Editing Swedish language (section)

===Contemporary Swedish===
[[File:Dem-dom.jpg|thumb|right|A sign on the wall of a Swedish hotel, using both the recommended<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Svanlund |editor-first1=Jan  |title=Språkriktighetsboken |date=2013 |publisher=Svenska språknämnden and Norstedts |isbn=978-91-1-304370-8 |pages=210–211 |edition=2}}</ref> {{lang|sv|dem}} and the colloquial {{lang|sv|dom}} for the word "them" on the same sign.]]
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed {{lang|sv|nusvenska}} (lit., "Now-Swedish") in linguistics, and started in the last decades of the 19th century. It saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written form that approached the spoken one. The growth of a state school system also led to the evolution of so-called {{lang|sv|boksvenska}} (literally, "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on [[Swedish literature]]. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the emerging national language, among them prolific authors like the poet [[Gustaf Fröding]], Nobel laureate [[Selma Lagerlöf]] and radical writer and playwright [[August Strindberg]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Josephson|2005|loc=chapter 2}}</ref>

It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography finally stabilized and became almost completely uniform, with some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906.<ref>{{cite book |title=Sociolinguistics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MGl35Q3W5twC&pg=PA1751 |year=2006 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-019987-1 |page=1751}}</ref> With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish of today. The plural verb forms appeared decreasingly in formal writing into the 1950s, when their use was removed from all official recommendations.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Taavitsainen |first1=Irma |last2=Melchers |first2=Gunnel |last3=Pahta |first3=Päivi |title=Writing in Nonstandard English |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5cQ9AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA302|year=2000 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |isbn=978-90-272-9903-1 |page=302}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Bandle|first1=Oskar |last2=Braunmuller|first2=Kurt |last3=Jahr|first3=Ernst Hakon|title=The Nordic Languages|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6b7WwBC5tRAC&pg=PA1805|year=2005|publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-017149-5|page=1805}}</ref>

A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s with the so-called {{Lang|sv|[[du-reformen]]}}. Previously the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of {{lang|sv|herr}} ("Mr" or "Sir"), {{lang|sv|fru}} ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or {{lang|sv|fröken}} ("Miss") was considered the only acceptable way to begin conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with {{lang|sv|ni}}—the standard [[Grammatical person|second person plural]] pronoun)—analogous to the [[French language|French]] {{lang|fr|vous}} (see [[T-V distinction]]). {{lang|sv|Ni}} wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of {{lang|sv|du}}, the second person singular pronoun, used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these class distinctions became less important and {{lang|sv|du}} became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decree but rather the result of sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years, from the late 1960s to early 1970s.<ref>Nationalencyklopedin, ''du-tilltal'' and ''ni-tilltal''</ref> The use of {{lang|sv|ni}} as a polite form of address is sometimes encountered today in both the written and spoken language, particularly among older speakers.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Holmes|first1=Philip|last2=Hinchliffe|first2=Ian|title=Swedish: An Essential Grammar|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XGasMbSR-8gC&pg=PA86|year=2008|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-45800-9|page=86}}</ref>