Stockholm dialects

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Stockholmska, the Stockholm dialects, are the forms of Swedish spoken in Stockholm. There isn’t a single exact definition because the city’s cosmopolitan mix brings many influences and its highly urban setting makes the dialect change quickly compared with rural areas.

Some endings are typical in Stockholm speech. When windmills were named, they often had feminine endings in -an. For example, a windmill owned by a Dutch person would be Holländskan (“the Dutchwoman”). The -an ending later spread to other places, so Kungsträdgården became Kungsan and bibliotek became bibblan.

Another ending is -is from Latin, used roughly as a diminutive or to add familiarity, as in Medis (Medborgarplatsen) or Rålis (Rålambshovsparken). Some words, such as dagis for daghem (“preschool”), have spread into everyday Swedish.