Talk:History of Swedish

Untitled
Plural forms of verbs disappeared from the WRITTEN language in the mid-20th century. They disappeared from SPOKEN language long before that. I think it was centuries ago but I am not sure.

2007-02-16 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Now I have some idea of when the plural forms of verbs disappeared from spoken Swedish. When Agneta Horn wrote her diary she wrote with plural forms of the verbs. In a time when there was no agreement on how to spell in Swedish she had the good habit of spelling phonetically. In her time it was common to write with the same word order as German. If Agneta had followed that rule she would have written “ala rädh wore” which means “everyone afraid where”. Instead she used the same word order as present-day Swedish: “ala wore rädh” which means “everyone where afraid”. (In present-day Swedish we would say “alla var rädda”.) So I think the grammar of her texts reflects spoken Swedish at the time. I am not sure which years hear diary covers. But if I remember it correctly she mentioned that she attended the abdication of queen Christina of Sweden which was in 1654. So we can say that the diary was written in the mid-17th century. On the other hand Carl Michael Bellman wrote without plural forms of the verbs when he tried to capture contemporary spoken Swedish in his songs. He lived between 1740 and 1795. Consequently, the plural forms of verbs disappeared from spoken Swedish somewhere between the later half of the 17th and the mid-18th centuries. Anyone who knows it more exactly?

2009-04-17 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.


 * You're perfectly right. I would like to know the date when that grammar reform removing the number/person forms of the ver were removed. My books from the 1940:s or earlier retain those inflections. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 06:25, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I think writing the verbs without plural forms gradually become more and more acceptable. Selma Lagerlöf was among the first to consistently write without plural forms. I think it had become the norm by the 1950ies. My point is that the plural forms of verbs disappeared from spoken Swedish approximately two centuries earlier. This grammatical difference between spoken and written Swedish did cause some trouble. A classical example is the guy who wrote “våren äro här” (“the spring are here”) when it should be “våren är här” (“the spring is here”). Anyone who can verify my approximation?

2010-05-14 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Proposal to merge with Swedish language
This article was originally copied from Swedish language and is still essentially identical to the content there. After consulting with User:Donarreiskoffer, who created this article, we've both agreed that the info here should be re-merged into a single article to avoid having the same text in two different locations. So unless there is some compelling reason to keep this article, I plan to merge the info here back into the Swedish language article in the next few weeks. –panda (talk) 05:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:History of English which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:45, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:History of English which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 13:16, 31 July 2020 (UTC)