Swedish word of the day: stålar
Simply put, stålar is a Swedish slang word for money. However, it has its roots in a secret language made up by walking salesmen in western Sweden around the 1800s.
Stålar is one of a number of words in the secret månsing language used between so-called knallar traders in western Sweden to discuss matters of business they didn't want to reveal to other people present.
This consisted, essentially, of swapping certain Swedish words with other less common words for other languages, or adapting a Swedish word in some way.
Understandably, considering they were traders, a lot of words in månsing are to do with money – like stålar.
Stålar originally comes from the Swedish word stål, meaning steel, which in turn comes from the Old Norse stál. According to the Swedish Academy's dictionary, this is probably due to the knallar often paying for things with small items made of steel.
Another word from the månsing secret language which is still used in Swedish is fika, the word for enjoying coffee and cake, which was created by swapping around the syllables in kaffe, also known as back slang.
There were also specific words for different amounts of money, including spänn for a one krona coin, which is another slang word still used by many Swedes today.
Swedish vocabulary:
Det var inte mycket till stålar i den budgeten.
There wasn't a lot of money in that budget.
Man kan tjäna tusen kronor i timmen! Det är stålar det.
You can earn a thousand kronor an hour! Now that's money.
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Stålar is one of a number of words in the secret månsing language used between so-called knallar traders in western Sweden to discuss matters of business they didn't want to reveal to other people present.
This consisted, essentially, of swapping certain Swedish words with other less common words for other languages, or adapting a Swedish word in some way.
Understandably, considering they were traders, a lot of words in månsing are to do with money – like stålar.
Stålar originally comes from the Swedish word stål, meaning steel, which in turn comes from the Old Norse stál. According to the Swedish Academy's dictionary, this is probably due to the knallar often paying for things with small items made of steel.
Another word from the månsing secret language which is still used in Swedish is fika, the word for enjoying coffee and cake, which was created by swapping around the syllables in kaffe, also known as back slang.
There were also specific words for different amounts of money, including spänn for a one krona coin, which is another slang word still used by many Swedes today.
Swedish vocabulary:
Det var inte mycket till stålar i den budgeten.
There wasn't a lot of money in that budget.
Man kan tjäna tusen kronor i timmen! Det är stålar det.
You can earn a thousand kronor an hour! Now that's money.
Don’t miss any of our Swedish words and expressions of the day by downloading our new app (available on Apple and Android) and then selecting the Swedish Word of the Day in your Notification options via the User button.
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