Russian victory
132-647: Sweden The Finnish War ( Swedish : Finska kriget ; Russian : Финляндская война ; Finnish : Suomen sota ) was fought between the Kingdom of Sweden and the Russian Empire from 21 February 1808 to 17 September 1809 as part of the Napoleonic Wars . As a result of the war, the eastern third of Sweden was established as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland within the Russian Empire. Other notable effects were
264-445: A common gender with the definite suffix -en and the definite article den , in contrast with the neuter gender equivalents -et and det . The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number . By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to
396-470: A guttural or "French R" pronunciation in the South Swedish dialects ; consequently, these dialects lack retroflex consonants . Swedish is a stress-timed language, where the time intervals between stressed syllables are equal. However, when casually spoken, it tends to be syllable-timed . Any stressed syllable carries one of two tones , which gives Swedish much of its characteristic sound. Prosody
528-626: A British fleet carrying 14,000 troops under Sir John Moore entered the port of Gothenburg . Due to various disagreements with the Swedish king, however, they never landed and sailed off to fight the French in Spain after leaving 16 battleships and 20 other ships at Sweden's disposal. The Swedish battlefleet which had been expelling Russians from Gotland was ordered to blockade the Hangö Peninsula and reached
660-503: A Swedish flotilla , supported by the local population, compelled the small Russian force left on the main island of Fasta Åland to surrender, and then invaded the island of Kumlinge where the bulk of the Russian garrison on the Åland Islands was based. After a two-hour-long battle, the local militia, together with the Swedish landing force, overwhelmed their enemies and Colonel Vuich and his garrison were compelled to surrender. On May 26,
792-513: A blockade of the Russian fleet at Baltiyskiy Port which continued until the sea started to freeze. The Swedish fleet suffered from outbreaks of scurvy and had been unable to maintain the blockade on its own. Skirmishes and landings continued in the Finnish archipelago from late summer into autumn. On 30 August, the Swedish coastal fleet defeated its Russian adversaries at the Battle of Grönvikssund , forcing
924-522: A change from tauþr into tuþr . Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long, close ø , as in the Old Norse word for "island". By the end of the period, these innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish-speaking area as well, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas. Old Swedish (Swedish: fornsvenska )
1056-518: A conversation. Due to the close relation between the Scandinavian languages, a considerable proportion of speakers of Danish and especially Norwegian are able to understand Swedish. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries , but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish ), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as
1188-756: A further 36,000 in Norway. This forced the Swedes to allocate forces to southern Sweden and along the Norwegian border (23,000 troops). Denmark had declared war on Sweden on 14 March and some battles and skirmishes were fought along the Norwegian border. In April Napoleon began to devote more attention to the situation in Spain, and the British navy remained a continuous threat for troop movements between Denmark and Sweden. By November 1808, Russian forces had overrun all of Finland. On 19 November,
1320-677: A group. According to the 2000 United States Census , some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on the degree of language proficiency. Similarly, there were 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Although there are no certain numbers, some 40,000 Swedes are estimated to live in the London area in the United Kingdom. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. In
1452-588: A joint attack against Denmark , whose Norwegian possessions he coveted. In the meantime, the Royal Navy attacked Copenhagen and the Anglo-Russian War (1807–1812) was declared. Referring to the treaties of 1780 and 1800, the emperor demanded that Gustav Adolf close the Baltic Sea to all foreign warships. Although he reiterated his demand on November 16, 1807, it took two months before the king responded that it
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#17328383042161584-510: A land on the other side of the sea"). According to two 2015 studies by political scientists Jan Teorell and Bo Rothstein, Sweden's loss in the Finnish War led to reforms of the Swedish bureaucracy. Prior to 1809, Sweden had a reputation as one of Europe's most corrupt countries, but the loss in the war created the perception of an existential threat in the east for Sweden and motivated Swedish elites to reform its bureaucracy. The motivation behind
1716-609: A large proportion of the remaining 100,000 in the Scandinavian countries, France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada and Australia. Over three million people speak Swedish as a second language, with about 2,410,000 of those in Finland. According to a survey by the European Commission , 44% of respondents from Finland who did not have Swedish as a native language considered themselves to be proficient enough in Swedish to hold
1848-425: A more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e. g., jag måste tvätta hår et ("I must wash my hair"). Adjectives are inflected in two declensions – indefinite and definite – and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are usually created by adding
1980-435: A noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in
2112-461: A portion of the troops that had been intended to participate in the landing actually reached the Finnish coast, and this resulted in another withdrawal on 28 September. The Swedish situation was further weakened by being at war with France and Denmark, both of whom threatened Sweden's possessions, with a joint invasion force of 45,000 troops in Denmark (under French Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte ) and
2244-667: A special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok , a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and Sweden. From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia , particularly on
