Swedish What to Know

Swedish Language

* Official language of Sweden

* Also spoken in parts of Finland, Estonia and Åland

* North Germanic language

* Closely related to Norwegian and Danish

* Approximately 10 million speakers worldwide

* Ranked as the 15th most spoken language in the European Union

* Written using the Latin alphabet

* Includes 29 letters, including å, ä and ö

* Grammar

* Relatively complex, with many declensions and conjugations

* Word order is subject-verb-object

* Vocabulary

* Many words are derived from Old Norse

* Has also borrowed words from German, French and English

Interesting Facts

* Swedish is the official language of the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in Literature.

* The Swedish language has a long history, with the earliest written records dating back to the 13th century.

* Swedish is the second most spoken language in Finland, after Finnish.

* There are an estimated 300,000 Swedish speakers in the United States.

* Swedish is one of the most popular languages to learn in the world, due to its cultural and economic importance.