Swedish Language and Literature

The borrowed words are chiefly ecclesiastical and of Latin and Greek origin. At the middle of the 14th century the literary lan guage develops to a "rikssprdk," a uniform language, common to a certain degree to the whole country. The language at this period is deluged with borrowed words of Low German origin, mostly social and industrial terms. Towards the end of the period a powerful Danish influence extends also to phonetics and etymol ogy, so that nearly all the terminal vowels are supplanted by the uniform Danish e, the hard consonants p, t, k by b, d, g as in Danish, the second person plural of the imperative ends in –er, besides –en (as tagher, for taghen, older takin).

Dialects.

Dialectical differences occur in the runic inscrip tions and in the literature. One distinct dialect, that of the island of Gottland, differs so essentially from the Old Swedish of the mainland that it has been characterized, under the name Forngut niska, as in a sense a separate language. Materials for its study are abundant : more than 200 runic inscriptions, and, in literature a runic calendar from 1328, the law of the island (the oldest manuscript is from about 135o), and a piece of traditional history. The language is distinguished from the Old Swedish of the main land by the following characteristics :—the old diphthongs are preserved and a triphthong has arisen by the change of iu into iau; the long vowels a and 0 have passed into a and (as mela, to speak, dfrita, to deem) ; short o rarely occurs except before r, being in other positions changed into u; w is dropped before r (as rail* wrath) ; the genitive singular of feminines in –a ends in –ur for –u (as kirkiur, of the church).

While the definite beginnings of Swedish literature can hardly be set back to a period farther distant than the 13th century, there is evidence, in the shape of runic inscriptions in which Sweden is extraordinarily rich—the most interesting being the Rokstene in East Gotland—that she had her share in the imagina tive life of Scandinavia which finds its fullest expression in the early poetry of Iceland. But the Swedish middle ages were ver itably dark ages ; they are illumined only fitfully by light reflected from the mainland of Europe. The Church did not become a vital force until the middle ages were far advanced, while the orders of knighthood found their way too late to Sweden, and were too ill adapted to conditions there, to take any real root. From 1200 on, however, Swedish students visited in surprising numbers the great centres of European learning, and on their return home founded schools.

The great figure of mediaeval Sweden is St. Brigitta (13o3-73), the founder of the monastery of Vadstena on Lake Vener. Her writings, which are exclusively in Latin and consist of accounts of her visions and revelations, were printed at Libeck in 1492. Her confessor, Mattias (d. 135o), compiled a Latin Bible con cordance, which is lost, and he may also have been the author of a paraphrase of part of the Old Testament. Swedish mysticism in the 13th century had a prominent representative in Petrus de Dacia (c. 1235-89), and Swedes contributed to the Latin hymn poetry of the middle ages. There are Swedish versions—the so called Eufemiavisor—of Crestien de Troyes' Chevalier au lion (1302), of a now lost German romance of Duke Frederick of Normandy (1308) and of Flores and Blanscheflor; not until 138o do we find another romance of this type, Konung Alexander. These, to which should be added some prose romances of the later time (Didrikssagan, Historia Trojan, Karl Magnus), are practically all Sweden's contribution to the literature of chivalry.

The most pleasing aspect of Swedish mediaeval literature is the folksong or folkvisa. This she shares with the other Scandinavian lands, particularly the songs on mythic themes and the so-called kiimpavisor of presumably historical origin. Particularly interest ing are the Swedish riddarvisor, while the dance-songs, so charac teristic of the North, seem to have been cultivated in Sweden long after they had died out in Denmark. The early prose literature consists here, as in other lands, of legal codes and chronicles. The Elder West G6ta Law (Aldre V astgotalagen) is preserved in a ms. of the end of the 13th century; and other similar codes (Upplands lagen,SOdermannalagen, etc.) date from the 14th. Much the most interesting juridical work of the early time is Um styrilsi kununga ok hofthinga (On the Conduct of Kings and Princes), which dates from the 13th century, although not printed until 1634. Besides Latin chronicles there is one in the vernacular, Erikskronika, dealing with the period from about 125o to 1319; this was fol lowed by others and finally by the three Sturekronikorna, which bring the record of events down to 1496. The oldest work which may be definitely described as history is the Prosaiska krdnikan of the 15th century and the Latin Chronica Regni Gothorum of Erik Olai (d. 1486), the father of Swedish historiography.