Swedish Academy

The Swedish Academy or Svenska Akademien, founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden. It was modeled after the Académie française and has 18 members. The motto of the academy is "Talent and Taste", or "Snille och Smak" in Swedish. The primary purpose of the academy is to further the "purity, vigour and majesty" of the Swedish language. To that end the academy publishes dictionaries.

The academy publishes a one-volume dictionary called Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL) and a multi-volume dictionary on principles similar to the Oxford English Dictionary called Svenska Akademiens Ordbok (SAOB). The SAOL has reached its 12th edition while the first volume of the SAOB was published in 1898 and today (2004) work has progressed to words beginning with the letter "T".

The current permanent secretary of the academy is Horace Engdahl, who was preceded by Sture Allén. Since 1901 the academy has annually decided who will be the laureate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, given in memory of the donor Alfred Nobel.

The building now known as the Stockholm Stock Exchange Building was built for and is owned by the Academy. This is where its meetings are held and among other things Nobel Prize laureates announced.

See also

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Swedish Royal Academies
Swedish Academy | Arts | Music | Letters, History and Antiquities
Sciences | Engineering Sciences | Agriculture and Forestry | War Sciences | Naval Sciences
Royal Society in Uppsala | Royal Society in Lund | Royal Society in Gothenburg






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