# Swedish: Komma, komma, komma, dyr get



## upgrader

Hi everyone,

I am reading Voyager by Diana Gabaldon, in chapter 49, there is a paragraph like this:
[
_Komma, komma, komma_, _dyr get_,” she crooned, luring a yearling within reach with a twiddled handful of hay. The animal stretched out cautious lips, and was promptly seized by the neck and pulled forward, its head secured under Annekje’s brawny arm.
]

What does _Komma, komma, komma_, _dyr get_ mean? Online dictionaries say Komma = comma, but I don't see that fits. Also, I don't know _dyr get_ meaning either. So please help me for it. I would greatly appreciate it.

upgrader


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## Myridon

The character, Annekje, is singing a song which is not in English.  (I suspect that it may be Swedish.)


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## frenchifried

I Googled it  and found "Come, come, come, dear goat" (Swedish) - There is a glossary at the back of Diana Gabaldon's book, _The Outlandish Companion.  _I haven't read her books. They look interesting.


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## MattiasNYC

This I suppose maybe should be moved, but I found Diana's "The Outlandish Companion" and right under that line I find "Guten Morgen" which is stated as being Swedish, but actually is German. So I would probably not rely on that source for a translation.

The name Annekje Johansen sounds Scandinavian but not really Swedish to me. The word "dyr" is currently used to mean "expensive" or "valuable", but it's easy to see how it could have been used for "dear", and is indeed listed as such but with the remark that it is a dated usage.

So if the story takes place a while ago, and with the caveat that it might not be Swedish, "come come come dear goat" could indeed be correct. But I'd ask about it in the Scandinavian section if more clarification was needed.


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## upgrader

Hi Myridon, frenchifried, and MattiasNYC,

Thank you so much for your help. You are right. In the story, Annekje is a Swedish and in charge of goats on board. Your explanations make great sense. Very much appreciated!

upgrader


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## Svabergindianer

upgrader said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> I am reading Voyager by Diana Gabaldon, in chapter 49, there is a paragraph like this:
> [
> _Komma, komma, komma_, _dyr get_,” she crooned, luring a yearling within reach with a twiddled handful of hay. The animal stretched out cautious lips, and was promptly seized by the neck and pulled forward, its head secured under Annekje’s brawny arm.
> ]
> 
> What does _Komma, komma, komma_, _dyr get_ mean? Online dictionaries say Komma = comma, but I don't see that fits. Also, I don't know _dyr get_ meaning either. So please help me for it. I would greatly appreciate it.
> 
> upgrader


I have just read this section in "Voyager" and I actually was a bit disappointed.  While Diana Gabaldon seems to have made quite a lot of investigation in order to get historic details correct, she seems to have slipped when it comes to Annekje Johansen.  Even though I am not Swedish myself, Norwegian and Swedish is so alike that I can say that "_Komma, komma, komma_, _dyr get" _is not correct.  "Komma komma" may be a version of Kom, kom (come, come), and "get" means goat.  Dyr is not dear, or at least not in common usage.  And as MattiasNYC states "Guten morgen" is German.  What she would have said is "God morgon" and "kom kom, kära get".
Not even her name sounds Swedish, Annekje is probably Dutch and Johansen is Norwegian or Danish (swedish version is Johansson).  Little details like this - which are so easy to check up - can be quite annoying when reading novels.


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## Cagey

Moderator's note:

I've moved this from English Only, in case anyone has anything to add about the authenticity of the topic line  -- or the accuracy of its identification as Swedish. 

Thank you, 
Cagey, moderator.


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## AutumnOwl

Svabergindianer said:


> Dyr is not dear, or at least not in common usage.


It's true that _dyr_ doesn't (usually) mean dear today, but the story takes place in the 18th century, not today. For example, in the older Swedish translation of Shakespeare's Hamlet it says _dyre prins_ instead of _käre prins, _and as late as 1945 the title of John Barrymore's memoirs was titled _Godnatt, dyre prins. _


Svabergindianer said:


> "Komma komma" may be a version of Kom, kom (come, come)


If calling on an animal in Swedish I would use _komsi, komsi_ and neither _komma, komma or kom, kom._


Svabergindianer said:


> Johansen is Norwegian or Danish (swedish version is Johansson).


