Svenska, as the Swedes call
their language, is spoken by the approximately
8 million inhabitants of Sweden, as well as another
300,000 people in Finland. It belongs to the North
Germanic sub-group of the Indo-European language
family (English is in the West
Germanic sub-group), which includes Danish, Norwegian,
Icelandic, and Faroese. It is extremely similar
to Danish and Norwegian,
especially in written form. Its grammar and syntax
are very similar to English, more so than German
or French. Many Swedish words are easily recognizable
by English speakers, and even more so by German
speakers