2376-442: A suffix ( -t or -a ) to the common form of the adjective, e. g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs"). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e. g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). Swedish pronouns are similar to those of English. Besides
2508-413: A village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak a Swedish dialect and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although their dialect is most likely facing extinction. From 1918 to 1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as
2640-693: Is co- official language . Swedish was long spoken in parts of Estonia , although the current status of the Estonian Swedish speakers is almost extinct. It is also used in the Swedish diaspora , most notably in Oslo , Norway, with more than 50,000 Swedish residents. Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages . In the established classification, it belongs to
2772-477: Is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible. Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. Capitalization during this time
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#17328383042162904-538: Is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles . The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative , a highly variable consonant phoneme . Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number . Nouns are of common gender ( en form) or neuter gender ( ett form). The gender determines
3036-563: Is often one of the most noticeable differences between dialects. The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages , V2 , which means that the finite verb (V) appears in the second position (2) of a declarative main clause . Swedish morphology is similar to English; that is, words have comparatively few inflections . Swedish has two genders and is generally seen to have two grammatical cases – nominative and genitive (except for pronouns that, as in English, also are inflected in
3168-613: Is one of the official languages of the European Union , and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council . Under the Nordic Language Convention , citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for interpretation or translation costs. The Swedish Language Council ( Språkrådet )
3300-475: Is termed nusvenska (lit., "Now-Swedish") in linguistics, and started in the last decades of the 19th century. It saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written form that approached the spoken one. The growth of a public school system also led to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally, "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With
3432-517: Is the predominant language; in 19 municipalities , 16 of which are located in Åland , Swedish is the sole official language. Åland county is an autonomous region of Finland. According to a rough estimation, as of 2010 there were up to 300,000 Swedish-speakers living outside Sweden and Finland. The largest populations were in the United States (up to 100,000), the UK, Spain and Germany (c. 30,000 each) and
3564-450: Is the regulator of Swedish in Sweden but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French . However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up
3696-407: Is the sole official language of Åland (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland), where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland as a whole, Swedish is one of the two "national" languages, with the same official status as Finnish (spoken by the majority) at the state level and an official language in some municipalities . Swedish
3828-621: Is the term used for the medieval Swedish language. The start date is usually set to 1225 since this is the year that Västgötalagen ("the Västgöta Law") is believed to have been compiled for the first time. It is among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script and the oldest Swedish law codes . Old Swedish is divided into äldre fornsvenska (1225–1375) and yngre fornsvenska (1375–1526), "older" and "younger" Old Swedish. Important outside influences during this time came with
3960-457: The Gustav Vasa Bible , a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri . The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to
4092-466: The Battle of Jutas for Sweden on 13 September, Kamensky gained the most important victory at Oravais on 14 September. Swedish attempts to land more troops near Åbo were stalled by Lieutenant-General Pyotr Bagration 's prompt actions. In Eastern Finland, the guerrilla movement was gradually extinguished. As a consequence, Russia's situation in Southern Finland improved significantly. In the north,
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4224-656: The East Scandinavian languages , together with Danish , separating it from the West Scandinavian languages , consisting of Faroese , Icelandic , and Norwegian . However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian (Faroese and Icelandic), and Continental Scandinavian (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish), based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particularly Danish) on Norwegian during
4356-463: The French vous (see T-V distinction ). Ni wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du , the singular second person pronoun, used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these class distinctions became less important, and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though
4488-561: The Grand Duchy of Finland from the territory obtained from Sweden, and would attach the areas gained from Sweden in the 18th century (so-called Old Finland ) to the new Grand Duchy in 1812. The Grand Duchy of Finland was to retain the Gustavian constitution of 1772 with only slight modifications until 1919. Almost all Finnish soldiers in Sweden (most of them in the Umeå area) were repatriated after
4620-633: The Swedish parliament 's adoption of a new constitution and the establishment of the House of Bernadotte , the new Swedish royal house , in 1818. After the Russian Emperor Alexander I concluded the 1807 Treaty of Tilsit with Napoleon , Alexander, in his letter on 24 September 1807 to the Swedish King Gustav IV Adolf , informed the king that the peaceful relations between Russia and Sweden depended on Swedish agreement to abide by
