Jump to content
 







Main menu
   


Navigation  



Main page
Contents
Current events
Random article
About Wikipedia
Contact us
Donate
 




Contribute  



Help
Learn to edit
Community portal
Recent changes
Upload file
 








Search  

































Create account

Log in
 









Create account
 Log in
 




Pages for logged out editors learn more  



Contributions
Talk
 



















Contents

   



(Top)
 


1 English heavily influenced by Swedish  



1.1  Pronunciation  





1.2  Vocabulary and grammar  





1.3  Controversies  





1.4  Svengelska  







2 See also  





3 Notes  





4 Further reading  





5 External links  














Swenglish






Esperanto
Italiano
Svenska
 

Edit links
 









Article
Talk
 

















Read
Edit
View history
 








Tools
   


Actions  



Read
Edit
View history
 




General  



What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Cite this page
Get shortened URL
Download QR code
Wikidata item
 




Print/export  



Download as PDF
Printable version
 
















Appearance
   

 






From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 


Swenglish is a colloquial term referring to the English language heavily influenced by Swedish in terms of vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation.[1]

English heavily influenced by Swedish[edit]

Knowledge of English in Sweden as reported by Swedes, 2005.[2] Very good: 31% Good: 37% Basic: 21% Not enough: 11%

The name Swenglish is a portmanteau term of the names of the two languages and is first recorded from 1938, making it one of the oldest names for a hybrid form of English.[3] Other colloquial portmanteau words for Swenglish include (chronologically): Swinglish (from 1957), Swedlish (1995) and Sweglish (1996).[4]

Pronunciation[edit]

Swedish is characterised by a strong word stress and phrase prosody that differs from that of English.[5]

There are words that are similar in meaning and pronunciation, that have different stress patterns. For example, verbs that end with -era in Swedish are often French loanwords, where the French word ends with a stressed -er. The Swedish word gets its stress point at the same place, but this is not true in English. A native Swedish speaker might mispronounce generateas[dʒɛnəˈɹeɪt] by following the pattern of the Swedish generera [jɛnɛˈrěːra].

Swedish is a pitch accent language.[5] Accent 1 is a low-high-low contour and accent 2 is a high-low-high-low contour, with the second peak in the second syllable.[5] This can give Swenglish speakers a "singing" quality to their speech. Particularly when exaggerating their Swedish accent in English, speakers add an extra cadence to their words that most native English speakers lack.[6]

Swedish lacks many common English phonemes. These are sometimes replaced by similar-sounding Swedish phonemes, or other English phonemes that are easier to pronounce. For example, when using the nearest Swedish vowels for the English words beer and bear, a native Swedish speaker might pronounce both as [beːr]. In general, Swenglish will sound very articulated, due to Swedish vowels being more strongly articulated and not as often reduced to schwas.

Swedish also lacks some consonant phonemes common in English, such as voiceless dental fricative /θ/, which is typically realized as labiodental [f] or a voiceless dental stop [], leading to three being pronounced as "free" or "tree". Other missing consonants include voiced dental fricative /ð/, which is typically realized as a voiced dental stop []), voiced alveolar fricative /z/, which is typically realized voicelessly [s] and voiced palato-alveolar fricative //, which is realized voicelessly [], somewhat more back [ʈʂ], or as a voiced palatal approximant [j] or fricative [ʝ].

There are examples of Swenglish being used in Sweden as a means of brand management. The Swedish telecommunications company Tele2 has long aired commercials with a black sheep called Frank.[7] The pun of the commercials, extolling inexpensive service, is based on the English word cheap, which usually is pronounced as "sheep" by Swedes—hence Frank.

Vocabulary and grammar[edit]

As with most non-native speech, native Swedish speakers may pick the wrong word when speaking English based on what sounds right in their own language. While Swedish and English share many words, both from their Germanic origins, and from later French and Latin influence, there are several Swedish-English false friends, such as nacke (similar to English "neck") meaning 'nape, back of the neck', and eventuellt (similar to "eventually") meaning 'possibly'. Some loanwords have a more specific meaning in Swedish than the original English, such as keyboard meaning only 'electronic keyboard, synthesizer'. Compare the list of Swedish-English false friends on Swedish Wikipedia.

