<p>The Swedish language has for over six hundred years been under influence of foreign languages. Nowadays, it is the English language that undoubtedly affects it in largest scale - even though both French and especially German have had a serious influence through history. </p><p>In an inquiry by behalf of the Swedish Government, named Mål i mun – förslag till handlingsprogram för svenska språket (2002), one of the conclusions was that journalism is an important area that has to be under linguistic supervision to avoid a gradual weakening of the </p><p>Swedish language. It is also a known fact that the Swedish sports writers has a tendency to use a lot of English words, even though there are equivalent Swedish ones applicable. </p><p> </p><p>This essay investigates the amount of direct English loan words in three types of Swedish sports text.</p>

The Swedish language has for over six hundred years been under influence of foreign languages. Nowadays, it is the English language that undoubtedly affects it in largest scale - even though both French and especially German have had a serious influence through history. In an inquiry by behalf of the Swedish Government, named Mål i mun – förslag till handlingsprogram för svenska språket (2002), one of the conclusions was that journalism is an important area that has to be under linguistic supervision to avoid a gradual weakening of the Swedish language. It is also a known fact that the Swedish sports writers has a tendency to use a lot of English words, even though there are equivalent Swedish ones applicable. This essay investigates the amount of direct English loan words in three types of Swedish sports text.