number of differences in meaning, but not all use accents 1 and 2 to seperate homonyms, see Garlén (1988) pg. 138-139, Elert (2000) pg. 130-33. and Engstrand (2004) pg. 186-192.
  • I agree with your wording here, and I hope we agree that grave and acute accent in Swedish do not express "stress". --Johan Magnus 14:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• The Swedish term used by both Garlén and Engstrand is ordaccent ("word accent") where words are seperated only by the use of either accents 1 or 2. I'm not 100% what this corresponds to in English, but just "melodic accent" is too vague.
  • See for instance my comment at Talk:Pitch accent
  • See also: http://www.let.kun.nl/tie/application.htm

--Johan Magnus 14:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• For some examples of how accents 1 and 2 can be realized, see Engstrand pg. 213-217.
• For a concise summary on the different prosodic elements in Swedish see Bolander (2001) pg. 61 (or the chapter on prosody in the new edition).

Let me know if you need summarized quotes of these sources.

Peter Isotalo 13:10, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

Summary:

Reference to melodic accent is a good thing, "stick to just 'stress'" is illadviced.

I don't think we disagree much with regard to the situation in Swedish. The issue is how to express this in English. (Or if at all.) However, as I've already hinted at, it's far too brave to allege that all varieties in Sweden should differ from Finland-Swedish like this. It doesn't seem likely to me, and decreases the credibility of the text. I guess none of the sources you refer to has the guts to be that bold.

Nor does it seem like a good solution to be too specific about the situation in Finland-Swedish - unless we have a good source to rely on.

May I also make the clear reservation that I am pretty unsure of which of Elert's works I've read? ...and I do for the moment not recall to have read any work by any Bolander at all - but that may be due to faulty memory.

--Johan Magnus 14:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Swedish language(s)

The article says the following about some of the Swedish dialects:

"Gutnish, Jamska, Scanian (Skånska) and Dalecarlian (Dalmål) can in their own right be considered as separate languages. Practically all speakers of these languages are bilingual in Swedish, and the consideration here is principally the dialect of Swedish spoken by these individuals. None of them are recognized as separate languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. See also: Minority languages in Sweden"

Jamska and Dalecarlian are proper dialects of Swedish and might reasonably be considered seperate languages, though I don't know what linguists have to say about it. Even Gutnish seems reasonable. The claim about Scanian seems to be extremely speculative, though. The article Scanian language is far too influenced by regionalist sentiment (use of the term Terra Scania, for example).

I don't really see any value in defining all true dialects of Swedish as seperate langauges, since neither linguists or even the speakers themselves use this definition. The term "dialect" is flexible enough to use in this context and it is far easier than trodding straight into the stagnant rhetorical swamp that is the language/dialect discourse. Going by the linguistic terminology (not our own interpretations of said terminology) seems the only compromise that wouldn't be confusing for outsiders.

See Talk:Scanian language for a more specific discussion of Scanian as a seperate language. Peter Isotalo 16:04, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

Most certainly do linguists say different things depending on their general attitudes towards the (alleged) differences between dialects and languages.

--Johan Magnus 12:04, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That's very hard to tell, though, since you never actually quote them. Who besides SIL, who's reliability is rightfully questioned, is claiming that these are seperate langauges? And I want the actual words of actual linguists on this one, mind you. Not just intepretations of very non-specific debates on the difficulty of establishing a boundary between a dialect and a language. Peter Isotalo 12:21, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

That's not my thing to prove. I do not claim that there is a difference between languages and dialects.

:-)

--Johan Magnus 12:39, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

removed hard-to-prove claims

The following was removed:

The Swedish has no known equivalent except in Norwegian and the fricative is not known to exist in any other langauge.

The first symbol is rather cryptic, and North-British speakers may disagree with the claim if the symbol means what I believe it does.

The idea that ɧ doesn't exist in other languages is also questionable and really impossible to prove. What can be truthfully argued, is that the symbol is not used for other languages, which is explained by it being a relatively new and obscure addition to the IPA-chart. However, the symbol is used in the literature for several different sounds, many of which for sure exist not only in other languages, but even in nearby languages.

To sum it up: this kind of absolute statments are substandard.

/J.O.

An additional explanation for the exclusive use of ɧ is maybe its IPA-definition as a sound with combined articulation:

.

/Tuomas 11:08, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

ɧ is used for several different sounds when it is indicated to be phoneme with many different realizations just like /r/, /t/, /k/, etc. Look this up in any phonology. They all use the same terminology and they all follow the recommendations of the IPA. I can assure you that the dicussion at voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative is not especially helpful in this matter. The whole thing got stuck on a simple confusion of phoneme/phone and then got dragged into the whole Standard Swedish/Swedish phonology-conflict where all logical discussion broke down long ago. The sound I recorded is what the symbol is supposed to represent (with some variations) and you can confirm this with any book on Swedish phonetics.

Also, you can't reasonably ask for a statement along the lines of "...is not known to exist in any other langauge" to be proved. If you want to question it, you have to prove that it does exist in some other language. Otherwise the sentence is perfectly facutal and NPOV. Peter Isotalo 16:05, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

It's per definition hard to wikipedia:verify. I propose that you consider wordings along the lines of "Olle Engstrand, a Swedish author on phonetics, writes < !-- in Olle Engstrand, Fonetikens grunder, 2004, page XX -- > that...".

See Talk:Swedish phonology for plenty of sources on the matter.

Peter Isotalo 07:45, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

I would also like to take this opportunity to once again (User talk:Karmosin#Thanks for the Swedish "sj" pronunciation!) propose that the sound you recorded does more sound like a southern pronunciation than what I've learned as the prestigious capital region pronunciation (from audio tapes in the Swedish course I followed in Sweden, but also often demonstrated by the language teacher who introduced herself as a native of the Gothenburg area), that had more of sibilant hissings to it.

--Ruhrjung 17:34, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for not answering this earlier. I didn't really notice it until now, what with all the bruhaha about Swedish phonology.

My pronunciation of the "sje" is by far the most common in and around Stockholm, which is confirmed by Elert in Allmän och svensk fonetik. Engstrand and Garlén both describe the sound with almost the same symbols as Elert, though they don't have actual maps to specify usage. I can't back it up with specific sources, but I'd say it's by far the most common on TV and radio these days as well.

