<P> Swedish is the official language of Sweden and is spoken by the vast majority of the 10 million inhabitants of the country . It is a North Germanic language and quite similar to its sister Scandinavian languages, Danish and Norwegian, with which it maintains partial mutual intelligibility and forming a dialect continuum . </P> <P> For most of its history, Sweden was a larger country than today . At its height in 1658, the Swedish Empire comprised the territories of what is Finland and Estonia as well as parts of Russia, Latvia, Germany, Denmark and Norway . Hence, Sweden's linguistic landscape has historically been very different from that of today . </P> <P> Swedish evolved from Old Norse around the 14th and 15th century, and historically, the Swedish dialects were generally much more different than today . Since the 20th century Standard Swedish prevails throughout the country . The Scandinavian languages constitute a dialectal continuum and some of the traditional Swedish dialects could equally be described as Danish (Scanian) or Norwegian (Jamtlandic). </P> <P> Finnish was the majority language of Sweden's eastern parts, though it was used almost exclusively as a spoken language . These areas were also home of a significant Swedish - speaking minority . Finnish became a minority language in the west as well since many Finnish speakers migrated there (mostly for economic reasons). </P>

When did swedish become the official language of sweden