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Swedish is a North Germanic language spoken predominantly in Sweden, part of Finland, and on the autonomous Åland islands, by a total of over 9 million speakers. Standard Swedish is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well-established by the first decades of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties still exist, influenced by the older rural dialects, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized, with a 99% literacy rate among adults. Some of the genuine dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and spoken by a rather limited group of people of low education and social mobility. Swedish is distinguished by its prosody, which differs considerably between varieties. It includes both lexical stress and some tonal qualities. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a sound found in many dialects, including the more prestigious forms of the standard language.

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