standard, and thus to create a fixed form of cultivated spoken speech. The more circumscribed dialects are rapidly disappearing, and the most important Swedish linguistic differences may therefore now be comprehensively included under the two heads of Upsvænsk, and Sydsvænsk, "Upper or Northern Swedish," and "Southern Swedish." To the latter of these belongs the pronunciation of Södermanland, which is generally considered the best, and is that of an influential section of the cultivated classes of Stockholm, on which account it may be accepted by the student of Swedish as the best standard he can follow in his attempt to master the difficulties which appertain to the correct pronunciation of Swedish.
The Swedes rejected the use of Gothic characters three hundred years ago, and since then they have employed the ordinary Latin letters, adding merely certain marks to indicate special vowel-sounds peculiar to the northern tongues. With the older alphabet, they did not, however, at once lay aside the cumbersome modes of spelling in use in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it is only within recent years that any systematic and rational reform has been introduced into the spelling of Swedish words. Since the meeting at Stockholm, in 1869, of the Scandinavian Linguistic Congress an important change has, however, been in progress, and although the end is not yet attained, much has already been done in Sweden to carry out
