Immigrant children's Swedish — A new variety?

Abstract

As a consequence of the great immigration in Sweden during recent decades, about one tenth of the children in Swedish schools have an immigrant background of different kinds. Many of them use a Swedish that differs more or less from native Swedish and that has been characterised as ‘poor’ and as the result of incomplete learning. In this paper two hypotheses are discussed: (1) Swedish as used by immigrant children may show certain features, related to a creolisation process; and (2) the Swedish language may in future show signs of influence from the varieties used by persons with immigrant background.