I can't be certain of what this more prestigeous pronunciation you heard on tape was, but I'm very sure it was the retroflex /rs/-assimilation , which is probably a lot easier for foreign students of Swedish to pronounce than the quite unique . Any native Swede that uses would probably produce a if asked to speak very formally. Otherwise the use of it is limited to the northern varieties, to some older (especially upper class) speakers and to effeminte gay men. I think Johan Magnus mentioned the latter phenomena much earlier in our discussion as a Swedish equivalent of an American English gay lisp.

Peter Isotalo 07:45, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

I had this discussion in mind while listening to Swedish news on radio, and I now understand you mean! Though I'm still fairly sure that most lower-to-middle class Central Swedes are fairly close to my pronunciation (or at the least most people my age), I noticed that on radio the pronunciation is, just like you said, more sibilantic than mine. This is in fact the pronunciation my mother has, which I had thought was due to the fact that she's an academic and not originally from Stockholm, but it probably has more to do with age than anything else.

Here is what it sounds like when pronouncing the word sjuksköterska ("nurse"): listen

The first realization is produced by pushing the air through almost clenched teeth. The second one is (as far as I can tell without the means of analyzing it properly) some sort of velar obstruction with pursed lips, which I guess would mean it's labial to some degree ( in the IPA symbology). How the first sound is produced, I don't know and don't have the phonetic training to analyze, but it feels far more frontal, even alveolar. However, the tip of the tounge is not involved as in the English or German , but obstructing in a manner I simply can't analyze and that feels far more diffuse than any of the other sibilants.

Peter Isotalo 18:14, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

About removal of text

I noticed that a some text has been removed with the motivation that there are seperate articles for this. This is a fair assumption, but it's not a good idea to remove material without actually moving it.

Unless it is flat-out wrong, don't remove text by claiming the article is too long. In the matter of the immigrant varieties, I'm note sure if it's appropriate to simply move fairly relevant information on a quite interesting aspect of the Swedish language. Considering that FA articles on languages like Russian language and Portuguese language are extremely extensive in comparison, it would seem odd that Swedish would have to be so minimalist in information, even when there are seperate articles for certain subjects. I recommend discussing the removal of any information that is not actually erroneous on the talk page, and if it is removed, that the information is moved either to another article or at the very least its talkpage. Some duplicate information must be tolerated in any encyclopedia, and especially in such a general article as this. Peter Isotalo 13:39, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Pidgin Swedish

The heading "Immigrant varieties" has now been changed to "Suburban pidgin varieties". I can see the underlying reasoning for the change, but the argumentation faulters somewhat. All kinds of pidgin languages are always spoken outside of where the original language is spoken natively. Even though the suburbs of Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg are to great extent non-Swedish in terms of language, they are not comparable to former French, English or Portuguese colonies in Africa or Asia. The assumption that the grammar of Rinkeby Swedish is simplified seems very tentative to me. If anything I would say that the grammar is different, and actually describing it as simpler is taking somewhat of a leap. Most of the claims about inherent linguistic simplicity of true pidgin languages are usually based on subjective ideas of what sort of what "simple grammar" actually means. Considering that Rinkeby Swedish is often spoken by young people who have ethnically Swedish parents and mentioning in the article that it is bordering a pure sociolect, it seems as if actually calling it a pidgin language seems like stretching the definition of the word too far. Peter Isotalo 11:55, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

I do partly agree, but must say that this heading is to prefer over for the previous choice. Then, of course, there are even longer possibilities. What would you suggest?

When discussing the issue of "simplicity of grammar", it has to be kept in mind that there is an in this respect important difference between creole languages and contact languages.

--Johan Magnus 12:19, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

What's wrong with simply "Immigrant varieties"? It's short, simple and very descriptive. At worst I'd say that it's a very slight generalization. Despite that "immigrant" (invandrare) is often somewhat controversial as a term in Sweden, it's not the least bit controversial in English and is a very accurate description.

I don't think the identification of Rinkeby Swedish as a creole can actually be made when the speakers socialize and live alongside with speakers of the "native" language and when so many are native speakers of Swedish themselves. There might be quite a lot of segregation, but kids being raised completely isolated from other types of Swedish is most likely very rare. The vast majority of the speakers still intermix with ethnic Swedes to some extent and are at the very least exposed to the standard language through TV, radio and the press. Peter Isotalo 13:47, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I reacted against "Immigrant varieties" because

1. far from all immigrants feel any affinity,
2. many speakers are "second or third generation" immigrants, and thereby technically not immigrants at all, and finally since
3. it's not restricted to immigrants but rather to speakers of a certain age of certain neighbourhoods that are densely populated by immigrants.

Suburban multiethnolects was an alternative I had in mind, but liked less than the suburban pidgin-alternative.

We agree, obviously, that Rinkebysvenska is not a creole language. A relief, isn't it?

--Johan Magnus 14:30, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I can't help agreeing with you. How about we try building on this by going with the least complicated subsection heading and concentrating on the wording instead? I think we're translating a purely Swedish concern of the meaning of "immigrant" that would seem rather inexplicable to outsiders. In this tontext I think the term is more of a convenience than an attempt at exact definition. Peter Isotalo 14:40, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Nope. It's more Swedish than English to expand immigrantship for generations. I therefore (and for other reasons listed above) re-worded the term "Immigrant varieties".

--Johan Magnus 15:07, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

The only Swedish issue here is the assumption that the term "immigrant" has a distinctly negative connotation. The variety is still spoken mainly by the children of first-generation immigrants (with the exception of Finns or Finland-Swedes). This term is obviously merely a descriptive convenience rather than some illicit generalization and replacing it with completely erroneous terminology like "pidgin" doesn't make it any clearer. If anything, I'd say that calling it a creole is far more likely to draw assumptions from non-Swedes of the speakers being "outsiders" (or, God forbid, "colonials") speaking some form of Swedish not actually intelligable to native Swedes. Peter Isotalo 13:44, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Nationalencyklopedin describes it under the subheader New Swedish dialects in article "Svenska dialekter". --Fred-Chess 18:50, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Swedish dialects and Standard Swedish

I rewrote the section on Swedish dialects, since the old version still tried to describe the popular notion of what riksvenska and dialects are instead of focusing on the actual linguistic definition. I've tried to describe these popular notions as best as I can, and I don't wish to supress them, but I will insist on that we stick to how dialectologists define the situation, since it can only confuse outsiders by describing the popular (but usually uninformed) notions as somehow being more "correct". If anyone feels I removed something that still fit perfectly even with the new text, please try to integrate it with the new text rather than just reverting to the old one or merely returning the old paragraphs intact.

