After 140 Years, the Official Swedish Dictionary Has Finally Been Completed

According to the editor of the Swedish language dictionary, the book took a good 140 years of linguistic dedication to complete, having just been sent to printers this year. An answer to the Oxford English Dictionary, the book was produced by the Swedish Academy, and it contains 33,111 pages across 39 volumes. There are currently only 200 printed versions issued, but the text is also accessible online.

Despite the progress, there’s still a lot of work to be done. The older volumes A to R need to be updated with newer words, such as “allergy,” which was only introduced to the Swedish language in the 1920s. Other words include “Barbie doll,” “app,” and “computer.”

Editor Christian Mattsson said that the dictionary took so long to complete because “it’s a very complicated work, because this is a very detailed analysis and description of the Swedish language starting from the 16th century up to today’s date.” Continuing, Mattsson said that they have to cover “all Swedish words that have been used under a period of 500 years, so that explains why it has taken nearly 150 years to complete this huge dictionary.”