En bild över tangenterna på ett engelskt QWERTY-tangentbord.

Ett tangentbord är en inmatningsenhet för tecken på en skrivmaskin eller persondator. För nya datorer ansluts det oftast via USB. I äldre system används bland annat PS/2-kontakter eller fempolig DIN-kontakt.

Användning

Tangentborden har rektangulära, eller nästintill rektangulära tangenter (knappar). På de allra flesta tangenterna finns det bokstäver eller bokstavskombinationer som visar vad tangenterna gör. Tangenterna med bokstäver används för att skriva text. Den långsmala tangenten utan någonting skrivet på den är mellanslag, och används för att göra mellanrum i text. Tangentborden är till för att det ska gå fort, och vara effektivt att skriva. Tangentbord används även för kortkommandon som går snabbare än att hitta motsvarande kommando i menyer.

Olika tangentbord

Ett tangentbord på en bärbar dator.

Den vanligaste tangentbordslayouten kallas qwerty efter de 6 första bokstäverna på den övre bokstavsraden. Bokstäverna A till Z sitter på samma ställen på alla qwerty-tangentbord, medan placeringen av andra bokstäver och tecken varierar mellan olika språkområden.

En nyare tangentbordslayout är dvorak som även finns i en svensk version kallad svorak.

Ett vanligt svenskt qwerty-tangentbord har 102 tangenter, ett engelskt har 101 tangenter. Svenska tangentbord avsedda för Microsofts operativsystem har 105 tangenter, medan engelska har 104 tangenter. Svenska tangentbord till Sun-stationer har ofta 119 tangenter och de engelska en tangent mindre.

Tangentbord till TV-spel finns i två varianter, dels de som liknar fullstora tangentbord och de som är starkt reducerade till ett fåtal knappar. Enkla former av tangentbord finns bl.a på de handkontroller som används till Intellivision och Atari Jaguar. På dessa tangenbord är antalet knappar begränsade till att i huvudsak representera siffrorna 1 till 9 och 0 utöver de sedvanliga knapparna. En modern motsvarighet till de starkt reducerade tangentboden är den kontroll som används till spelserien Buzz!.

Lista över tangenter på tangentbord

• Modifierartangenter
  • Ctrl-tangent
  • Alt
  • Shift
  • Alt Gr
• Låstangenter
  • Caps lock
  • Num Lock
  • Scroll Lock
• Navigationstangenter
  • Piltangenter
  • Home/End
  • Page up/Page down
• Redigeringstangenter
  • Enter
  • Insert
  • Delete
  • Tab
  • Backsteg/Backspace
• Escape
• Numpad/Nummerkontrollerna
  • 0-9, +, -, *
• Textinmatningstangenterna

• Funktionstangenter

Specialtangenter

• Windowstangenterna (flaggan på PC-tangentbord)
• Kommandotangenten (kringlan på Mac-tangentbord)

Swedish language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Swedish
svenska
Pronunciation:    [ˈsvɛnˌska] (with grave accent)
Spoken in:    Sweden and Finland
Region:    Northern Europe, parts of America and other countries.
Total speakers:    ~10 - 15 million (worldwide)
Ranking:    74
Language family:    Indo-European
Germanic
North Germanic
East Scandinavian
Swedish
Official status
Official language in:     Finland
Sweden (de facto)
European Union
Nordic Council
Regulated by:    Swedish Language Council (in Sweden)
Svenska språkbyrån (in Finland)
Language codes
ISO 639-1:    sv
ISO 639-2:    swe
ISO 639-3:    swe

Swedish ( svenska (help·info)) is a North Germanic language, spoken by more than ten million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Åland islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially “Classification”). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases (though older analyses posit two cases, nominative and genitive), and a distinction between plural and singular. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.

Modern Swedish

Front page of Gustav Vasa’s Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: “The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541″.
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms.[4] It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels “å”, “ä”, and “ö”, and the spelling “ck” in place of “kk”, distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative [ʃ] and later into [ɧ]. There was also the gradual softening of [ɡ] and [k] into [j] and the fricative [ɕ] before front vowels. The velar fricative [ɣ] was also transformed into the corresponding plosive [ɡ].[5]

August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.

Contemporary Swedish

The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. “Now-Swedish”) in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally “book Swedish”), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg.[6]
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, “the you-reform”. Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr (”Mr” or “Sir”), fru (”Mrs” or “Ma’am”) or fröken (”Miss”) was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s.

Geographic distribution

Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking,[10] though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years.[11] The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Åland, Swedish is the only official language.[12] In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the languages and cultures (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency.[13] Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census.[14] Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses.

Official status

A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is the primary language in Sweden. It is used in local and state government and most of the educational system, though it is not legally recognized as an official language. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145–147) due to a pairing-off failure.[16] A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Ministry of Culture on 2008-03-18 and is expected to be enacted by Parliament early in 2009.
Swedish is the only official language of Åland (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some rural and coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs