Swedish Language and Literature

SWEDISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. Old Swedish was spoken in (I) Sweden, except the most northerly part (Lappish and Finnish), the most southerly (Sickle, Halland and Blekinge) and certain parts of western Sweden ; (2) maritime tracts of Finland, Estonia and Livonia, with their surrounding islands; and (3) certain places in Russia. A number of words, almost exclusively personal names (nearly too), were introduced into the Russian language at the foundation of the Russian realm by Swedes (in 862), and preserved in two Russian documents of the years 911 and 944, though for the most part somewhat in fluenced by Russian phonetic laws. Of about the same date, are the runic inscriptions, amounting in number to about 2,000 cut on stones (rarely wood, metal or other materials) almost all over Sweden, most frequently (about half of the total number) in the province of Uppland. For the most part they occur on tombstones or monuments in memory of deceased relatives ; rarely they are public notices. Their form is often metrical, in part at least. These inscriptions vary in age, belonging to all centuries of Old Swedish, but by far the greatest number of them date from the I 1th and 12th centuries. The oldest are perhaps the Ingelstad inscrip tion in Ostergotland, the Sparlosa inscription in Vastergotland, and the Gursten one found in the north of Smaland, all probably from the end of the 9th century. The rune-stone from Rok in ostergot land probably dates from about A.D. 900. Its inscription surpasses all the others both in length (more than 75o runes) and in the im portance of its contents; it is a fragment (partly in metrical form) of an Old Swedish heroic tale. From the beginning of the 12th century is the remarkable inscription on the door-ring of the church of Forsa in Helsingland, containing the oldest Scandinavian statute now preserved, as well as other inscriptions from the same province, written in a particular variety of the common runic alphabet, the so-called "stafliisa" (staifiess, without the perpen dicular staff) runes, as the long genealogical inscription on the Nalstad-stone. Of runic literature nothing has been preserved to

our days. The literature in the Latin letters is in quality and extent inferior to Old Icelandic, though it, in quantity, consider ably surpasses Old Norwegian. In age, it begins only in the 13th century. The oldest of the extant manuscripts is a fragment of the Older Vastgotalaw, written about the year 125o. A complete codex (Cod. Holm. B 59) of the same law dates from about 1285. The very numerous Old Swedish charters, from 1343 downwards, are also of great importance.

Form of the Language.

Old Swedish, during its earliest pre literary period (800-1225), retains quite as original a character as contemporary Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian. The formal changes of the language during this period are, generally, such as appear about the same time in all the members of the group—as the change of soft R into common r and the change of Si) into st (in the loth century raispi, later rceisti, raised) ; or are, at least, com mon to it with Norwegian—as the dropping of h before 1, n and r (in the loth century hrauR, younger, ror, cairn), and the changing of nasal vowels (the long ones latest) into non-nasalized. But dur ing the classical period of Old Swedish (1225-1375), the time of the later runic inscriptions and the oldest literature, the language is already distinctly separate from the (literary) Icelandic-Nor wegian (though not yet very much from Danish). As innovations in Swedish :—d is inserted between 11 (nn) and a following r (as b between m and 1, r, and p between m and t, n); an auxiliary vowel is inserted between final r and a preceding consonant ; a in terminations is often changed into a; a u in the final syllable causes no change of a preceding a; the present tense takes the vowel of the infinitive (and the preterite subjunctive that of pret erite indicative plural). There were other important changes.