# Swedish: Vargavinter



## caralt

Hej, 
What does VARGAVINTER means? I´m not even sure if it´s Swedish or some sort of Lapland language.
Does it means bloody winter? ¡¡Gracias!!


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## Alxmrphi

Wiki says:Vargavinter, en riktigt kall vinter.​Which Google Translate says:Vargavinter, a really cold winter.​


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## Talarðu íslensku?

*bitterly cold winter, *according to Lexin.

In other words, just what most of Sweden is experiencing right now (Southern Sweden is in many cases an exception )


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## Magb

Literally a "wolf winter", but it's a purely metaphorical term of course.


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## AutumnOwl

A very cold winter with lots of snow, so that the wild wolves that hide in the forrest comes close to human settlements to hunt.


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## Alxmrphi

AutumnOwl said:


> A very cold winter with lots of snow, so that the wild wolves that hide in the forrest comes close to human settlements to hunt.



To hunt humans??


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## Delfinen

No they don't hunt humans but sheep and other such animals if it's difficult to find food in the forest. Long time ago, hundred years ago there were many wolfs and they were than a threat to humans as well. Some sweeds think that the wolf still is a threat to there own life, but dogs are more dangerous. But the phrase is an old one, and that's what AutumnOwl wanted to explain I think.


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## Tjahzi

Actually, I think the expression could be derived as far as this.


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## Alxmrphi

Tjahzi said:


> Actually, I think the expression could be derived as far as this.



Ah, I didn't know it was linked to that story, but I had heard *fimbulvetur* in Icelandic before.


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## Tjahzi

Well, I don't know, but considering Tyr's involvement in Ragnarök (which is to preceded by the fimbulvinter) I believe there might be a connection.

Förresten, snygg avatar.


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## Alxmrphi

Tjahzi said:


> Förresten, snygg avatar.



Tack, jag försöker att hålla dem under säsong.
(Som pumpa för Halloween)


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## JohanIII

Hej Alx - kul signatur, den hade jag faktiskt inte hört förut!

"hålla dem säsongsenliga" skulle jag säga.

Vargavinter förstås nog av alla svenskar, om de än inte aktivt använder det.

En observation: "wolf winter" skulle exakt bli "vargvinter". Det extra a:et (varg*a*vinter) är ett äldre slags genitiv, och gör uttrycket mer arkaiskt.

Jag måste erkänna att mina grammatiska kunskaper inte är fullständiga, så rätta mig gärna, men _in essence_ är det så.


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## Tjahzi

Alex kan egentligen inte svenska, bara isländska. Jag bara lockade honom att prata svenska lite genom att kommentera hans avatar.


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## Alxmrphi

Tjahzi said:


> Alex kan egentligen inte svenska, bara isländska. Jag bara lockade honom att prata svenska lite genom att kommentera hans avatar.



Och jag har använt Google Translate för att läsa / skriva svar.
(Hence the bad translational of my 'seasonal avatar' message!) 

But I've managed to link a few Swedish words to Icelandic ones and I think in general whenever I look at Swedish, I will understand a lot more about the structure than I did before (for example att = að, so easy once it has been pointed out but before it never occurred to me !)


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## Tjahzi

Haha, jag räknade inte med att du skulle vara vaken nu, men om du kan läsa mina svenska svar utan lexikon så tycker jag det är ett utmärkt exempel på hur lika de nordiska språken är! Det är väldigt intressant hur mycket svenska du förstår av att ha läst isländska.

However, as I'm very much intoxicated at the moment, I will not engage in any deeper conversation on the subject, until tomorrow at least!


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## Alxmrphi

No no, not without a dictionary, Google Translate  But a few similarities I can see, yes.
I'm still awake because* I *had a very intoxicated night last night, and only got up at 4pm this afternoon.
_
Vargavinter _also here.


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## Tjahzi

Very well, I am sure, considering the obvious similarities, that the more Icelandic you learn, the better your ability to comprehend continental Scandinavian will be. Additionally, I must say, I feel sorry for you native English people who have technically no closely related language at all (excluding Frisian). I mean, you need a lot of studying before you can engage in any linguistic typology.

That said, assuming you browse both Swedish and Norwegian threads here, which ones do you find easier (or less hard) to understand Alex?


