ABSTRACT
Swedish is spoken by around 10 million people, which means that it is not a major world language. Nevertheless, it is still a language spoken by a relatively large number of people, coming 85th out of about 6,000 languages spoken in the world. Swedish is spoken in a geographically clearly distinct and restricted area; it is the language of more than 90% of people living in Sweden and about 5% of those living in Finland, where it is also an official language. It is also a language that has been cultivated and studied assiduously over the centuries, possessing standardised spelling conventions and reliable reference books in the form of dictionaries and grammars. Swedish has a rich literature and is used in a wide range of literary and technical fields.
