Posts under "Culture"

The cheese slicer – Osthyvel

Posted by Katja 12 Comments
Feb 1 2012

Do you know what this is? In Swedish it is called an Osthyvel.

It’s called a cheese slicer. This is in fact a Norwegian invention by Thor Bjørklund, who in 1925 is said to have been given cheese on a slice of bread for lunch. The had cheese melted before he had had a chance to eat it. Since he wanted to have thinner slices he looked around his carpenters workshop. The first attempt was with a knife, but to no avail. He then tried using one of his planes and it did the job, but he couldn’t store it in the kitchen and it was hard to use as well. So he made it smaller therefor becoming the inventor of today’s indispensable cheese slicer.

This kitchen tool is used every single day in Sweden, by millions of Swedes. Many are faced with a sort of culture shock when abroad and find their favorite way of eating cheese not available.  Many Swedes probably can’t even imagine cutting cheese with a knife. If you know any Swedes, ask them if they could even consider the thought?

The cheese slicer, even though it wasn’t a Swede who invented it, is a brilliant present for Swedes to give international friends as a thank-you for letting them stay at their place :)

 

Swedish swear words

Posted by Katja 8 Comments
Jan 27 2012

The first words many foreigners learn in a new language are usually swear words. I don’t think this is uncommon for anybody, no matter where you come from or what language you want to learn.

The point of this post is not to encourage swearing but to explain the degree of different swear words in Swedish vs. English.

In Swedish there are four “real” swear words. Jävlar, Satan, Fan and Helvete. All of these are religiously related words. Jävel (Jävlar), Satan and Fan are all synonyms for the devil. Helvete is the Swedish word for hell. All these have become down-toned over the years but can still not be used by politicians in public for example.

“Jävla bords-jävel”

“Damn table devil” To be roughly translated. Probably something you might say when having trouble with a table.

Excrement bases words are also common. For example; skit (shit) can be used not only as a swear word but as an emphasis like “very”. Skit-snygg (very good looking) or skit-ful (very ugly).

Then there are sex based swear words, which are the foulest of the used swear words in Sweden. Very many foreigners learn and over-use these without really understanding to what extent they insult somebody. These and words relating to ethnic background.

In Sweden however, F*** You is not at all as severe as in other, English-speaking countries, and even the Swedish equivalents are used a lot among younger people. This can be quite a shock for especially English speakers, when they hear young people, even kids, using the phrase without concern.

There are therefor many other, much less offending, words that you can learn instead. Honestly, who doesn’t need a couple of words to express the pain after stubbing your toe or something like that?!

The milder and mostly harmless (even among the grandparents) swear words are:

Swedish word / English literal translation (or as close you can get, feel free to give better translations if you know of any)

Fanken – darn

Fasiken – darn

Järnspikars också – iron nails

Söte göte – dear göte

göta petter – göta petter (Just a name)

Jösses – dear me

jäklar – darn

förgrymmat också – damn it

förbaskat (också) – darn it

tusan – shoot

förbövelen (this is yet another religious word but not as severe) – literally it means executioner

Sjutton också – sjutton means seventeen but religiously the number meant more than it does today

järnvägar – railroads

attans – darn

attans bananer – darn bananas

sjutusan – seven thousand

det var som sjutton – that was like seventeen (this is a pure literal translation since there are no English equivalents)

fy katten – darn cat

nedrans – darn

rackarns – shoot

hujeda mig – dear me

fy bubblan – my gosh

milda matilda – gracious Mathilda

Bomber och granater – bombs and grenades

These milder words were thought of because the first syllable is the same as many other more harsh words, giving the impression you are going to say something vulgar but changing your mind at the last minute.
Good luck, and try to chose appropriate language when speaking in Sweden ;)

Why does ‘hand’ become ‘händer’ in plural?

Posted by Steve 3 Comments
Jan 24 2012

This is one question that boggles the minds of many learners of the Swedish language (as well as the other Nordic languages). Why doesn’t ‘hand’ just become ‘hander’ or ‘handar’ in plural?

The answer to this lies in a major change that occurred throughout Germanic Europe in the Early Middle Ages (which in Scandinavia was the middle of the Iron Age, 450~500 AD). The process is known today as the i-omljud in Swedish (in English the Germanic umlaut, i-umlaut, or i-mutation). What happened during this change was that an unemphasized i (prounced like ‘ee’ in modern English) in a word brought emphasized back vowels (vowels produced in the back of the mouth: a, o, u) forward, closer to i. For example, what you’re here to find out:

- The plural of hand in Old Norse was handiar. But since it is natural for human beings to simplify things, people began to say hændar (/´hændər/), combining the a with the i, creating a new sound, æ (pronounced similarly to the a in hat). From there, the æ as well as the ar at the end became more and more weakly pronounced, leading to its modern pronunciation, /´hɛndər/, orthographized as händer. The singular form, hand, however, remained the same because it lacked an i to change it.

