Swedish, Finland, Older

Introduction

Finnish Swedish is linguistic variety of Standard Swedish language. It is spoken in Finland, and there are big differences between the different dialects.

The language cited here is refers to the written in the 19th century. The information is based on a study of the diary of a Swedish speaking priest that was born close to Borgå (Porvoo), studied in Porvoo and Åbo (Turku) and worked in a parish in Gustav Adolfs (Hartola). The diaries were written 1818-1820.

This page focuses in the differences of the past tense between Finnish Swedish and contemporary standard Swedish spoken in Sweden.

The verb

The verb is inflected in the same tenses as standard Swedish.

Finnish Swedish has the following :

• Many verbs belonging to 1st conjugation are in inflected in past like 2nd conjugation verbs
• Some verbs are inflected like strong verbs while they are weak in Standard Swedish

As a whole it seems that Finnish Swedish from 19th century preserves features that started to vanish from Standard Swedish in the 18th century.

Differences between 1st and 2nd conjugation

The following table illustrates the differences in past tense, where the difference is that Finnish Swedish conjugates verbs accorging to 2nd conugation.

Verb	Standard Swedish	Finnish Swedish
låfva	låfvade	låfte
smaka	smakade	smakte
(be)svara	(be)svarade	(be)svarte
predika	predikade	predikte / predikade1
spatsera	spatserade	spatserte

Differences between strong and weak verbs

The following table illustrates the differences in past tense, where the difference is that Finnish Swedish conjugates verbs as strong verbs and Standard Swedish as weak.

Verb	Standard Swedish	Finnish Swedish
läsa	läste	las
viga	vigde	veg

References

• Lehti-Eklund, Hanna. Verbböjningen i svenskan i Finland på 1800-talet . Under språkets hud [festskrift till erik andersson]. Åbo, 2008.