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DEMOGRAPHY OF SWEDEN.
10 L
2. DEMOGRAPHY OF SWEDEN.
The nation which inhabits and which, from what has been shown
in the preceding pages, has for at least six thousand years
uninterruptedly possessed the land of Sweden belongs to the Germanic branch
of the Arian family of nations, and to the particular division of
that branch, which is called the Scandinavian nations. The last-named
peoples, who are so nearly related to each other that they mutually
understand each other’s language, embrace, on the whole, a number
of about 13 million souls; of these, somewhat more than 21/s millions are
settled in the United States of North America, 1/s million live in
Pin-land, which formerly belonged to Sweden, and V& million, in North
Schleswig, once belonging to Denmark. The remainder, somewhat 10
millions of people, inhabit the three Scandinavian kingdoms of northern
Europe: Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, of which countries, Sweden
possesses somewhat more than 5 million inhab. and Norway and
Denmark, each between 2 à 2V» millions. Besides these, somewhere about
one hundred thousand Scandinavians live on the distant islands of Färöe
and Iceland, belonging to Denmark.
The total number of the Swedish people must, at present, amount
to about 7 millions of souls, if we include l1/» million Swedes in
America, of which latter number a great part will doubtlessly soon
have exchanged the Swedish language for English. Of the Swedes in
Europe, about 370,000 live in Finland and perhaps about 100,000 in
all other European countries (of this number, there are at least 40,000
in Norway, and in Denmark probably nearly as many); the remainder,
somewhat more than 5 million people, inhabit the kingdom of Sweden.
As, besides the people of the Swedish race, Sweden possesses but
about 20,000 Finnish inhabitants, 7,000 Lapps, and perhaps about 20,000
foreigners of different nations, our land can with reason be said to
boast of a rare degree of ethnographical homogeneity.
The Swedish language has developed itself into a specific one out of
the tongue that about a thousand years ago was spoken in common throughout
Scandinavia. The first era in the history of our language is generally termed
the Runic period (till about 1200); Swedish of that time is known merely through
the runic inscriptions, which, as a rule, are rather stereotyped. The era of early
or Classic Old Swedish extends over the period of 1200/1350; during that time,
the language is, on the whole, free from foreign influence, and the written
language shows an unconstraint testifying to its having only inconsiderably
diverged from the spoken one. During the era of Later Old Swedish (1350,1500)
the written language developed itself more independently of the spoken one, on
the basis of the dialect of Östergötland (notice the Folkunga dynasty and Vadstena
cloister) but, at the same time, under strong ascendency of middle Low German
(through the German burghers in the towns). Towards the end of this period,
Central Sweden regained its political weight, which is obvious also in the
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