Från Nyens skans till Nya Sverige : Språken i det Svenska Riket under 1600-talet

The papers in this volume are based on presentations given at a symposium at Uppsala University in 2007. In the 17th century, Swedish was the everyday language of a majority of the population in Sweden proper and the main language of government, but several other languages were also used in speech, in writing, or in both.

The population of Sweden proper included speakers of language varieties now considered dialects of Swedish, but also indigenous minority groups speaking entirely different languages, such as the Saami. There were also groups inhabiting territories that had been part of Sweden for several centuries, like Finland, and territories that gradually had been incorporated into the Swedish realm when Sweden emerged as a great European power. Numerous immigrants contributed not only to the development of the growing administrative and military apparatus, to economy, research, and higher education, but also to the linguistic diversity of 17th century Sweden.