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## Alxmrphi

Tjahzi said:


> Very well, I am sure, considering the obvious similarities, that the more Icelandic you learn, the better your ability to comprehend continental Scandinavian will be. Additionally, I must say, I feel sorry for you native English people who have technically no closely related language at all (excluding Frisian). I mean, you need a lot of studying before you can engage in any linguistic typology.
> 
> That said, assuming you browse both Swedish and Norwegian threads here, which ones do you find easier (or less hard) to understand Alex?



Interesting question, it depends.. I would have thought Norwegian because it's part of the West Norse family (like Faroese & Icelandic), but generally I'd say it was more Swedish and Danish (from the East Norse group), but I don't know why...

About the no-related language. That does make it a bit more difficult, but it's also part of the challenge. I think this leads a lot of English speakers into some thought process that lead them to not understand how languages are linked, and this whole no-distant-relative certainly could be one of the reasons that stops people from even thinking about it.

I remember when I learnt that hundreds of languages around Europe came from Indo-European, I was absolutely stunned, I had no idea, I'd never given it any thought, yet I had always known French / Spanish / Italian were similar, but I had never asked myself why. Maybe that's because it's only something that occurs to you if you have an inquisitive mind or if your native language is similar to another, then you generally understand about language change. But if you said to a layman in England that around 200AD, German, Norwegian, Frisian, Saxon, Danish, Gothic, English, Icelandic and Dutch were all the same language, I don't think they'd believe you.... So going further and saying 5,000BC then (some of) the languages in India, German and Portuguese were all the same thing, I think they'd think you were insulting their intelligence.

Maybe we should go to PM with this, it's way off topic


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## Tjahzi

That's interesting to hear. Well, the old west/east distinction is now more or less gone and modern scholars focus more on the insular/continental distinction (with Faroese+Icelandic on the one side and the rest on the other (speaking of Faroese, how well do you understand it? As I'm mainly interested in typology, I ask this question whenever I meet an Icelander and I usually get the answer that "well, it's ok to read and we can communicate, but when they start talking to each other, I'm completely lost!). Personally, I find it somewhat hard to tell Icelandic and Faroese apart (despite having studied Icelandic), though obviously, the main differences lie within pronunciation. 

Regarding the differences of languages, in general, I can say that I grew up learning that Norwegian and Danish were more or less similar to my language (I also remember traveling to England at the age of 6 and not being able to communicate at all). As I grew older, I came to learn that they were both comprehensible in writing, but that I only understood spoken Norwegian. Later on, I came to realize that German was similar, though not comprehensible. In fact, most Swedish people that have studied German state that they understand quite a lot of written German but that they have a mediocre ability of producing any German themselves. This, more or less, goes for me as well.

Out of curiosity, do you find the eloquence level of these last few posts of mine to be lower my normal standard?


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## Tjahzi

Also, I would like to add that I think that the general approach to  foreign languages among English speaking people had been different (more  positive, that is) had there been a language closely related to English.

And also, considering your last remark, after Wilma's departure  (whereto I don't know), we hardly have any admin here so I suppose we  should enjoy ourselves until further notice.


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## Lars H

Hej
No doubt that "varga-" is the same word as "varg", but it is not obvious that it means "wolf" in this context. Here's another possible interpretation:

The word "varg" is a metaphore for Scandinavian "ulv", since it was thought that if you called certain creatures by their real names they would appear. "Speak of the devil and he doth appear" is an English example of the same kind of superstition.
And since Swedes, most wisely, tend to fear trolls more than the devil, our saying goes "när man talar om trollen står de i farstun".

The metaphore used, "varg", means "killer", "manslaughterer" or originally "strangler". Bear in mind that during extraordinary cold winters there were a few more perils around than just hungry wolves. 
So the literary meaning of "vargavinter" could perhaps be something like "killer winter", "dräparvinter".


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## Delfinen

That is interesting! Hadn't thought about that, but you are right about the old word _vargher_ means a killer, and then it could be the same in the other nordic languages. Anyone knows?


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## brztm

Delfinen said:


> That is interesting! Hadn't thought about that, but you are right about the old word _vargher_ means a killer, and then it could be the same in the other nordic languages. Anyone knows?


'Vargavinter' is a relatively new word (first attested in 1929, according to Svensk ordbok), so the element 'varg(a)-' definitely refers to 'wolf' and not to any Old Swedish sense of the word.


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