Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Versions of Swedish

I listened to Swedish radio online the other day and the host was speaking a very distinct Swedish dialect. That made me think about dialects as phenomena. I googled some and found out that the Swedish language, with its approximately 9 million speakers, has 20 different "dialect areas" (including the Swedish speaking parts of Finland).

You can even listen to examples online!

Unfortunately they didn't have any examples of "Stockholmska" - the Swedish dialect I kind of speak...

I wonder what my kids Swedish dialect will be... "Swedish Californian dialect"? Or "Dolph Lundgren"-Swedish...??

Ok, got to go - got to turn on some Swedish children's' DVDs!

3 comments:

Annika said...

Oh brother...it is hard to leave comments on blogger today. Again.

I really know the dialects of the Swedish speaking parts of Finland. Quite unique. I am thinking about puttin a dialect link on my blog. Kind of fun, fun with all the different dialects!

Joe said...

This reminds me of a book I read (I think Bill Bryson) where he talks about the fact that even though Britain is a fairly small island, it seems to have infinitely more dialects than the United States, and the reasons for that.

Nice blog by the way -- just stumbled upon it. I think I could use some Swedish children's DVDs för att öva min svenska...

JaCal said...

Annika - yes - wasn't it a fun site! I listened to the Närpes dialect!

Kusala - hi and welcome to my blog, glad you like it! I love Bill Bryson, I have read all his books. Laughed a lot at "I'm a stranger here myself" a couple of months after we moved to the US!