Due to the fact the problems with the definitions of Swedish dialects as seperate languages by SIL, which has resulted in a consensus choice to move Scanian language to Scanian (linguistics), I have also hidden the following comments:

":¹ The more genuine varieties of Gutnish, Jamska, Scanian (Skånska) and Dalecarlian (Dalmål) are exceptionally considered as "separate" languages in their own right. Practically all speakers of these languages are then to be considered bilingual in Swedish, and the consideration here is principally the dialect of Swedish spoken by these individuals. None of them are recognized as separate languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. See also: Minority languages in Sweden

² Jamska belongs to the group of (Insular) West Scandinavian languages, as opposed to the other dialects of Swedish which belong to the (Continental) East Scandinavian group. The proper name of the language is Jamska, though the spelling Jämtska is sometimes used."

I seriously contest the information here, especially the division into East and West Swedish, though I welcome discussions on this matter. As with previous discussions, I would like to see sources that support any claims of this sort if they are to be included in the article. I hope to hear many opinions on this matter and I hope we can all refrain from starting yet another revert-fest. :-)

Peter Isotalo 13:00, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

Glottal stop in Swedish

There's a claim about "stød", or glottal stop occuring in some dialects of Scanian, but with no kind of reference. Considering the notions of many that Scanian could be considered a dialect of Danish, I suspect this notion has come along for the ride. Using a glottal stop instead of accent 2 is a distinctly Danish feature, so I'm surprised that it would be present in a Swedish dialect. It would be very helpful if at least the location (with some sort of reference) of these archaic dialects could be mentioned.

Peter Isotalo 08:25, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

Aha, I thought you wrote this and assumed you had a source for it (which is why I left it be). As I wrote in my comment, I hadn't heard the claim about this in Scanian before. --Fred-Chess 09:23, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Divisioning

Even if the WikiProject Language uses a specific style, do we have to use it? It seems more fitting to our purpose to divide it in three sections, as they are about equally large and are clearly distinct from one another. --Fred-Chess 09:20, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Since I really want to push this article to the level of an FA, and since the criteria for an FA demand that it adhere to the standards set by the appriopriate WikiProject, it should stick to their standard. I suppose some variations are always tolerable, but it would seem odd that one candidate all of a sudden would diverge from the standard in several other language FAs.

I must confess that I favor the Language Project template myself, though, since I think empty sections or more subsection levels than necessary (this would require a third sub-level for the subsections of "Sounds", e.i. 1.2.3) make for bad layout.

Peter Isotalo 09:41, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

I don't like the WP:Languages structure very much. For example, I think it's not a bad idea to treat the history of the language and the speakers before the phonology (in fact, I often do it that way); furthermore, I don't see an intuitive place for things like demographics, literacy and language development (it very much looks like the template is organized with languages of the 'developed world' in mind). FYI, Nafaanra language was featured without strictly complying to those standards, as was Laal language. It seems to me that amending the Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Language Template would be a better thing to do. — mark ✎ 11:31, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't the demographic discussion belong in articles about the ethnic groups or the countries in question? They seem too much of a sociological issue to fit properly in the language articles. If anything, it would make them swell quite alarmingly (Peter likes everything below 40k). And the matter can always be summarized fairly well under "Geographic distribution". Personally, I think language development should definetly belong in the "History" section, while only mentioning it passingly briefly in the others.

But by all means, I welcome the discussions at the template talk page. Since I am a quite firm believer in adhering to standards and since the template fits this language very well, I would very much like to keep it until a consensus for changing the template is reached. If anything, the layout is definetly not an issue of systematic bias, but rather a pure meta-wiki issue. As long as the sections look the way they do (with all headers below "==X section==" looking too similar and sections with more than two sub-levels making the TOC look quite messy), I'd really like to keep it the way it is now.

Peter Isotalo 12:25, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

Naturally if we think it improves the article to devaite from the template, we should. The template is a general advice and may not always apply.

And that additional sub headers make that TOC look messy is, IMO, a matter of taste. --Fred-Chess 10:38, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I'll admit it is somewhat difficult to motivate that one type of layout is inherently more useful the other, but don't you agree that the difference between ==XXX== and ===XXX=== is a lot more useful than that of ===XXX=== and ====XXX====? The divider line seems so much more helpful to me when sorting subsections of "Sounds" or "Grammar".

Peter Isotalo 12:32, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

Old Norse vs Runic Swedish

Even Nationalencyklopedin, which uses the term Runic Swedish, says that there were no differences between Runic Swedish and Runic Danish until the 12th century. In order to avoid that people misconstrue the use of Runic Swedish as signifying that it was an independent language at the time, I think we should use the term Old Norse for this period.--Wiglaf 11:50, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I will await Karmosin's comments on this, as he is the person with the references.

Frankly I don't really understand what the detailed section on Old Norse has to do with the Swedish Language. But perhaps this is because I don't understand much of it. There are many terms that need clarification. You don't have to do that though, I can fix that myself later if I have the time... --Fred-Chess 12:12, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Just tell me which terms you don't understand, and I'll rephrase them.--Wiglaf 12:18, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

BTW, Fred Chessplayer, I have used Nationalencyklopedin as a source, so as to make it easy for others to verify the facts. All you have to do is to pick up Nationalencyklopedin and verify the facts. Good luck!--Wiglaf 12:24, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Ok I have to repost this as our edits collided:

I will do just that, explaining all terms I don't understand in that section. Some terms may be explained in other places of the article though and need not explaining right here. Terms I don't understand: Old Norse ; proto-norse ; -- are Old West Norse and Old East Norse actually proper names or just definitions? ; Bokmål ; elder Futhark ; Younger Futhark ; and finally I don't understand what this A change that occurred in Old East Norse was the change of æi (Old West Norse ei) to e, as in stæin to sten. 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 ø as in døðr. This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy (Old West Norse ey) diphthong changed into ø as well, as in the Old Norse word for "island". has to do with the Swedish language...

