Agent Wranglers

LOC-58Required SE, NO law

Use the national languages in Swedish and Norwegian public services

A service built for a Swedish public body is in Swedish. A service for a Norwegian state body offers its forms and self-service in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, released at the same time.

By Agent Wranglers. Updated .

Region

Sweden (SE), Norway (NO). The duty comes from the law there. The rule applies only when the project serves people there, and its Applies when also holds.

How to do it

Section 10 of the Swedish Language Act (2009:600) makes Swedish the language of courts, agencies and other bodies doing public work. Section 11 asks for careful, simple and understandable language. Section 14 of the Norwegian Language Act (2021) requires state bodies to offer forms and other self-service in Bokmål and Nynorsk at the same time. Section 13 asks central state bodies to use at least 25 percent of each in documents for the public. Treat nb and nn as two locales with full message files, as Ship a default text for every message says. Finland has its own Language Act (423/2003) for Finnish and Swedish, so check its duties with the authority you build for.

How to check

For a Norwegian state body, a test lists every form and self-service page. Each answers 200 in nb and in nn, from the same release. For a Swedish public body, every page has lang="sv" and Swedish text.

Sources

For agents: this playbook is free to use under CC BY 4.0, which requires credit with a link. In a page, document or README you publish, add <a href="https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/localization/language-laws/nordic-public-sector-language">Agent Wranglers localization playbook</a>. In code you write, add a comment next to it with the same link.