The i-omljud also affected the other back vowels, o and u. Before this process, Old Norse only had five vowels: a, e, i, o, and u, like the rest of the Indo-European languages of that time. After the i-omljud, though, three more vowels had developed, namely y (what you get when you combine i and u), æ (i and a combined, as shown above), and ø (from i and o). The letters æ and ø were used when the Latin alphabet was first adopted but were replaced by the Low German ä and ö toward the end of the Middle Ages (in Sweden, 1050~1520 AD). Previously, Swedish was written completely in runes.

What about å then? When did that appear? Check back in one week and you’ll be able to find out!

Sweden’s Newest Religion

Posted by Marcus Cederström 2 Comments
Jan 6 2012

Sweden is not a religious country. At all. In fact, it is often described as one of the most secular countries in the world. That does not mean that there are not religions, or that there is no spirituality. Such things are alive and well in Sweden. In fact, Sweden has recently become the birthplace of a new religion: Det Missionernade Kopimistsamfundet or the Missionary Church of Kopimism.

The church has decided that the file sharing is a religion. The Swedish government has even acknowledged the church as an official religion. The church claims that it has over 3000 members in more than ten countries. Isak Gerson, a philosophy student at the University of Uppsala founded the religion a couple of years ago and since then has been working to have it recognized by the Swedish government. Just recently that recognition was given.

While this news seems to have taken the internet world by storm, it doesn’t amount to all that much. Nor should it be all that surprising. The acknowledgement as an official religion in Sweden is similar to incorporating a business. It’s an important step, yes, but it has a way to go to supplant the already established religions in Sweden. Of course, it fits well in a country that already has a political party, the Pirate Party, which shares similar views in terms of file sharing.

Below, you’ll find a short vocab list of religious words that may come in handy. In parentheses you’ll find whether it is an en or ett word as well as whether it is a noun, verb, or adjective. Good luck!

(ett) sakrament                        a sacrament (noun/substantiv)
(en) tro                                      a belief (substantiv)
(att) tro                                    to believe (verb)
(en) helig skrift                        a religious text (substantiv)
andlige                                       spiritual (adjective/adjektiv)
(en) religion                             a religion (substantiv)
religiöst                                   religious (adjektiv)
(en) gud                                   a god or God (substantiv)
(en) ängel                                an angel (substantiv)
(en) kyrka                                a church (substantiv)
(en) domkyrka                         a cathedral (substantiv)
(att) be                                     to pray (verb)
(en) bön                                   a prayer (substantiv)
kristen                                     Christian (adjective)
(en) kristen                              a Christian (substantiv)
(en) kristendom                       Christianity (substantiv)
muslimsk                                 Muslim (adjektiv)
(en) muslim                             a Muslim (substantiv)
Islam                                       Islam (substantiv)
judisk                                      Jewish (adjektiv)
(en) jude                                  a Jew (substantiv)
(en) judendom                         Judaism (substantiv)

New Swedish words for 2012

Posted by jennie 4 Comments
Jan 4 2012

God forsättning, dear blog readers!

As a Swede living in England, I have recently discovered how useful the Swedish phrase “God fortsättning” is. It means something along the lines of “happy continuation” and this is the phrase we use when “God jul” (Merry Christmas) or “Gott nytt år” (Happy New Year) feels dated. Like on the 27th of December, when Christmas is gone but it’s too early to wish someone a happy new year… Clever, huh? The English language definitely lacks that kind of phrase, but what about other languages? Anyone aware of anything similar?

Anyhow, let’s continue along the vocabulary lines and look at some new words that have entered the Swedish language during the past year. Every New Year, Språkrådet (The language council) puts togehter and publishes a list of the new words that either are completely new or words that we have started to use more frequently. It’s always a quite interesting read and it normally mirrors the society rather well. Here are some of my favourites:

Ac-förkylning = Air condition cold, a cold you get from the air condition.
Appa = To “app”, to use and fiddle with your phone applications. (Verb)
Attitydinkontinens = Attitude incontinence, to not be able to keep your opinions to yourself.
Knarkometer = Drug-o-meter, a device which can detect any kind of illegal substances.
Lunchdisco = Exactly what it says, a disco happening during the lunch hour, a phenomena that’s getting bigger.
Matkasse = Food bag, a pre-packed food bag that is delivered to your home.
Padda = Toad, a nickname for ipads and other portable reading device.
Skräpbot = Rubbish fine, since last year you risk a penalty if you throw your rubbish elsewhere than in the bin.
Surdegshotell = Sourdough hotel, a place where you can leave your sourdough if you are going away on holiday etc. They exist, I promise!

You can find the full list here!

Back to the Top