I'm actually only adhering to Misplaced Pages:Guide to writing better articles#Think_of_the_reader

Frankly, Fred, sometimes it is a good idea to follow the links and to do some reading. Although, I'd love to explain more in depth, it would explode the section into articles.--Wiglaf 12:38, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

So you don't think that articles need to be understandable by themselves? --Fred-Chess 12:41, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, that would be the ideal situation, but on the other hand, links serve a purpose.--Wiglaf 12:42, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm quite certain you are wrong here. Detailed information of a subject should naturally be in a separate article, but not basic things. If this was a specialized article, such as "The diphtongs of Swedish Language" , then a certain freedom could of course be used. But "Swedish language" should be able to be read by anyone, yet I can't understand parts of it. If you are right, then we might need to look up 10 words from every linked articles too in an evergrowing mystical net, no? --Fred-Chess 12:56, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

OK, remove anything you think is incomprehensible then. Bye!--Wiglaf 13:00, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

This is not a problem at all. Wiglaf, I encourage you to add as much material you feel is necessary. We're not writing the Absolute and Final Canon of the Definition of Runic Swedish here, and there's no need to get alarmed about occasional passages that might be hard for non-linguists to decipher. That's what copyediting and constructive criticism is all about! :-) I know that when I'm really interested in a subject it's very easy to get carried away with jargon and assumptions of people knowing very obscure facts of linguistics.

Fred, I agree that there is some need to explain some terms, but I also agree that not every single term can be explained. Like Wiglaf pointed out; that's what the links are for.

Peter Isotalo 13:18, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

The section looks fine now. --Fred-Chess 10:37, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Wiglaf, this is not the simple: WP. If you don't understand a term, either click on its link, or look it up in a dictionary. By all means, if the same information can be expressed in a less convoluted way, rephrase it, but concerns of content must come first. That said, I find the paragraph in question is very lucid, and excellently illustrated. Hell, if you do not know the Younger Futhark nobody will blame you, just use your mouse and click on its blue link to read all about it. dab (ᛏ) 16:41, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

History

I removed some additions concerning the power struggle between supporters of Sten Sture and Christian II. It doesn't really seem all that relevant to mention this in a Swedish language article, and I must point out that the circumstances surrounding the Stockholm Bloodbath are pretty sketchy. There are (according to NE) no first hand sources on heresy trials that led to the executions of some 100 former Sture-supporters. This event was also skillfully used by Gustav Vasa as anti-Danish propaganda in his bid for the Swedish crown. Considering that civil rights as we know them were non-existant in 16th century Sweden, it's difficult to speak of innocent victims when it comes to power struggles. Christian II was certainly not the first, last or worst monarch to conduct purges of political opponents.

Peter Isotalo 22:20, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

Interesting.

The point I was trying to make is that the two languages where very similar up to that point, and that it was first now they clearly distinguished themselves from one another, which was necessary for political reasons. --Fred-Chess 08:52, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

I suspect that the independence of the new Swedish monarchy from Denmark probably accentuated the differences in the two languages, but I'm fairly convinced that this has been exaggerated in later history writing due to nationalistic tendencies.

I found a very interesting quote in the NE article danska, in the section on prosody where an unknown author from the 16th century is quoted on a description of the Danish "stød" in this way:

tryckia ordhen fram, lika som the willia hosta

English: " press the words out, as if they wanted to cough"

Peter Isotalo 11:07, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

Fred, I notice that you're very keen on moving text to seperate articles. While I am definetly a supporter of fairly concise articles, I would prefer if we waited until the article is as close to complete in all areas as possible before we start moving sections out. There are plenty of examples of FA articles that are closer to 60k and it seems a bit stingy to be cutting out text when we're way below 50k.

I would also recommend that you read the request for peer review. Mark explicitly asked for the translators to be mentioned, and in this case they have been extremely influential figures and are certainly worth mentioning.

Peter Isotalo 11:30, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

Do you really want two whole sections giving detailed info on the Bible translation? The section is supposed to cover 250 years.

Have you actually read the changes I made? The translators are still there.

I suggest we continue writing the article. I have not removed anything substantial as I don't do that, neither now nor later, so don't worry about that. The things I removed were really of minor importance.

--Fred-Chess 11:58, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I just read the wrong paragraph ("All three translators came from central Sweden...") and thought you removed the names.

I guess we disagree on what is substantial. For example, the mention of the Swedish verb suffix -a and it's contrast against the Danish -e is a very important detail. In fact, this suffix is still extremely productive even to this day in making new verbs. It might just be my impression, but it seems as if you're focusing on orthography a lot (particularly the features still used today), while overlooking the features that don't seemm immidiately relevant to modern Swedish.

Peter Isotalo 13:04, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

Prosody

Isn't it a bit confusing that the section on prosody links to acute accent and grave accent although these articles does not even mention this particular meaning of these terms? Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about this could add a section to these articles about this meaning?

Also, in my opinion, this section should definitely have a link to the article melodic accent. I'm aware that Peter has raised the question of the term's accuracy over at its talk page, but although another name might be better suited, not linking to the specific article on the phenomenon seems rather strange. / Alarm 11:37, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

We could just de-link the two accents or perhaps start seperate articles for accent 1 and accent 2 (or just a joint article for both). Do you feel anything is missing in the actual description in this article, though?

As for linking to melodic accent, I strongly disagree, since it has no proper references. As far as I can tell "melodic accent" seems to encompass only Norwegian and Swedish prosodic features which is not a valid linguistic analysis to begin with. It seems to be merely a slightly better wording of "sing-song prosody" and encompasses not just stress (linguistics) but also the tonal word accents (accents 1 and 2). When googling for it, hits concerning the prosodic feature seems to be mostly our own mirrors and one or two sites on Scandinavian languages (without proper references), but the great majority of the hits seem to be about some sort of feature of music, which do seem to have proper references .

Unless the content of melodic accent is actually confirmed by proper linguistic sources, I feel that linking to it would make this article unverifiable, since it is either some sort of over-simplified neologism or just original research.

I'm certainly not an expert on Swedish prosody, but from what I've read so far I doesn't seem possible to sum Swedish prosody up with just one term, since it contains several different features that need to be described seperatly to be comprehensible to anyone who doesn't already knows a lot about Swedish.

Peter Isotalo 12:36, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

We probably could link to it in lack of anything better. The proper term for it? Don't know. This is from Minnesota: sing-songy Scandinavian accents. Cute, isn't it?