4752-511: The United States , particularly during the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a significant Swedish-speaking immigrant population. This was notably true in states like Minnesota , where many Swedish immigrants settled. By 1940, approximately 6% of Minnesota's population spoke Swedish. Although the use of Swedish has significantly declined, it is not uncommon to find older generations and communities that still retain some use and knowledge of
4884-517: The fourth most spoken Germanic language , and the first among its type in the Nordic countries overall. Swedish, like the other Nordic languages , is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age . It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish , although the degree of mutual intelligibility is dependent on
5016-581: The nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies , dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän , Dalsland , western Värmland , western Dalarna , Härjedalen , Jämtland , and Scania , could be described as intermediate dialects of
5148-410: The object form) – although it is debated if the genitive in Swedish should be seen as a genitive case or just the nominative plus the so-called genitive s , then seen as a clitic . Swedish has two grammatical numbers – plural and singular . Adjectives have discrete comparative and superlative forms and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness . The definiteness of nouns
5280-399: The 1950s, when their use was removed from all official recommendations. A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen . Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr." or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs." or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was considered
5412-478: The 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse , evolved into Old Norse. This language underwent more changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects: Old West Norse (Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden). The dialects of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden are called Runic Swedish , while
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5544-471: The Convention of Olkijoki was signed and the Swedish army was forced to leave the Finnish countryside. The Russian emperor was, however, now eager to bring hostilities to the territory of Sweden proper, which was certain to bring the war to a victorious end. With this objective in mind, Kamensky suggested a daring plan, whereby the Russian army was to cross the frozen Gulf of Bothnia at two locations: one unit
5676-518: The Finnish archipelago, against which Sweden could deploy only 7 galleys and 30 gun sloops. Swedish efforts to harass the Russians with landings continued, with roughly 1,000 volunteers under Captain Anders Gyllenbögel landing on 1 August to support Swedish-led uprisings on the coast south of Vasa. The landing succeeded, and together with Swedish troops advancing from the north, they managed to drive
5808-482: The Finnish archipelago. The Russians utilized the guns from the burned ships, and from those which burned during the winter, and constructed several fortifications on the coast, both in Hangö as well as along narrow passages leading to Åbo. Under Colonel Carl Johan Adlercreutz the Swedish army counter-attacked at Siikajoki and began to halt the Russian offensive. Soon after at the Battle of Revolax (Finnish: Revonlahti ),
5940-464: The Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative [ʃ] and later into [ɧ] . There was also the gradual softening of [ɡ] and [k] into [j] and the fricative [ɕ] before front vowels . The velar fricative [ɣ] was also transformed into the corresponding plosive [ɡ] . The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today
6072-636: The Quartermaster Corps of the Swedish Army, which resulted in him being appointed Quartermaster-General for the army in Finland during the war of 1788–1790 . In this role, he saved the army's supplies at Anjala , which were close to falling into the enemy's hands. In 1799, Klingspor was made a count and in 1800 was awarded the title Lord of the Realm by Gustav IV . In 1802 he was promoted to general and
6204-517: The Russian fleet, which turned and attempted to reach the relative safety of Baltiyskiy Port . The British ships were far superior sailing ships compared to those of either the Swedes or Russians, and engaged the withdrawing Russian squadron (nine ships of the line and several frigates) on their own. The last of the Russian ships of the line was disabled and then captured and burned by the British ships. More Royal Navy ships (including HMS Victory , Mars , Goliath , and Africa ) arrived to oversee
6336-456: The Russians to abandon their plans to invade Åland and concentrate on defense. On 17 September, the Swedes landed again , this time at Lokalax (Finnish: Lokalahti ), while the coastal fleet covering the landing managed to keep the Russians away in the Battle of Palva Sund on 18 September. The troops that landed were forced to withdraw to their ships on 18 September, but landed in Finland again on 26 September. However, owing to bad weather, only
6468-403: The Russians towards Björneborg (Finnish: Pori ). Swedish patrol ships (consisting of armed merchant vessels) scouted and raided the coast, taking Russians prisoners to Åland. These raids caused much confusion, and Russian responses to them thinned their strength along the coast. Also the Swedish southern army of Finland, consisting of roughly 4,000 men under Major General Eberhard von Vegesack ,
6600-508: The Russians were driven from Central Finland, their forces stretched along the line of Pori – Tampere – Mikkeli . Having received considerable reinforcements, their numbers increased to 55,000, as opposed to the 36,000 estimated for Sweden. On 14 August, Count Nikolay Kamensky decided to use this numerical superiority to launch a new offensive. Kamensky's 11,000-strong corps achieved important victories at Kuortane (1 September) and Salmi (2 September), and although Georg Carl von Döbeln won
6732-413: The Swedes had several hundred local men-in-arms. The Russians, however, were able to send reinforcements to the area which were, in addition to being numerically superior, both far better trained and equipped than the peasants and militia the Swedes had raised. By the end of July the small forces Sweden had landed and the men that had supported them were either beaten or withdrawn back to their ships. After
