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.
Name of Sweden
The name of Sweden was Latinized as "Suecia" adopted in various Romance and Slavic languages, including Spanish "Suecia", Catalan "Suècia", Portuguese "Suécia", Russian Швеция "Shvetsiya", and in non-European languages influenced by such languages, In these languages, there is frequent confusion between the names of Sweden and of Switzerland (Spanish "Suiza", Catalan "Suïssa", Portuguese "Suíça", Russian Швейцария "Shveytsariya"). There is a historical tradition going back to at least the 15th century to the effect that Schwyz (the settlement which gave its name to Switzerland) was indeed named after the Swedes.
Ericus Olai in his "Chronica regni Gothorum " (c. 1470) notes the similarity in toponymy, "Swycia, quasi Suecia". This tradition was taken seriously in 19th-century scholarly reception of the Swiss Swedish origin legend, especially in Swedish romantic nationalism (e.g. Erik Gustaf Geijer's 1836 "History of the Swedes"), but is not now considered likely.