The prefered method is (I think) to write first, and verify if disputed. At least that's how I do it. --Fred-Chess 13:37, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

The point is that it's not a single, uniform feature and should therefor not be summarized in one single term. It's just a non-linguistic definition that actually means something completely different in musical (and psychological?) context.

What is described in melodic accent is actually called tonal word accent and this was first recorded in the 1920s by the German linguist Ernest A. Meyer in his two volume-work Die Intonation den Schwedischen ("The Intonation of Swedish"), and systematically described in Eva Gårding's The Scandinavian Word Accents (1977), based mostly on Meyer's material.

Peter Isotalo 14:55, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

There is no doubt that what is described in melodic accent is not original research, although the term in itself may very well be. Misplaced Pages terminology in these matters is however generally rather confused. I've commented on Talk:Melodic accent and at WikiProject Languages - please take a look. This is rather an important lingustic phenominon and I hope we can improve the accuracy and coverage in this area. / Alarm 11:38, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I've now written a draft for a new version of Pitch accent at User:Alarm/Pitch accent. My intention is that this should replace the current article, incorporating all the relevant and verifiable facts in the current Melodic accent article without being as narrowly focused on Swedish. Also, the Prosody section in this article should be able to link to the new Pitch accent article for a more in-depth discussion on the rather confusing terminology. All feedback on the new draft is very much welcome. / Alarm 17:23, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

It's really a good article. When will you get it peer reviewed?

I would just appreciate some some reference (resources) though.

--Fred-Chess 20:37, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

yeh mey all-ah dee-nah peng-ahr yeh-nust

Among the language examples, I find "give me all your money right now: ge mig alla dina pengar genast (yeh mey all-ah dee-nah peng-ahr yeh-nust)". At the risk of being regarded as overly non-bold I'll ask here first: Would anyone object to my removing of this rather unusual phrase? / Alarm 11:40, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

• You're right. (Clicks.) It's gone. Arbor 11:53, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I say remove the entire section. We have more than enough spoken samples and Misplaced Pages is not a usage guide. Any objections?

Peter Isotalo 13:32, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

My objection is that a couple of samples are interesting, and do now harm.

But it's not that vital info anyways, do as it suits you.

I think the article is getting better all the time. Perhaps a bit over ambtious on the history section, so have begun writing on Swedish literature instead.

Fred-Chess 14:09, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

My beef is that the samples just aren't encyclopedic and are just a big juicy target for occasionaly bouts of witty vandalism. :-)

I've asked for comments on the size of the History section at the Peer Review, but I'd say that it summarizes the history very well right now. Maybe a tad more on the early 20th century... I'd really like to thank you all (including Johan Magnus, Ruhrjung and Tuomas, despite our squabbles) for helping out, by the way! When there are no more comments at the PR, I'll make a final proof-reading and send it off to FAC.

Peter Isotalo 20:31, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I would be in favour of removing all the samples, too. Should we have an informal poll on that issue? Arbor 07:12, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Most, but not all, language articles seem to have a small list of examples comparable to the one here. See, for instance, Italian, Spanish, French and Danish. No current consensus seems to exist. Incidentally, just a few hours ago, User:Dcljr did propose that all language articles should have examples at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Languages#Basic sentences in each language. Myself, I can see both pros and cons. / Alarm 09:55, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your contributions too Peter, they make up the largest part of the article, I think? --Fred-Chess 13:01, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

I think we have ourselves a VfD of Common phrases in various languages brewing, which would be a pretty good way of determining whether sections like it are to be kept in the language articles. Check out the talk page for some argumentation.

I suggest we continue the discussion there.

Peter Isotalo 15:24, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

Now for something completely different

Somewhat unrelated, there is a program on SVT2 right now about expressing clearly.

SVT2 Texter för medborgarna - direktsänd språkvårdskonferens

10.03-15.00 Direktsändning från en konferens arrangerad av regeringens klarspråksgrupp. Medverkande bland andra Olle Josephson, chef för svenska språknämnden, och Catharina Nyström Höög, forskare vid Uppsala universitet. Dessutom delar justitieminister Thomas Bodström ut priset Klarspråkskristallen. Reporter Karin Andersson.

--Fred-Chess 10:34, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikification

I've just done a round of wikification, rather strictly adhering to the principle that the first instance of a term should be wikified. However, I haven't delinked wikified the second instance in cases where it appears in a later section more closely related to the topic (e.g. vowel, orthography. There were other examples of this already present in the article. Does anyone feel that a strict wikilink-each-term-only-once rule should be excercised? / Alarm 10:30, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't think this is a strict Misplaced Pages rule? Not unless it gets annoying.. I would rather prefer new links for every section. --Fred-Chess 10:45, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Gammalsvenskby

I've taken out part of a sentence on Gammalsvenskby in the section "Swedish speaking minorities":

which survived until the Russian revolution when its inhabitants were deported to Sweden in 1929 in the purges of the Stalin era.

I don't think what happened could be classified as outright deportation. As the article on the subject says, it was the villagers who pleaded for the right to leave the country, actively supported by a Swedish movement. Some later chose to return to the Soviet union (where they were indeed severly affected by the Great Purge of the Stalin era, which took place in the 1930s rather than in 1929). Rather than elaborating on this rather marginal subject, I think we can keep this short here. / Alarm 10:42, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Translation of nusvenska

I have doubts about the rather unidiomatic translation of "nusvenska" into "Now Swedish". I would suggest "Present Swedish" as a better translation. (C.f. "nutiden", "the present".) / Alarm 10:47, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I strongly recommend not attempting such direct translations of specifically Swedish terms. This is a scholarly term that works in Swedish because of the very slight phonemic contrast to "nysvenska" (just a single vowel). I suspect that there is academic wordplay involved in "nusvenska", which works very well with Swedish, what with the tendency for compound nouns. "Present Swedish", however, doesn't work in English since there is no equivalent phonemic contrast to "New Swedish"; it just sounds contrived...