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#17328383042166864-495: The Swedes. The strength of the Swedish coastal forces deployed to the Finnish archipelago was equal in size to the coastal fleet that the Russians had obtained by the Sveaborg surrender. To prevent the Russians from gaining strength, the Swedish coastal fleet's unit under Rear Admiral Claes Hjelmstjerna tried to engage them twice in battle. The first was at the Battle of Rimito Kramp on 30 June, and after Russians withdrew closer to Åbo,
6996-584: The Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the spelling dictionary Svenska Akademiens ordlista ( SAOL , currently in its 14th edition) and the dictionary Svenska Akademiens Ordbok , in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Although the dictionaries have a prescriptive element, they mainly describe current usage. In Finland,
7128-460: The Swedish Navy's failure to tightly block the coastal sea route past Hangö . The 200th anniversary of the war was selected as the main motif for a high value commemorative coin, the €100 200th Anniversary of Finnish War commemorative coin , minted by Finland in 2008. The motif on the coin is the passage of Finland from Sweden to Russia. The same coin depicts both the pre-war Finnish history, with
7260-418: The Swedish army under Colonel Johan Adam Cronstedt started an advance towards the south. These successes yielded a promotion to Field Marshal for Wilhelm Mauritz Klingspor . The Swedish advance was very slow however, as operations were often halted due to the thaw. An exception was the brigade under Colonel Johan August Sandels , which swiftly advanced towards Kuopio . Nikolay Tuchkov , a Russian general who
7392-480: The Swedish blockades in the archipelago, to cut contact between Åland and Sweden, and to stop Swedish supply transports sailing in the Gulf of Bothnia . The Russian fleet reached Hangö on 6 August and chose not to engage the scattered Swedish fleet elements in the vicinity. On 20 August, two British ships of the line ( HMS Implacable and Centaur ) joined the Swedish fleet. The allied fleet moved on 25 August 1808 to engage
7524-455: The Swedish loss. He is also known for participating in the coup of 1809 that dethroned Gustav IV of Sweden . Wilhelm Mauritz Klingspor was a member of the Swedish branch of the Klingspor noble family. He was the son of Christian Fredrik Klingspor (1711–1785) who was vice president of Svea Court of Appeal and who in 1771 had been made a friherre (baron). Already as a child, Klingspor
7656-555: The War Minister Arakcheyev to Finland in order to pressure Knorring into action before joining the army himself. As Russian forces embarked upon their unprecedented march across the frozen gulf, King Gustav IV, accused of fatal mistakes leading to the loss of Finland—was dethroned by a coup in Stockholm on 13 March, and his uncle was proclaimed Charles XIII of Sweden . Four days later, Bagration's corps of 17,000 men occupied
7788-498: The administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of speakers remain. Swedish dialects have either 17 or 18 vowel phonemes , 9 long and 9 short. As in the other Germanic languages, including English, most long vowels are phonetically paired with one of
7920-421: The army continued to be weak under Klingspor, and following the battle of Ruona–Salmi 1–2 September 1808, the campaign was irretrievably lost. At this stage, Klingspor requested ships to transport the army from Finland to mainland Sweden. He then marched on Vaasa , which opened the possibility for the enemy to take a shortcut to Nykarleby and cut off the Swedish march, in case the army would need to continue to
8052-498: The border in Ahvenkoski and took the town of Lovisa (Finnish: Loviisa ). Since Klingspor had not arrived, Lieutenant General Karl Nathanael af Klercker acted as Swedish commander in Finland. He was notified of the Russian invasion already on 21 February and since it was impossible to hold the predefined defense lines as the army had not yet fully assembled, he ordered the army to assemble at Tavastehus (Finnish: Hämeenlinna ). Before
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#17328383042168184-526: The cape on 10 June. Due to bad weather and poor visibility the fleet under Admiral Rudolf Cederström chose to stay relatively far from the coast. Upon approaching the coast on 21 June, Cederström learned that the Russians had already passed the cape some time earlier. Attempts to stop the Russians deeper in the archipelago were also unsuccessful. Failure to block the Russians led the king to relieve Cederström of his duties and replace him with Commander Henrik Johan Nauckhoff . Major General Eberhard von Vegesack
8316-554: The coastal sea route from Russian ships. Total British control of the Gulf of Finland was a large obstacle to the Russian supply network and required sizable garrisons to be posted all along the Finnish coast. The Royal Navy captured 35 Russian ships and burnt 20 others before leaving the Baltic Sea on 28 September 1809. In August, Charles XIII, anxious to improve his position at a peace settlement, ordered General Gustav Wachtmeister to land in
8448-498: The colloquial spoken language of its day, it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography . It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden, which
8580-403: The declension of the adjectives . For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a noun of common gender ( en fisk ) and can have the following forms: The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix ( -en , -n , -et or -t ), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den , det , and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of
8712-501: The dialect and accent of the speaker. Standard Swedish , spoken by most Swedes , is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century, and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties and rural dialects still exist, the written language is uniform and standardized . Swedish is the most widely spoken second language in Finland where its status
8844-527: The dialects of Denmark are referred to as Runic Danish . The dialects are described as "runic" because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet . Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which had only 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes , such as
8976-452: The dismay of Alexander I. The emperor refused to ratify the truce and replaced Buxhoeveden with a new commander-in-chief, Bogdan von Knorring , in December of that year. In the south, the Swedish battle fleet remained anchored within the Finnish archipelago, blocking some of the deeper coastal sea routes from Hangö towards Åbo. Russian ships continued to arrive from the east but remained within
