# Swedish:  och de vises sten



## yodie

Hi there!

The title of Harry Potter #1 in Swedish is Harry Potter och de vises sten.

What does 'de' mean in this sentence?  I know it only as the plural definite article, but 'vises sten' is not plural or in definite form?

Thanks so much!


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## LilianaB

De vise is plural- the wise men, the wizards. It is the philosopher's  stone in English.


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## yodie

LilianaB said:


> De vise is plural- the wise men, the wizards. It is the philosopher's  stone in English.


That's why it's odd to me -- it's the philosopher's stone in English, not philosophers'.

Looking it up now, it seems that vis is an adjective, not a noun, with 'man' implied, and that Swedish uses the phrase with plural philosophers.  Should've used my awesome paper dictionary instead of my online one.  

Thanks!


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## LilianaB

It might be an old Swedish expression de vises sten so it does not really matter what it is in English or in any other language. Please wait for some other opinions.


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## yodie

LilianaB said:


> It might be an old Swedish expression de vises sten so it does not really matter what it is in English or in any other language. Please wait for some other opinions.


Makes sense.

Spinoff question -- my understanding is that -e is not usually used for definite plural masculine adjectives, only singular ones.  Is that correct?  Are there other instances where it is used?


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## LilianaB

I don't know if this is common. I would not think so. There is De tre vise männen and a few other expressions. The three wise men, as in the Bible.


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## Åvävvla

_De vises sten_ is indeed plural and it is the usual translation of "the philosopher's stone" in alchemy.


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## AutumnOwl

_De vises sten_ don't have anything to do with "de tre vise männen" in the Bible who visited the baby Jesus; the wise men in this case is the medieval alchemists who tried to make gold from other materials: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_vises_sten The real Nicholas Flamel was a medieval alchemist, and he is mentioned in the Harry Potter book.


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## LilianaB

Of course it does not. It is just a similar grammatical construction.


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## uchuu

"De vise männen"
"De visa kvinnorna"
-e is indeed masculine, while -a is feminine. 
Though, in spoken Swedish this is forgotten about more and more, unfortunately. Most people just say -a to anything.

And to OP:
Harry Potter och _de vise_*s* sten
Harry Potter and the stone *of* _the wise_


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## Wilma_Sweden

yodie said:


> ...
> 
> Looking it up now, it seems that vis is an adjective, not a noun, with 'man' implied, and that Swedish uses the phrase with plural philosophers.  Should've used my awesome paper dictionary instead of my online one.
> 
> Thanks!


Grammar note: Adjectives used as nouns in this manner are more frequent in Swedish than in English. The Swedish title for the novel "The old man and the sea" thus is "Den gamle och havet" (again adjective ending in -e because of the masculine entity it refers to).


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## Rallino

uchuu said:


> And to OP:
> Harry Potter och _de vise_*s* sten
> Harry Potter and the stone *of* _the wise_



Sorry to revive this thread, I would just like to ask: could it not be _vis*ars*_ _sten_*en*? When should we use "de" and when "-ar"?


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## DerFrosch

No need to apologize, Rallino. 

To answer your question: no, _visars stenen_ is not correct.

First, let me point out that in modern Swedish, we would say _de vis*a*s sten_. But maybe that's not what confused you - I'm guessing it has to do with the use of a nominalized adjective. The adjective is _vis_.

In Swedish we can nominalize an adjective by putting a definite article in front of it plus an ending at the end.

In singular:

Den vise - _the wise one_

In plural:

De visa/de vise (the latter one no longer being in use) - _the wise ones
_
To form the genitive we simply add an _s_.

Let's say we wanted to say "the wizards' stone". This would be _trollkarlarnas sten_. The singular form is _trollkarl_, the plural is _trollkarlar_, and the definite plural form is _trollkarlarna. _Here no "_de_" is needed, since the ending _-na_ already signals that the word is in the definite form. However, if we add an adjective, we do need the "_de_"; "the wise wizards' stone" would be "_de visa trollkarlarnas sten_". I see how this could be confusing. 

I hope that answers your question.


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## Rallino

Aha! So even if an adjective is used as a noun, it's still treated as an adjective, and we need den/det/de. Got it. Tack så mycket, DerFrosch!