Peter 11:08, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not going to stand my ground if a majority thinks otherwise, but I'm not convinced. I certainly agree that "Nusvenska" works well with Swedish. But I don't think it works at all in English. To me, "Now Swedish" is exactly such a direct translation of a specifically Swedish term that you advise against. I would suspect that a native English speaker percieves "Now Swedish" as more contrived than "Present Swedish" or (perhaps even better) "Current Swedish". Is the possibility of translating this wordplay into "New" and "Now" really more important than using idiomatic English? (Consider the fact that the contrast does not work in other languages. Would you suggest "Maintenant Suédois" and "Jetzt Schwedisch" anyway?) / Alarm 11:44, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm with Isotalo here. Let's keep it until we can quote a good reference suggesting a different term. The risk is otherwise that we have to change it again. --Fred-Chess 11:48, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

"Du-reformen"

Shouldn't the section on Modern Swedish have something of the abandonment of the second person plural pronoun "Ni" as a formal mode of address in the late 1960s - "du-reformen"? After all, this was a rather controversial instance of language reform. / Alarm 10:57, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

"Ni" was never the proper formal adress in Swedish. It was introduced on trial in the early 20th century in an attempt to model the French "vous" and German "Sie", but wound up being used to adress only people of lower status, like cab drivers and was just slightly less insulting than "du" ("you"). The proper formal adress was always the title and family name of the person. "Herr", "fru" or "fröken" (mr, mrs, ms) seldom sufficed. You had to know the occupation, military rank or academic title of the person you adressed; professor Gradin, bankdirektör Karlsson, inspektör Ehrenius etc. It was required for everyone to keep very close tabs on everyone else's social status and was one of the reasons it was finally abandoned. The idea of a formal "ni" is a modern construction, and only sporadically used by younger people who work in the service industry.

But you're right. A short summary would certainly be very interesting in the "Modern Swedish" section.

Peter 11:23, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

Couldn't resist the temptation, so I wrote it myself (with reference added).

Peter 12:47, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

I suspected you wouldn't... :) Looks very good, just one thing: The way the sentence is phrased, the parallel with German might be a little confusing here since German actually uses a third person singular pronoun as the formal mode of adress. It might be better to just have French (or possibly substitute Spanish for German). / Alarm 14:11, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

The NE articles mentions it, and I think the idea behind the usage is close enough despite the slight difference in the choice of person. The common idea is to use a special pronoun for formal address rather than title+name. And Spanish is the same as German; usted/ustedes is third person.

Peter 14:31, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, you're right about Spanish. We could use Russian, I suppose... Anyway, if German is going to stay as an example, "An attempt to replace this system with Ni (the standard second person plural pronoun) as in German or French in the early 20th century was not successful and it was rather used as slightly less insulting form of du, mostly to people of lower social status." should be rephrased (the sentence is also way to long). I'd suggest: In the early 20th century an attempt was made to replace this system with a personal pronoun, as in German and French. But the use of Ni, the standard second person plural pronoun, as a formal mode of address never gained popularity. Rather, it was used as slightly less insulting form of du, mostly to people of lower social status.

In books from the 19th century, "ni" was commonly used to address people. So I am a little surprised where you have gotten this from? --Fred-Chess 13:15, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

NE's article ni-tilltal. Fredrik Lindström has mentioned it in his popular TV-series on linguistics Värsta språket as well. I think that's where I got the part about calling cab drivers ni from.

Peter 13:26, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

You take some liberties in your conclusions... good thing there are proof readers on wiki. A Ni-reform was attempted to be introduced in the 19-th and early 20-th century, but never managed to get support. The word "ni" itself actually was formed by combining "-n" + I , such as "saden I" became "sade ni". This is according to NE article. -- Fred-Chess at the library in Malmö

Perhaps you would be interested in reading Knights who say Ni and T-V_distinction if you haven't already. --Fred-Chess 13:22, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Swedish speaking minorities

There is info in this section that is useful while the section itself seems superfluous. Part of it belongs in History and some of it in Geographical distribution. Could the Finland-Swedish part be summarized? I'm not sure if I'm too keen about finlandization either. While I do understand some of the frustrations of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, it seems to occasionally result in fairly obvious POV here on Misplaced Pages.

Peter 13:21, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

I think a section on the position of Swedish in Finland today might be warranted, although it might be slightly shorter and possibly moved to a subsection of Geographical distribution. However I would say that the part about Estonia and Gammalsvenskby is even more marginal and could be more heavily pruned. / Alarm 14:20, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't get the sentence about Finlandization. I looks like POV and doesn't make sense. I think it should be removed unless someone have some referenses for it. bbx 23:32, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Breaking out the dialect examples to a separate article?

Although opinions differ on whether the 32 K rule is hard or soft, I'd say the page is a bit on the long side. Highest on my list for things possible to move out are the map and the list of dialect examples, which could easily be moved to a separate Dialects of Sweden article. 20 examples seem like a little more detail than needed in a general, top-level article. This would also have the benefit that the subject could be allowed to grow freely. / Alarm 14:28, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I disagree as I see no reason. -- Fred Chess.

Actually, thinking a little (yes, I prefer to write first and think later) you could copy info into a new article for the reasons mentioned, but I don't want info to be removed from here for the reason that the article is too long. -- Fred Chess

Duplicating longer sections is generally Not A Good Idea, since its hard to keep two parallel versions "in sync", leading one (or both) to lack important additions.

My main concern is readability. If I'm looking for a specific piece of information it's much easier to find if the page aren't immense. This from Misplaced Pages:Article_size:

In the past, technical considerations with some now-seldom-used browsers prompted a firm recommendation that articles be limited to a maximum size of precisely 32KB. With the advent of section editing, and the availability of upgrades for the affected browsers, this hard and fast rule has been softened.

However, do note that readers may tire of reading a page in excess of 20-30 KB of readable prose (tables, lists and markup excluded). Thus the 32KB recommendation is considered to have stylistic value in many cases; if an article is significantly longer than that, then sections probably should eventually be summarised and the detail moved to other articles (see Misplaced Pages:Summary style). For most long pages division in sections is natural anyway; even if there is no "natural" way to split a long list or table, it should be done anyway, to allow section editing.

The current article is 46KB. I simply think it might be time to discuss what belongs in an overview and what is suited for specialized pages. / Alarm 15:47, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I think you're getting the priorities a bit mixed up, Alarm. I totally agree that article size can be a major problem in Misplaced Pages. Anything over 50k, for example, should be trimmed. This article is comparable to a lot of other language articles and certainly not extreme in size. Readability is something that should be kept in mind, but I just don't see that this article is in anyway difficult to take in; it has good structure and each section and subsection is of decent size and scope. I don't mind adding more details to the sub-articles like Swedish grammar or Swedish dialects (yeah, I know it's a redirect) but I don't think we need to cut down on the size as it is right now. It's well-balanced and has a very good general coverage of all the important aspects of any language.

