# Swedish: foreign words



## samcluk

How do you attach a definite article to foreign words that are not translatable, or that you do not want to translate?

For example:
The town lies in the Rossendale Valley in Lancashire, England.

Staden ligger i _Rossendale Valley_ i Lancashire, England.

- But the definite article preceding Rossendale Valley in the English (which is always said) is now missing.

Another example:

The archbishop was very famous.

_Archbishop_ var mycket ryktbar.


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## jonquiliser

It depends on how the word is perceived. If you say _Rossendale Valley_ in Swedish, it will be using it as a name, and you don't add any article. If you speak about it as a valley, named Rossendale, you say _Rossendale-dal*en*. Archbishop_ translates as _ärkebiskop - Ärkebiskop*en* var mycket ryktbar._


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## Talib

Silly question, but is it pronounced _ärk-ebiskop_ or _ärkje-biskop_? That is, with a _k _sound or a_ kj_-sound.


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## jonquiliser

Not silly at all. It's pronounced with a hard k-sound and the stress falling on the first syllable.


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## hanne

I think the original question was more general.
For example words as website or ipod - in Danish that would become websitet or websiten (I'd use neuter, but both genders are allowed in the dictionary). For "the ipod" I'd use ipodden (couldn't verify the "official" spelling anywhere though, but that's what I'd say, and my best guess at what the spelling ought to be).
For both cases I'd typically try to avoid writing it, by changing the sentence, because I think it looks silly...

I believe the Swedes do it much the same way (examples would be different, but I think the basic idea is the same).

[edit]then again the Swedes might be more inclined to "Swedify" the spelling of the original word, "brejk", "sajt", etc. And the Norwegians are even better/worse at changing the original spelling I think...[/edit]


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## dinji

hanne said:


> I think the original question was more general.
> For example words as website or ipod - in Danish that would become websitet or websiten (I'd use neuter, but both genders are allowed in the dictionary). For "the ipod" I'd use ipodden (couldn't verify the "official" spelling anywhere though, but that's what I'd say, and my best guess at what the spelling ought to be).
> For both cases I'd typically try to avoid writing it, by changing the sentence, because I think it looks silly...
> 
> I believe the Swedes do it much the same way (examples would be different, but I think the basic idea is the same).


 
I'd have no problem writing or saying _ipoden_ or _sajten_ in Swedish. There would be no need to reformulate. 

The plural endings sometimes pose more of a problem. What would for instance "_en container_" be in plural?? The theoretical _containrar_  sounds so awful to me that I doubt any dictionaries would allow for it, even as optional . _Hobbyer_ has on the other hand established itself already, and I can barely endure it.


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## Huffameg

hanne said:


> then again the Swedes might be more inclined to "Swedify" the spelling of the original word, "brejk", "sajt", etc. And the Norwegians are even better/worse at changing the original spelling I think...



I do not have the impression that Norwegians tend to change the spelling or "norwegify". Traditionally me might have done it more than the Danes but in my opinion a far more popular way of solving this problem is to try to find alternative words. I would, for instance, never say "web page" or "website" but rather "nettside" or "nettsted". When it comes to the definite article one can, at least in Norwegian, add an apostrophe to mark the foreing originof the word, that is to add an definite article that doesn't "fit". That would make, for instance, ipod'en.


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## Wilma_Sweden

dinji said:


> I'd have no problem writing or saying _ipoden_ or _sajten_ in Swedish. There would be no need to reformulate.
> 
> The plural endings sometimes pose more of a problem. What would for instance "_en container_" be in plural?? The theoretical _containrar_  sounds so awful to me that I doubt any dictionaries would allow for it, even as optional . _Hobbyer_ has on the other hand established itself already, and I can barely endure it.


The Swedish Language Council does recommend that we attach Swedish definite and plural endings to foreign words, so containr-ar-na or container-na would indeed be their choice, however silly it may sound... (source here).

Place names or titles containing a generic term such as valley in Rossendale Valley, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, are usually semi-translated, i.e. the generic term is translated, as jonquiliser states above. _Silicon Valley_, however, is normally used as is, without the definite article. The Thames is so well-known that it's got a Swedish name: Themsen, which does contain the Swedish definite article.

/Wilma


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## jonquiliser

dinji said:


> The plural endings sometimes pose more of a problem. What would for instance "_en container_" be in plural?? The theoretical _containrar_  sounds so awful to me that I doubt any dictionaries would allow for it, even as optional . _Hobbyer_ has on the other hand established itself already, and I can barely endure it.