9108-434: The enemy attack during the winter and chose largely to ignore the repeated warnings of the Russian threat he received in early 1808. Most of the Swedish plans assumed that warfare would be impossible during winter, disregarding the lessons from recent wars. In addition, several new good roads had been built into Finland greatly reducing the earlier dependency on naval support for any large operation in Finland. The Swedish plan
9240-399: The engagement started, Klingspor finally arrived on 2 March and assumed command. Instead of facing the Russians at Tavastehus, he ordered the army to withdraw. In Savolax the Russians also forced the Swedes to withdraw. The king was quite unprepared for the attack, especially as war was not declared until April. About 21,000 Swedish troops were stationed in various fortresses in Finland, while
9372-506: The expeditionary force had been authorized to disembark, it would have enabled the Swedes to release at least 10,000 trained soldiers for the Finnish War. As it happened, the bulk of the Swedish army, including the best units, were kept out of the Finnish War by the king, who reserved them for his plans for conquering either Sjælland or Norway. Swedish landings were invariably made with poorly equipped and trained forces, often with troops who had very low morale. Landings were further complicated by
9504-471: The fights ended with a decisive winner, the overall strategic victory went to Russia, who gained advantage in the Finnish archipelago by managing to link up their separate coastal units. Sweden performed several small landings along the coast near Kristinestad (Finnish: Kristiinankaupunki ) and Kaskö (Finnish: Kaskinen ) and managed to raise local men to oppose the Russians. The first occurred on 3 July with several others taking place soon after. Altogether
9636-540: The firm establishment of the Christian church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, Middle Low German became very influential. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of Low German -speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their native languages into
9768-493: The fortifications and first take control of the whole of southern Finland before advancing further to the north. Forces in Savolax (Finnish: Savo ) were to press hard against the Swedes and reach the Gulf of Bothnia towards Uleåborg (Finnish: Oulu ) and Vasa (Finnish: Vaasa ) to cut off the retreat of the main body of the Swedish army. On February 21, 1808, 24,000 Russian troops under Friedrich Wilhelm von Buxhoevden crossed
9900-468: The frozen gulf further north; they entered Umeå on 24 March. The third force, commanded by Count Shuvalov, struck against Torneå and, braving fierce frost, encircled a Swedish army, which capitulated on 25 March. Six days later, the tsar arrived in Åbo and, on learning about the truce, not only revoked Knorring's signature but named Barclay de Tolly as the new commander-in-chief. Hostilities thus continued until May, when Shuvalov finally reached Umeå, where he
10032-576: The headquarters in Hämeenlinna (Tavastehus) 2 March 1808, he ordered the army to retreat. His conduct of the hasty retreat to the north, all the way to Oulu , has been severely criticised. Carl Johan Adlercreutz victory at the battle of Siikajoki 18 April demonstrated weaknesses in the Russian Army and finally convinced Klingspor (who had been made field marshal ) to advance to the south with his army, but did not do so until early June. The command of
10164-430: The industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature . Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the emerging national language, among them prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding , Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg . It
10296-435: The island of Kimito (Finnish: Kemiönsaari ), a Swedish force of gunboats was deployed to the narrows. They met the Russians first at Tallholmen on 21 July and again on 2 August in the Battle of Sandöström . Swedish attempts to land troops and artillery in support of the gunboats at Vestankärr on 2 August ended in failure, though the attempt came very close to capturing General Friedrich Wilhelm von Buxhoeveden . While none of
10428-547: The islands (e. g., Hiiumaa , Vormsi , Ruhnu ; in Swedish, known as Dagö , Ormsö , Runö , respectively) along the coast of the Baltic , communities that today have all disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament , and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine , where they founded
10560-469: The king were an unsuccessful and open-ended mixture of ideas from these very different plans. Russia had gathered a wealth of information from Finland using spies and other sources. The level of detail was so great that Russian maps of Finland were in many respects more accurate than their Swedish counterparts. The Russians used the services of General Georg Magnus Sprengtporten when forming their plans. Sprengtporten suggested going on to an offensive during
10692-454: The landing force. By the morning of 20 June, the Swedish forces were forced to withdraw. In addition, Colonel Johan Bergenstråhle landed 1,100 Swedes just a few kilometers northeast of Vasa on 25 June and managed to quickly advance to the town. The Russians, however, managed to gather a force of 3,000 men which was able to force the ill-trained Swedes to withdraw. The advance of the Russian coastal squadron beyond Hangö created difficulties for
10824-484: The language, particularly in rural communities like Lindström and Scandia . Swedish is the official main language of Sweden. Swedish is also one of two official languages of Finland. In Sweden, it has long been used in local and state government, and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language with no official status in law until 2009. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by
10956-480: The last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars from the 16th to 18th centuries, and
11088-560: The limitations of the Treaty of Tilsit which in practice meant that Sweden would have been required to follow the Continental System . The king, who viewed Napoleon as the Antichrist and Britain as his ally against Napoleon's France , was apprehensive of the system's ruinous consequences for Sweden's maritime commerce. He instead entered into negotiations with Britain in order to prepare