If anything I'd say that we're forgetting about the average reader. I really don't think the anonymous non-participating user expects to go to an article about a language to find only the barest minimum of information and links to the "real information".

And as for trimming the dialect-section or the map; not a chance. It's probably the best part of the article due to the map (which was a specific PR request) and the sound samples (it's what language is all about) and the current list represents the major dialect groups very well without going into ridiculous minutiae. Removing just a handful won't make much of a difference but it will make the list a lot less complete; removing an amount that would actually matter for article size would just ruin it.

Peter 19:21, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

Take it easy. I don't want to cut for the sake of cutting. I've never said that we should strip the article to the barest minimum of information and links to the "real information" - that would certainly be stupid. But despite it being rather well balanced, I do think that the article might be on the verge of being longer than what is optimal. And when I say that, I'm thinking precisely of the average reader's possibility to easily access the information at hand. Most featured articles on languages, e.g. Russian language are in fact considerably shorter. No worries though, I won't do anything single-handedly. / Alarm 21:21, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Take it easy? You're threatening to maim my darling here! :-)

Jokes aside, have you noticed that Russian language is not particularly good right now? At the time that the last FAC-comment was made it was gigantic; over 80k ! When it was featured on the main page, it was down to 40k , but only at expense of the entire phonology section. Right now the article is of very questionable quality. Some sections are good, but Grammar is completely subpar and Sounds still hasn't recovered from the brutal trimming; they're both just bare-bone, minimalist summaries. My rough estimate is that it would take at least another 10k to get it to decent quality, but probably closer to 15k, which would bring it to something very close to the size of our article.

As for the rest of the languages FAs, they average at around 30-40k with 47k for Aramaic language (very recent). Laal language and Nafaanra language strike me as exceptions since they are most likely not as well documented as the bigger languages.

And as for ease of access for readers: it's what we have TOCs for.

Peter 22:22, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

Critique

Just some general bashing. If you think it sucks, don't bother reading. I don't want "dab" on my back this time. I don't care how other articles do it. Ok here we go. Remember, my sole intention is to hurt everyones feelings. No seriously, I want to give feedback but I may be wrong.

1. is North Germanic Language the same as Scandianavian language? Because I know what the latter is, but not the former. North germanic makes me think German belongs to the category. 2. When I wanted a footnote to "More recent analyse" I wanted to know just what the recent analyses are, and from what time. Have these analyses been done by two-three people or by SIL, and in the 70's? Or 90's? Or last year?

Also, where are the editors of this article from? I'm from Malmö but don't speak a marked Scanian.

Regards, --Fred-Chess 08:32, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, I just listed this on VfD Swedish word "Ni". Feel free to vote.. --Fred-Chess 12:40, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

<engage lecture mode>

Swedish belongs to the supergroup of languages called Indo-European languages. There are many different so-called phyla of this superfamily of languages, and one of these are the Germanic languages (others include Indo-Aryan languages and Romance languages. The name is as far as I know based on the name of Roman province of Germania, where Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of all Germanic languages is believed to have been spoken some 2000 years ago. The Germanic languages are then further divided into three distinct sub-groups:

• West Germanic languages — English, German, Dutch, Frisian
• East Germanic languages — Gothic, Vandalic, Prussian, though the entire phylum is now extinct
• and finally the North Germanic languages, which are also known as Scandinavian languages.

While it is very common to refer to the North Germanic languages as Scandinavian, it is far better to refer to call them North Germanic, analogous to the other phyla, and especially considering that not all Scandinavian languages are actually spoken in Scandinavia. This can be a tad confusing for us Scandinavians, because the languages are often refered to, even by linguists, as Nordic languages (nordiska språk).

As for the reclassification from East/West Scandinavian (I guess you understand why "East/West North Germanic" isn't used :-)), it is not at just fringe SIL-theories. Try a Google search if you'd like. It's quite common terminology among linguists. While the East/West distinction is made on historical grounds and is certainly still valid, the Mainland/Insular division is equally valid because of mutual intelligibility and the heavy influence from East Scandinavian languages on the historically West Scandinavian Norwegian. I don't know how old it is, but I know it's generally accepted.

<disable lecture mode>

I live Jakobsberg, just north of Stockholm right now, but I grew up on Södermalm and later in the southern suburbs of Hägersten and Älvsjö. I was born in Moscow, having moved back and forth between Sweden and the USSR several times during the 80s, and I have once been fluent in Russian, but never spoken it with my parents, so it's kinda decrepit right now. I'd say my accent is fairly typical of the younger generation of native Stockholmers, but probably influenced by the blander type of Central Standard Swedish spoken by my parents.

Peter 14:02, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation, and thank you for the info about you. I think it is nice to know where people are from when writing an article such as this to know what their view on the Swedish language is. As Alarm hasn't responded I will assume he is from Stockholm just for the heck of it. And Bishonen too, although he/she seems a little more humble than the average Stockholmian :-)

To focus on the article a little -- I assume that you intend to write this article for linguists? I can let you know that if I and people like me had written it, it would have looked quite different. But don't take it as criticism, this is just a statement of facts.

Incidentally I actually was born in Berlin (East). I have met few other Swedish people from the East block. I remember it fondly, and think it was a great place for children because of its innocence and simplicity. I since grew up in Norrköping, Malmö, Trelleborg (9 years), and am now currently living in Malmö again.

--Fred-Chess 19:00, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, you're actually right... I'm from Stockholm, although I did go to university in Gothenburg.

About the article: This being an encyclopedia, my opinion is that the information should be accessible for someone who does not know anything about linguistics, provided this person is prepared to click on some wikilinks to get explanations of the terms used (and possibly again, in the articles on these terms, and then again...). This is why I try to wikilink all relevant terms used. Do point out if you find something totally incomprehensible for the average reader. / Alarm 22:52, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Merging sections

Having thought about it, I think that Peter's proposal above to merge the section "Swedish-speaking minorities" with other sections, primarily "Geographic distribution", is extremely well-founded - especially since it duplicates some of the information given there. I also note that the subsection below "Geographic distribution", "Official status", contains duplicated info from right above this header. (The sections start with "Swedish is the national language of Sweden" and "Swedish is the de-facto national language of Sweden". There's also "In Mainland Finland, where Swedish and Finnish are the official languages" vs "In Finland, Swedish is the second official language alongside Finnish.") I'd suggest all three sections are merged into one, "Geographic distribution and official status". Here's a draft, where I've removed all duplicate info and also trimmed the sections on Ukraine and Estonia:

Swedish is the de-facto national language of Sweden, but does not hold the status of an official language (similarly to English in the United States). It is the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Sweden-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants.