Wilma_Sweden said:


> The Swedish Language Council does recommend that we attach Swedish definite and plural endings to foreign words, so containr-ar-na or container-na would indeed be their choice, however silly it may sound... (source here).



You guys will be horrified then to know "containrar" forms part of my regularly used vocabulary . "Hobbyer" on the other hand does sound silly also to my ears, as does "babyer".


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## solregn

jonquiliser said:


> You guys will be horrified then to know "containrar" forms part of my regularly used vocabulary . "Hobbyer" on the other hand does sound silly also to my ears, as does "babyer".



I say "containrar" as well, doesn't sound too bad to me...  Concerning the other two examples, I think I would work my way around the problem and say "bebis-bebisar" and "hobby-fritidsintressen" - maybe not completely logical, but why torture yourself with ill-sounding words?


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## jonquiliser

solregn said:


> I say "containrar" as well, doesn't sound too bad to me...  Concerning the other two examples, I think I would work my way around the problem and say "bebis-bebisar" and "hobby-fritidsintressen" - maybe not completely logical, but why torture yourself with ill-sounding words?



Quite! For _baby_ and _hobby_, personally I use the versions _beibisar_ and _hobbin_ (yup, same as the singular determinate) .


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## hanne

Hehe, I have no problems at all with babyer, hobbyer or containere. But I suppose it makes good sense that it's different which words can be fit more or less easily into each language, and which ones we each try to avoid. Though baby, hobby and container have been in the language for a lot longer than website and ipod...

About "norwegifying" I just remember the last time I was in Norway and encountered three different words in the first day - one was "lønsj", I don't remember the other two anymore...

And about Themsen, there are more examples like that: Seinen, Rhinen, Nilen, Tiberen and Harzen (Harzen seems to be Danish only though).
Something rather funny: The Israeli parliament Knesset is usually referred to without the definite article - because it sounds like it's already a definite form, and otherwise it would be Knessetet, sounding pretty strange.


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## dinji

hanne said:


> Hehe, I have no problems at all with babyer, hobbyer or containere. But I suppose it makes good sense that it's different which words can be fit more or less easily into each language, and which ones we each try to avoid. Though baby, hobby and container have been in the language for a lot longer than website and ipod...


In Swedish all plurisyllabic nouns that in singular end in a vowel end in _-e_ or _-a_ and when one of the plural endings _-er_, _-ar_ or _-or_ is added the vowel is dropped. Therefore we should have **hobb-er, ** hobb-ar or **hobb-or, which is difficult though, because _-y_ is perceived to be a necessary part of the borrowed stem. Therefore it is "more convenient" for the ear to resort to the neuter plural ending _-n_, which unlike the endings for ytrum may be attached to the word without vowel alteration: "hobby-n". Sometimes in spoken language we also borrow the English ending "hobbies". The officially recommended form is however _hobbyer_, which is a rather awful contamination of the system (as well). In the case of _babisar_ (pl. from baby) the official authorities have given in to a elegant solution of the spoken language. 

Just like the neuter plural ending -n, the definite encliticly suffixed article poses no systemic problem of this kind, as it seems to do in Danish. We just hang on -n or -t, whatever the vowel is _baby-n_.



hanne said:


> And about Themsen, there are more examples like that: Seinen, Rhinen, Nilen, Tiberen and Harzen (Harzen seems to be Danish only though). Something rather funny: The Israeli parliament Knesset is usually referred to without the definite article - because it sounds like it's already a definite form, and otherwise it would be Knessetet, sounding pretty strange.


We have _Nilen, Tibern_ and _Nevan_ (flows through Petersburg) but _La Seine_ is _Seine_ and _The Rhine_ is _Rhen_ to me. _Rhen_ is of course ambiguous, it could be perceived as _Rhe-n_ with a definite article, just like _Kness-et_.


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## hanne

dinji said:


> We have _Nilen, Tibern_ and _Nevan_ (flows through Petersburg) but _La Seine_ is _Seine_ and _The Rhine_ is _Rhen_ to me. _Rhen_ is of course ambiguous, it could be perceived as _Rhe-n_ with a definite article, just like _Kness-et_.


I suppose this shows that the Swedish vikings went east and the Danish went south...

Anyway, I just came across a wonderfully terrible example in Danish that I wanted to post here:
en hotdog
hotdoggen (clearly a Danish definite form, with the doubled g)
hotdogs (clearly an English form, we don't use -s for plural in Danish)
hotdoggene or hotdogsene are the two "officially allowed" plural forms
(from http://www.retskrivningsordbogen.dk/ro/ro.htm?q=hotdog)


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