Kapitainen, lieutnanten och portraittet : En undersökning av tre ortografiska förändringar med utgångspunkt i Leopolds avhandling från 1801

With purpose of developing the knowledge of language change in the orthographic scientific field, this study maps out three of the orthographic changes that are penned down by Leopold in Afhandling om Svenska stafsättet year 1801. Here, introductions, acceptance and spreading of new spellings the Swedish language use during the end of the 18th and the first half of the 19th century and the reasons for them spreading are in focus. In the essay, changes in k-spelling, j-spelling and ä-spelling within sixteen French loanwords with connections to either music and theatre or the military are analysed in printed newspapers. All the words used in this piece of research are French loanwords which Leopold recommends to be adjusted in their spelling to fit the Swedish spelling system. The period of 1790 to 1849 is divided into two parts. The first one is from 1790 to 1809 and is referred to as the introduction period. The period after that, from 1810 to 1849, is the period of acceptance and spreading. The results consist of numbers of hits and paper publications digitalized by The royal library (´Kungliga biblioteket´). The conclusions drawn by this study is that most of Leopold´s spellings get a dramatic and fast increase in usage in a period of a few years from year 1800, where the K-words get the largest percentual development. In that period Leopold´s spelling increase particularly from 1804 to 1807. During the 1810s and 1820s, the spellings that Leopold recommends and other spellings are used about as often and no greater changes happen to the k- and ä-spellings. Only the j-spellings get a greater development with an escalation in the use of some words between 1817 and 1818. From 1830 to 1849, Leopold´s spellings are used a lot more often than the other spellings in most cases. From the introduction of the new spellings, it takes between three to six years for the new language norm to break through and somewhere between 30 and 40 years for the norm to spread. The reasons for these changes can be many different ones, but there is evidence that point to that the status of French, which is lost in Sweden during this period could be behind some of the changes together with an urbanisation which creates demands of higher language accessibility.