Language Planning in Sweden

This article discusses language planning in Sweden. The Swedish Academy has as its goal to develop the purity, strength and nobility of the Swedish language by means of dictionaries, grammars, and the codification of vocabulary. Sweden also has a National Language Committee, one of a network of such committees existing in the Scandinavian countries. They are the result of the political, economic, cultural, and social connections between the Nordic countries, and they cooperate with each other in matters of language planning and cultivation. The principal field of activity is general usage, but the language of the sciences and of special professions is also handled. To this end, Sweden has the Center for Technical Terminology. The Swedish Language Committee has members representing five universities, the Swedish Academy and various royal academies, the public schools, the broadcasting companies and the press, writers, and theatres. The Committee follows the development of spoken and written Swedish, and carries out language planning and cultivation activities. Its main scientific interest is in the changes in modern Swedish. The publications of the Committee cover a wide field of linguistic and language planning topics, and include dictionaries, and a quarterly. Other private language associations described concern themselves with language cultivation. (CLK)