Top ten words you didn’t know came from Sweden
Published: 23 Oct 12 15:15 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/43994/20121023/
The Vikings didn't only bring tools, trade and violence to Britain over 1,000 years ago - they also brought language and The Local has collected the ten most common English words with "Swedish" roots.
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For example, we took Santa Claus from Dutch, safari from Swahili and robot from Czech.
Similarly, giraffe comes from Arabic, the humble biro from Hungary, and you can’t even step into a restaurant without coming across French words.
Even the word restaurant is French!
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE TOP TEN WORDS THAT COME FROM SWEDEN
But what has Swedish given us?
The truth is, hardly anything.
In fact, only seven or eight words by our count, and that was a stretch.
And worse, with the exception of smorgasbord (smörgåsbord in Swedish – a food buffet), and probably moped (from trampcykel med motor och pedaler "engined bike with motor and pedals"), they’re all ridiculous.
Ombudsman, Tungsten, Fartlek. And what on earth is a lingonberry?
More people use the words Celsius, Abba and Ikea but they’re proper nouns so we can’t include those.
But if you consider Old Norse, the language of the ancient Nordic gods, the Vikings, and Scandinavia itself, you’ll find that dozens of words have remained in our daily lexicon, no doubt forced upon English speakers when Viking warriors and merchants invaded Britain more than 1,000 years ago.
For example, the name of a popular weekly event comes from Old Norse, as does an everyday kitchen appliance - plus a popular birthday food...
Extra points if you can guess those three words, but to find out what they are, plus seven more, check out The Local's top ten here.
And for all the sticklers who say these words aren’t Swedish, you're right. But Sweden didn’t exist then. Neither did Norway or Denmark.
This was Old Norse and this was Scandinavia - the land of the Viking Vocabulary.
Editor's note: All etymology taken from the Merriam Webster online dictionary.
Oliver Gee
Follow Oliver on Twitter here
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God to see an article made from "hardly anything".
Especially when it then references the vikings. Especially when we all know Sweden didnt have vikings - Norway and Denmark did (Sweden hadnt been created for close to 400 years after the viking era.
Excellent display of ignorance, byke. Sweden had vikings, and these vikings were busy folk. They managed not only to exploit the east's riches, but also to take gelds in England (albeit not as frequently as those from Denmark and Norway in particular). And Sweden definitely existed. Not as the consolidated Christian state that we think of as the beginning of modern Sweden, but certainly as a nation, known at the time as Svíþjóð (Sweden is still known by that name in Icelandic). And not mention that even consolidated Sweden was a consolidation of petty viking tribes, mostly turned Christian.
This summer we visited Denmark and went to a few of their museums. I remember seeing a very big map of Scandinavia with Viking settlements and I can assure you that Sweden had very many Viking settlements along the coastal areas, from the south of Sweden and up to Stockholm area. Go and educate yourself, ignorant fool!!!
Your wisdom is breathtaking!
No, I'm definitely right. Like Emerentia mentioned, there are many runestones to account for this aside from all the other archeological finds that have been made and other written sources. The runestones that tell of Ulf of Borresta and his gelds in England come to mind.
What?!? So trading eastward is the definition of not being a Viking? What the heck are you on? Sweden has given us "hardly anything". Well, what about:
the 100 point thermometer scale (Celcius), the safety match, dynamite, the adjustable spanner, the milk-cream separator, 3-point safety belt, I could go on...
Next, the Nordic boundaries and nations didn't exist in their current form a thousand years ago, so the above argument and the article are meaningless.
Both languages share many common Latin and Germanic origin words, English isn't even the original language of the UK, it has Celtic it Gaelic origins. English is from numerous invasions.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Viking_Expansion.svg
Vikings from what became Sweden went eastwards and south eastwards. However the Anglo-Saxon history telling does not take the activities in the east in account, leaving the history of the vikings incomplete. But as a matter of fact the first Russian state was governed by svear (English: Swedish, Old English: Sweonas), by a man named Rörik (Russian: Rurik). This according to Slavic history telling (Primary Chronicle), not Anglo-Saxon.
Indeed, the main direction was east and south for the vikings of Sweden. However, England and the west must have been important as well since there are so many runestones documenting this. These runestones are called the England runestones:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_Runestones
Kaka is also means sh*t in many languages (french, spanish) ... get a laugh whenever the Swedes talk about kaka :-)
There are about a 1000 old Norse loan words in the English language, compared to about 10000 French.
Far better old Norse examples would be sister, get, take, hit, .. but when Swedish language was influenced by main land europe just like the UK, we have many newer words in common, that have nothing to do with viking invasion, but more to do with the educated religious pple who for centuries were the only people who could read or write, in any language.
Considering the vast majority of the runestones in the world are located in Sweden. Few in Denmark, and even fewer in Norway makes one wonder if for instance Norway even had vikings. Hard to argue on what's written in stone 1000 years ago eh?
The word "kraken -referring to a sea monster, a giant squid- is derived from "krake" a norse word meaning a tree that has been uprooted by a storm and displays its root system, looking a bit like a squid.
Today's Swedish instead use the word "krake" for "miserable person" usually in the context of disease/misfortune.
The word "viking" originally referred to those who set off from Norway and what is today western Sweden -the "vik" whose apex is the Oslo fjord.
Thechnically those who set off East were not called "vikings" by their contemporaries but since the 19m century all Norse raiders and traders have received the label "viking".
Don't be ridiculous, byke. Even been to Birkagarden?
Actually, English has a lot more words that came from all the various old Scandinavian language forms. The Scots language is similarly affected.