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## Sepia

Wilma_Sweden said:


> Grammar note: Adjectives used as nouns in this manner are more frequent in Swedish than in English. The Swedish title for the novel "The old man and the sea" thus is "Den gamle och havet" (again adjective ending in -e because of the masculine entity it refers to).


 
(Hi again Wilma ...)

No surprise that the Danish title is "Den gamle mand og havet". Danish adjectives only have bi-gender and neutrum - no way to tell by the adjective if it is male or female.


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## applefarm

Hi,
I guess the topic has already got a good answer but i add additionally my own answer too, maybe it helps.

de unga - The young (people), "The youth". "De unga gå till skolan i början av september."
de rika - The rich people.
de visa - The wise/smart people.

de ungas - Genitive of "The youth". The young people' attitude ...
de rika - Genitive of "The rich people". The rich people's children ...
de visa - Genitive of "The wise/smart people". The wise people's books ...

The construction has usually hidden word "people" at the end:

"de" + [a adjective in plural] = "de" + [a adj in plural] people.
de unga = de unga människorna = all the young people in world.

Adjectives plural/definitive form ends with "-a" (ung'a) or if wanted to emphasize that they talk about men, then adjective can end wtih "-e"  instead (ung'e).

de unge - the young men.

Because the "wizards/dwarfs" were all men and not women, then it sounds more correct to use ending "-e" in adjectives relating to those "wizards/dwarfs" and not "-a".

So:

de vises sten = a stone of wise men/people/wizards. The wises' (people/wizards) stone.


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## DerFrosch

applefarm said:


> "De unga gå*r* till skolan i början av september."


Maybe that was just a typo, but it should be "_går_" (although "_gå_" would have been correct in older Swedish, when verbs were conjugated for number).


applefarm said:


> de ungas - Genitive of "The youth". The young people' attitude ...
> de rika*s* - Genitive of "The rich people". The rich people's children ...
> de visa*s* - Genitive of "The wise/smart people". The wise people's books ...


Once again I'm wondering if those were just mistakes. Just as we add an _-s_ to "_de unga"_ to form the genitive, we must of course do the same with "_de rika_" and "_de visa_".


applefarm said:


> Adjectives plural/definitive form ends with "-a" (ung'a) or if wanted to emphasize that they talk about men, then adjective can end wtih "-e" instead (ung'e).
> 
> de unge - the young men.
> 
> Because the "wizards/dwarfs" were all men and not women, then it sounds more correct to use ending "-e" in adjectives relating to those "wizards/dwarfs" and not "-a".
> 
> So:
> 
> de vises sten = a stone of wise men/people/wizards. The wises' (people/wizards) stone.


For older Swedish this would have been correct (as far as I understand), but *not *for modern Swedish. We no longer use the _-e_ ending for adjectives in the plural. It only lives on in fixed phrases like the ones that have been mentioned in this thread: _de vises sten_, _de tre vise männen_.

The _-e_ ending can is still used in the singular for masculine persons. However, more and more people just use the _-a_ form instead, especially in informal situations, and it's normally not considered wrong to use the latter anymore.


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## applefarm

Hi,
Thank you for correcting me.
Yes, typos were there also.


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## paliman

DerForsch, for what you say I would think that these changes are relatively new. How old is the "older swedish" we are talking about? (even in post #10 user uchuu complained that more and more people use the -a ending for everything)


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## DerFrosch

I find uchuu's comment quite strange. As I've said earlier in this thread, the masculine _-e_ ending is still very much in use in the singular, although it's not mandatory to use it. I agree with uchuu that it's beginning to slowly fall out of use, and I also agree that that's a shame. However, the plural is a competely different story. That comment seems to imply that uchuu actually uses the plural -e ending in speech, if it weren't for the fact that would be absurd. I can assure you nobody speaks like that today – with the expection for some dialects, but that's not really the same thing, as in many of them the -e ending is used for inanimate objects as well  – and no one uses it in writing either.

I'm no expert when it comes to older Swedish, so I can't give a definite answer as to when it fell out of use. I do know that it was still used in the 19th century. I've also seen some examples of it being used in literature from the first half of the 20th century, but I'm guessing that already then it was old-fashioned and literary stile. I would be surprised if anyone could find an example of it being used after WW2.


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