Many Swedish compounds and expressions translate directly into English, but many others do not, even if the translations can be understood. For instance, the Swedish ta med means 'bring', but is often translated as the literal "take with".

Controversies[edit]

In June 2010, BP's Swedish chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg famously caused a PR uproar after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill by referring to the common people as "the small people".[8] This was influenced by the Swedish expression småfolket.[9]

In December 2019, climate activist Greta Thunberg was criticised by some right-wing commentators after saying said politicians should be put "against the wall", a term which in English can be interpreted as execution by firing squad. She later apologised, saying "... that's Swenglish: 'att ställa någon mot väggen' (to put someone against the wall) means to hold someone accountable", and that she is against violence.[10]

Svengelska[edit]

The Swedish language term svengelska refers not to Swenglish, but to spoken or written Swedish filled with an inordinate amount of English syntax and words, with the latter sometimes respelled according to the norms of Swedish phonetics, or calqued into Swedish.

English has become the lingua franca in many Swedish workplaces.[11] Swedish speakers often modify English business-specific terms with Swedish endings, such as peaken, ('the peak' [of the season]), spotrater 'spot rates', and cancellera 'cancel'.[12]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Lambert, James. 2018. A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity. English World-wide, 39(1): 1-33. doi:10.1075/eww.38.3.04lam
  • ^ "Europeans and their Languages" (PDF). Special Eurobarometer 243 / Wave 64.3 - TNS Opinion & Social. European Commission. February 2006. Retrieved May 3, 2011. According to this Eurobarometer survey, 89% of respondents in Sweden indicated that they know English well enough to have a conversation (p. 152). Of these 35% had a very good knowledge of the language, 42% had a good knowledge and 23% had basic English skills (p. 156).
  • ^ Lambert, James. 2018. A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity. English World-wide, 39(1): 14. doi:10.1075/eww.38.3.04lam
  • ^ Lambert, James. 2018. A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity. English World-wide, 39(1): 31. doi:10.1075/eww.38.3.04lam
  • ^ a b c Niemeyer, Tübingen (1998). Phonology and Morphology of the Germanic Languages. Walter de Gruyter.
  • ^ Skarsgard, Alex. "Alexander Skarsgard Swedish Accent on Jimmy Fallon". YouTube.
  • ^ "Fåraktigt, Tele2" (in Swedish). resume.se. 5 November 2008. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  • ^ BP chief's gaffe adds fuel to the fire ahead of congressional hearing, The Guardian, 17 Jun 2010
  • ^ Svanbergs ordval retade oljeoffren, SVT, 17 Jun 2010
  • ^ Pitofsky, Marina (December 14, 2019). "Greta Thunberg apologizes after saying politicians should be put 'against the wall'". The Hill.
  • ^ SWENGLISH. (2008, 03). Swedish Press, 79, 13. Retrieved from https://libraries.duke.edu/
  • ^ SHARP, HARRIET (5 May 2005). "Swedish?English language mixing". World Englishes. 26 (2): 224–240. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971x.2007.00503.x. ISSN 0883-2919.
  • Further reading[edit]

    External links[edit]


    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Swenglish&oldid=1208963170"

    Categories: 
    Macaronic forms of English
    Swedish language
    Hidden categories: 
    CS1 Swedish-language sources (sv)
    Articles with short description
    Short description is different from Wikidata
    Pages with undetermined IPA
    Articles containing Swedish-language text
    Pages with Swedish IPA
    Articles containing Portuguese-language text
     



    This page was last edited on 19 February 2024, at 18:06 (UTC).

    Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.



    Privacy policy

    About Wikipedia

    Disclaimers

    Contact Wikipedia

    Code of Conduct

    Developers

    Statistics

    Cookie statement

    Mobile view



    Wikimedia Foundation
    Powered by MediaWiki