Languages of Sweden
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. Five "national minority languages" are also recognized by Swedish law: Finnish, Yiddish, Meänkieli, Romani and Sami.
Swedish language
In a poll conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ("Handelns Utredningsinstitut"), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that "rikssvenska" was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though dialects such as "gotländska" or "skånska" were provided as alternatives in the poll.