11220-560: The narrowest possible margin (145–147) due to a pairing-off failure. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag , and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Swedish
11352-421: The national standard languages. Swedish pronunciations also vary greatly from one region to another, a legacy of the vast geographic distances and historical isolation. Even so, the vocabulary is standardized to a level that make dialects within Sweden virtually fully mutually intelligible. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish In
11484-509: The north of Sweden and to attack Kamensky's rear. Engagements at Sävar and Ratan proved inconclusive and Kamensky succeeded in neutralizing this belated counter-offensive, following up with a final victory over the Swedes at Piteå. Wachtmeister's action was only a prelude to the peace negotiations that opened in August and resulted in the Treaty of Fredrikshamn (17 September), in which Sweden ceded
11616-424: The north. An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é , as in stæinn to sténn "stone". 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 a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as
11748-529: The north. However, Georg Carl von Döbeln 's victory in the battle of Jutas 13 September 1808 opened the way. The following day, when the Swedish-Finnish army fought the bloody battle of Oravais under the command of Adlercreutz, Klingspor was as usual some distance ahead of the army. After Klingspor had concluded the Truce of Lohteå on 29 September 1808, which meant that the army should retreat to Himanka , he
11880-441: The only acceptable way to begin conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni —the standard second person plural pronoun)—analogous to
12012-402: The original Germanic three- gender system. Nouns , adjectives , pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the extant nominative , there were also the genitive (later possessive ), dative and accusative . The gender system resembled that of modern German , having masculine, feminine and neuter genders. The masculine and feminine genders were later merged into
12144-473: The plan was to avoid major decisive battles. Some advocates existed for taking a more active approach immediately, namely Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Möller (fi) who advocated for taking an immediate offensive and Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt who supported actively delaying the advancing enemies in co-operation with the garrisons on the southern coast. In the end, instructions which the new Swedish commander in Finland, General Wilhelm Mauritz Klingspor , received from
12276-480: The reform was not an act of any centralized political decree, but rather the result of sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years, from the late 1960s to early 1970s. The use of ni as a polite form of address is sometimes encountered today in both the written and spoken language, particularly among older speakers. Swedish is the sole official national language of Sweden , and one of two in Finland (alongside Finnish ). As of 2006, it
12408-618: The reforms were to make the Swedish state more effective and functional, and thus protect against the existential threat in the East. Swedish language This is an accepted version of this page Swedish ( endonym : svenska [ˈsvɛ̂nːska] ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family , spoken predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland . It has at least 10 million native speakers, making it
12540-461: The rest of his army was unable to leave southern Sweden for fear of Danish attack. The Russian advance was swift. On the first day of the war they had captured the town of Lovisa and besieged the Swedish sea fortress of Svartholm . Borgå (Finnish: Porvoo ) was captured on 24 February and Helsingfors (Finnish: Helsinki ) on 2 March. Abandoned Swedish fortifications on the Hangö Peninsula (Finnish: Hanko ) were taken and manned on 21 March and on
12672-413: The rune for the vowel u , which was also used for the vowels o , ø and y , and the rune for i , also used for e . From 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark, creating a series of minor dialectal boundaries, or isoglosses , ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland , Österbotten and northwestern Finland in
12804-559: The same day the Russian army took Åbo (Finnish: Turku ) while a small detachment was sent to Åland . Before the end of March 1808 even Vasa was taken. In Savolax, Russians also advanced rapidly and took Kuopio on 16 March. Swedish forces had mostly just withdrawn before the advancing Russian often destroying usable materials. For example, the Swedish archipelago fleet 's ships that had been docked in Åbo (nearly 50 gun sloops) were torched to prevent their capture. The Swedish fortress of Svartholm, commanded by Major Carl Magnus Gripenberg,
12936-431: The second was a battle at Pukkisaari on 4 July. Fighting ended in a stalemate, but can be viewed as a Swedish failure since they failed to decisively defeat the Russians. Having been alerted to the approach of additional Russian coastal units from Sveaborg, the Swedish forces moved to intercept them before they could link up with the Russian coastal unit now bottled up at Åbo. Learning that the Russians intended to go around
13068-417: The shallow narrows where the Swedish ships of the line could not reach. Small boat actions took place during the night time of 17–18 July which became known as the skirmish at Lövö ( Finnish : Lövön kahakka ). However, the Swedish fleet dropped its blockade on 22 August, allowing the Russian coastal units to unite. Odds were very much against the Swedes as the Russians had nearly one hundred coastal ships in
13200-444: The short /e/ (transcribed ⟨ ɛ ⟩ in the chart below). There are 18 consonant phonemes, two of which, / ɧ / and /r/ , vary considerably in pronunciation depending on the dialect and social status of the speaker. In many dialects, sequences of /r/ (pronounced alveolarly) with a dental consonant result in retroflex consonants ; alveolarity of the pronunciation of /r/ is a precondition for this retroflexion. /r/ has
13332-428: The short vowels, and the pairs are such that the two vowels are of similar quality , but with the short vowel being slightly lower and slightly centralized. In contrast to e.g. Danish, which has only tense vowels, the short vowels are slightly more lax, but the tense vs. lax contrast is not nearly as pronounced as in English, German or Dutch. In many dialects, the short vowel sound pronounced [ɛ] or [æ] has merged with