In Mainland Finland, which for centuries was a part of the Kingdom of Sweden, Swedish and Finnish are the official languages. Swedish is spoken as a first language by a relatively small minority of about 5.5% or around 300,000 people. The Finland-Swedish minority is concentrated to the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In these areas, Swedish is often the dominating language. In the Finnish municipality of Korsnäs, 97% of the population is Swedish-speaking. In Korsnäs and the municipality of Larsmo, Swedish is the sole administrative language on the municipal level.

Since an educational reform in the 1970s, both Swedish and Finnish have been compulsory school subjects in Mainland Finland, and until 2004 both were mandatory in the final examinations. Education in the pupil's first language is officially called "mother tongue" – "modersmål" in Swedish or "äidinkieli" in Finnish – and education in the other language is referred to as "the other domestic language" – "andra inhemska språket" in Swedish, "toinen kotimainen kieli" in Finnish.

Swedish is also the sole official language of the Åland Islands, an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland, where 95% of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language.

Formerly, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (Hiiumaa, Saaremaa and Vormsi) along the coast of the Baltic. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of the Baltic territories to Russia in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Swedish speakers were forced to march to Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"), north of the Crimea. A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction.

In Estonia, the small remaining Swedish community was very well treated between the first and second world wars. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, had Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden at the end of World War II when Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union. Only a handful of older speakers remain today.

There are small numbers of Swedish speakers in other countries, such as the United States. Swedish descendants in Brazil and Argentina have maintained a distinction by language and names.

Swedish is one of the official languages of the European Union.

I'm not terribly happy with the last, one-sentence paragraph, but I can't find a better solution right now. I welcome suggestions on this and all other aspects on the proposed restructuring/copyedit.

Also, a few sentences from "Swedish-speaking minorities", namely "Finland was a part of Sweden for some 700 years, and during this period Swedish was the administrative language. In 1892, Finnish was given equal status with Swedish, following Russian determination to isolate the Grand Duchy of Finland from Sweden" should be added to an appropriate part of the History section. / Alarm 18:40, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I got bold again. I simply merged the language minorities-section with Geographic distribution, creating a new Finland-Swedish section and put the rest of the info under the appropriate subsections. As for changing the section structure, it's a very widely used standard and should be complied with as far as I'm concerned. Really long titles for section headers should definetly be avoided, and in this case it's used in most language articles and seems to me as a rather logical one. I'm not entirely sure if Standard Swedish and Finland-Swedish should be seperate sections altogether, but I just don't know where to put them.

In any case, I made the last reference to the HUI poll, and I'm certainly satisfied with the article as it is now. All the issues raised in the Peer Review have been addressed and if there are further requests in the FAC, I think these could be dealt with without much hassle.

Peter 20:45, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

Ok, so there might be need for the "Official status" section header. But the placement of "Former language minorities" is completely illogical, inbetween "Official status" and "Regulatory bodies". Also, if "Finland-Swedish" is to be placed between "Standard Swedish" and "Dialects" I'd expect more on the properties of Finland-Swedish, instead of mainly dealing with the distribution and use of it. (Note that your edit kept the duplication of "In mainland Finland Swedish is spoken as a first language by a relatively small minority of about 5.5% or about 300,000 people" in "Geographic distribution" vs "5.6% of the total population are Swedish speakers" in "Finland-Swedish" that my suggestion above got rid of.) I think both "Finland-Swedish" and "Former language minorities" belong directly under "Geographic distribution", because that's what they're about. I'd suggest a disposition along these lines:

• Geographic distribution
  • • Swedish in Sweden
    • Finland-Swedish
    • Former Swedish minorities in other countries
  • Official status
  • Regulatory bodies
  • Standard Swedish
  • Dialects

Also, the current state of "Former language minorities" has a rather confusing backwards chronology, that begins with the interwar period and then goes on to the 18th century. Also, I the two paragraphs on the subject I proposed above are slightly trimmed, which in my opinion improves them. Could you possibly consider looking at them again? / Alarm 21:41, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Looks like more sub-sections than is actually necessary to me. "Geographic distribution" can cover everything in the current paragraph. What would be the difference, besides creating three extra sub-levels of sub-sections (most of which would contain quite little information)? If it's a problem for layout, I'd much rather move the entire "Former language minorites"-section and put it in "Modern Swedish".

It is a question of where the topic logically belongs. If you're principally opposed to using third-level subsections, we can put it all directly under "Geographic distribution". My main point is that most of the text under "Finland-Swedish" and "Former language minorities" belongs right in the section that talks about where the language is spoken. / Alarm 22:38, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

As for the properties of Finland-Swedish, it would be very difficult to motivate such coverage unless we started describing the much larger dialect groups of Swedish spoken in Sweden. And then we'd definetly have problem with size. It does, however, seems to be important to explain the political status of Finland-Swedish, since it is quite different from Sweden-Swedish.

Actually, that was my point, although I can see I did not express it very clearly. I was merely arguing that with the current placement of the subsection, you might expect that sort of content. It was only intended as an argument for why the topic should be placed directly under "Geographic distribution". I'm not proposing such additions. /Alarm 22:38, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

As for your draft, what exactly is different about it, except that it has three very short paragraphs and conflicts with the standard layout for most language articles?

Peter 22:02, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

I was not asking you to consider the whole of the draft but specifically the two paragraphs on Swedish-speaking minorities in Estonia and Ukraine. (I've now gone back and made them bold for clarity.) I edited the original text, and I think it's better than the current text of "Former language minorities" on two accounts: First, they don't start with the interwar period and then jump back to the 18th century. Secondly, as I wrote above, they've been slightly trimmed, which in my opinion improves them. (It got rid of "the long march", avoided repeating "Ukraine" twice, etc.) Just compare them to the current wording, and you'll see what I mean. / Alarm 22:38, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

• Old requests for peer review
• Misplaced Pages pages with to-do lists