13464-456: The situation was more complicated. Tuchkov's battered unit strained to hold its own against Sandels, while the progress of a relief force under General Alekseyev was contained by guerrilla fighters. It was not until 26 September that Prince Dolgorukov (Alekseyev's replacement) managed to join his forces with Tuchkov's, inducing Sandels to retreat. Three days later, Buxhoeveden—pressed by the early onset of winter weather—signed an armistice, much to
13596-474: The strategic Åland Islands , while Kulnev led a vanguard further across the frozen sea that on 19 March reached the Swedish shore within 70 km from Stockholm. When news of Kulnev's incursion spread to the Swedish capital, the new king sent an embassy to Knorring, proposing a truce. The Russian commander agreed and speedily recalled Kulnev back to Åland. Meanwhile, the other Russian contingent—5,000 men under Barclay de Tolly —endured great hardship in crossing
13728-539: The strongest of the Swedish fortresses, Sveaborg, still had several of its planned fortifications missing, most notably all the land side fortifications designed to protect against a besieging enemy. In 1808 a British expeditionary force under John Moore arrived in Sweden, but after months of idleness departed for the beginning of the Peninsular War . Had the king accepted the landing of 10,000 British troops in Skåne , where
13860-513: The subject in a clause, a trait that is restricted to North Germanic languages: Wilhelm Mauritz Klingspor Count Wilhelm Mauritz Klingspor (7 December 1744 – 15 May 1814) was a Swedish noble military officer and one of the Lords of the Realm . He is probably best known from his time as field marshal of Finland during the Finnish War , where his command of the Swedish army contributed to
13992-526: The two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ – and sometimes as a' – though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a , and "oe" became o . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä , å and ö . The first time the new letters were used in print
14124-517: The two natural genders han and hon ("he" and "she"), there are also the two grammatical genders den and det , usually termed common and neuter . In recent years, a gender-neutral pronoun hen has been introduced, particularly in literary Swedish. Unlike the nouns, pronouns have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form. Hon , for example, has the following nominative, possessive, and object forms: Swedish also uses third-person possessive reflexive pronouns that refer to
14256-439: The vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration, general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. The League also brought a certain measure of influence from Danish (at the time Swedish and Danish were much more similar than today). Early Old Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and also retained
14388-428: The war with a garrison of 6,000 men, over 700 cannons, and enough stores to last until the summer of 1808. Defenses were strong enough to prevent the Russians from trying to storm the fortress by surprise. Instead the Russians laid siege to Sveaborg . The fortress surrendered on 6 May 1808 after prolonged negotiations with the Russians as the commanding officer Carl Olof Cronstedt and his council believed that resistance
14520-521: The war. Sufficient stocks of supplies had not been prepared for the Swedish army, since King Gustaf IV Adolf thought it might be taken as provocative by the Russians. Furthermore, Swedish strategy relied on the outdated plans for Finland which took into account neither the advances in weaponry, mobility of the armed forces or the greatly improved road networks of Finland. Most of the fortifications in Finland had not been completed and those that were completed had mostly fallen into neglect and disrepair. Even
14652-503: The whole of Finland and all of its domains east of the Torne river (the north-eastern parts of what was then called Västerbotten , today Norrbotten ) to Russia. Sweden then joined the Continental System and closed its harbours to British ships, leading to a formal declaration of war on Great Britain . A few months later, on 6 January 1810, the Russian government mediated the Treaty of Paris between Sweden and France. Russia would create
14784-448: The winter since Finland would be mostly isolated when seas were frozen. His ideas were further developed by General Jan Pieter van Suchtelen before General Friedrich Wilhelm von Buxhoeveden was appointed as the commander of the Russian army in Finland in December 1807. The plan involved using the series of fortifications built after 1790 as staging grounds for the Russian advances into Finland. In southern Finland, armies were to isolate
14916-436: The withdrawing Swedish crown on the reverse side, and the post-war future of the country, with the Russian eagle symbol on the obverse side. In memory of the 200th anniversary of the Finnish War, all Swedish 1 krona coins minted during 2009 featured a stylised depiction of the sky and the sea on the reverse side, flanked by a quote by Anton Rosell: Den underbara sagan om ett land på andra sidan havet ("The wonderful story of
15048-517: Was chosen to lead the first Swedish army to Finland. He was to lead a force of 2,600 men, land somewhere between Nystad (Finnish: Uusikaupunki ) and Åbo , and then capture the latter. Von Vegesack instead chose to land his force at the Lemo (Finnish: Lemu ) manor house a few kilometers south of Åbo. The landing began on 19 June and was initially successful. The surprised Russians garrisoned at Åbo reacted quickly, however, and deployed over 3,000 men to stop
15180-471: Was dispatched to the north of Finland, left garrisons in every fort along his way. This reduced his unit to 4,000 troops, which proved insufficient to pacify the hostile country. The Finns rose up in guerrilla fighting as far east as Frederikshamn (Finnish: Hamina ) within the Old Finland province of Russia. In May, the Russians suffered further setbacks when they were driven from Gotland and Åland, where
15312-484: Was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography finally stabilized and became almost completely uniform, with some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish of today. The plural verb forms appeared decreasingly in formal writing into
15444-527: Was futile. The Russians gained the main body of the Swedish archipelago fleet intact as well as large stores of supplies and munitions. The Russians had advanced considerably but they had also gained the long and vulnerable coastline with it. After the sea would be clear of ice there would be nothing to prevent Swedish forces from landing troops on the shore. With the Royal Navy supporting the Swedish Navy there
15576-627: Was given the rank of corporal in the Västergötland Cavalry Regiment , and as a young man he served in several French regiments during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). In 1763 he returned to Sweden and made a career in the Swedish Army. In 1779 he was made a colonel and commander of the Västerbotten Regiment . In 1789 he was promoted to major general and in 1790 to lieutenant general . Klingspor had made impressive efforts in
15708-412: Was ill-prepared for a war. While the garrison was 700 men strong, only a third of the men had actually functioning weapons, while most of the fortress' guns had no carriages. The fortress had fallen into disrepair and lacked both adequate food and ammunition stores. Even the wells were found to be unusable. After starting the siege on 21 February, the Russians issued a surrender demand for the fort, but this
15840-580: Was impossible to honor the previous arrangements as long as the French were in control of the major Baltic ports. King Gustav Adolf did this after securing an alliance with Britain on 8 February 1808. Meanwhile, on 30 December 1807 Russia announced it would be forced to act should Sweden not give a clear reply. Although most Swedish officers were sceptical about their chances in fighting the larger and more experienced Imperial Russian Army , Gustav Adolf had an unrealistic view of Sweden's ability to defend itself against Russia. In Saint Petersburg , his stubbornness
15972-636: Was in Aff dyäffwlsens frästilse ("By the Devil's temptation") published by Johan Gerson in 1495. Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska ) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation . After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible . The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as
16104-494: Was little the Russian Baltic Fleet could accomplish. Capture of the main body of the Swedish archipelago fleet had resulted in a real advantage to the Russians since it allowed them to gain superiority in the narrow waters of the Finnish archipelago where large ships of the line could not operate. Even the powerful explosion at Sveaborg which destroyed several of the captured ships did little to change Russian superiority in
16236-423: Was made commanding general ( general en chef ) in Finland. When the Finnish War broke out in 1808, Klingspor turned out to lack suitable experience or temperament to fulfill the role of commanding general in wartime. His instructions were to prioritise saving his army, but also to stop and delay the enemy as far as possible. He interpreted this instruction to mean that he should retreat in haste and having arrived to
16368-419: Was moved from Åland to Finland, and landed at Kristinestad in late autumn, joining with von Döbeln's forces. However, since von Vegesack had been ordered to land his men at Björneborg , the king, after pursuing the matter unsuccessfully in military tribunals, condemned von Vegesack to lose his rank and title. A Russian battle fleet under Admiral Pyotr Khanykov (also Chanikoff ) sortied in late July to clear
16500-519: Was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface that was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often Antiqua ). Some important changes in sound during
16632-415: Was refused by the Swedes. The demand was repeated on 2 March but without success. After a meager Russian bombardment, Gripenberg agreed to negotiations on 10 March. The fortress surrendered to the Russians on 18 March after a siege that had lasted roughly a month, with just one man having been wounded in action. Sveaborg (Finnish: Suomenlinna ) under Admiral Carl Olof Cronstedt had been well prepared for
16764-420: Was relieved of his command in a harshly worded decision. Following the coup of 1809 , which Klingspor participated in, he became a member of the new government. Together with Adlercreutz and Georg Adlersparre he received the thanks of the parliament of the estates following the coup. In 1809, he was made Governor of Stockholm , but was removed from this position in 1810 after his passivity failed to prevent
16896-501: Was succeeded by Kamensky. A British Royal Navy fleet under Admiral James Saumarez had arrived in Sweden in May and he concentrated his ships, 10 ship of the line and 17 smaller ships, to the Gulf of Finland. The presence of the British naval units kept the Russian battlefleet strictly confined to Kronstadt , and after the British constructed artillery batteries to the Porkkala cape they cut off
17028-423: Was the sole native language of 83% of Swedish residents. In 2007, around 5.5% (c. 290,000) of the population of Finland were native speakers of Swedish, partially due to a decline following the Russian annexation of Finland after the Finnish War 1808–1809. The Fenno-Swedish - speaking minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish
17160-472: Was to first passively defend and hold on to the fortifications in the southern coast of Finland, in which Sweden had strong garrisons, while the rest of the Swedish Army retreated to the north. Then in the spring, counterattack simultaneously from north and south, when the Swedish army would have naval support and the Russian army would be spread over Finland and thus have long supply lines. The basic reason for
17292-418: Was to march from Vasa towards Umeå and the other from Åbo to Åland and thence towards the vicinity of Stockholm . A third unit was to advance into Sweden by land, going around the gulf and through the town of Torneå (Finnish: Tornio ). Although Knorring was urged to execute the plan as quickly as possible, he regarded the idea as unrealistic and procrastinated until March, when the emperor dispatched
17424-507: Was viewed as a convenient pretext for Russia to occupy Finland , thus pushing the Russo-Swedish frontier considerably to the west of the Russian capital and safeguarding it in case of any future hostilities between the two powers. The situation was problematic for Sweden, since it once again faced both Denmark and Russia as potential enemies requiring the Swedes to split their forces. The king had thought it impossible to defend Finland should
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