I don't know how it was in the 18th century in Denmark and Norway, but in Sweden a female would have been _Johansdotter_ and not _Johansson_, as patronymic surnames (ending with -dotter for girls and -son for boys) was in use in Sweden until the end of the 19th century.


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## cocuyo

And getting back to _dyr_ and _get_, the latter is female, and I suppose it should then be _dyra get_, which in modern Swedish sounds a bit odd. And neither now nor at that time, would the infinitive be used for imperative.


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## DerFrosch

cocuyo said:


> And getting back to _dyr_ and _get_, the latter is female,



In what way is _get "_female"?


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## Segorian

DerFrosch said:


> In what way is _get "_female"?



Just as _bock_ is male?


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## AutumnOwl

Isn't _get_ the name both of the species and the female goat? I wouldn't assume that it's a female, especially as the book only mentions that it's a yearling.


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## Ben Jamin

DerFrosch said:


> In what way is _get "_female"?


It's not "female" it's "feminine" and relates to grammatical gender, not to sex. The other genders are "masculine" (not "male"), and "neuter" (not "neutral" as often misspelled)


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## DerFrosch

Ben Jamin said:


> It's not "female" it's "feminine" and relates to grammatical gender, not to sex. The other genders are "masculine" (not "male"), and "neuter" (not "neutral" as often misspelled)



Well, in Swedish neither feminine nor masculine exists as grammatical genders. So cocuyo really did mean female, and he was of course right in that a female goat is called "get" - and so is the species, as AutumnOwl remarked. My comment came off wrong - what I meant was that we can't know for sure whether the "get" is female or male.


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## Lugubert

DerFrosch said:


> Well, in Swedish neither feminine nor masculine exists as grammatical genders. So cocuyo really did mean female, and he was of course right in that a female goat is called "get" - and so is the species, as AutumnOwl remarked. My comment came off wrong - what I meant was that we can't know for sure whether the "get" is female or male.


Just to be picky, grammatical M/F gender remains dialectally. In spoken Göteborgese (West Sweden) you may still hear the difference between _den lella tösa_ 'the little girl' (standard Swedish: _den lilla tösen_) and _den lelle pôjken_ 'the little boy' (SSW most often den lilla pojken) and similar.


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## DerFrosch

Lugubert said:


> Just to be picky, grammatical M/F gender remains *dialectally*. In spoken Göteborgese (West Sweden) you may still hear the difference between _den lella tösa_ 'the little girl' (standard Swedish: _den lilla tösen_) and _den lelle pôjken_ 'the little boy' (SSW most often den lilla pojken) and similar.



It puzzles me that you're saying that it remains *dialectally*. When did we stop using it in the standard language? I haven't, anyway.



Lugubert said:


> _den lelle pôjken_ 'the little boy' (*SSW most often den lilla pojken*)



Well, it's true that many (although perhaps not most?) people often erroneously use "_lilla pojken_" especially in spoken language, but it should properly be "_lille pojken_".

In the last few decades, however, it seems as though the number of people who are not aware of this rule has risen, so before long both "_lilla pojken_" and "_lille pojken_" may be considered equally correct.

Anyway, you're right in that masculine and feminine both exist in Swedish. But it's only relevant in regard to these endings, -a and -e.


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## Lugubert

DerFrosch said:


> It puzzles me that you're saying that it remains *dialectally*. When did we stop using it in the standard language? I haven't, anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> Well, it's true that many (although perhaps not most?) people often erroneously use "_lilla pojken_" especially in spoken language, but it should properly be "_lille pojken_".
> 
> In the last few decades, however, it seems as though the number of people who are not aware of this rule has risen, so before long both "_lilla pojken_" and "_lille pojken_" may be considered equally correct.
> 
> Anyway, you're right in that masculine and feminine both exist in Swedish. But it's only relevant in regard to these endings, -a and -e.



I still say dialectically. And I'm surprised that you, supposedly in Stockholm, think that the difference is maintained in the "standard language". I have lived in Stockholm for extended periods, and from my main upbringing in Göteborg, it irritated me that almost nobody made the difference. Even one of our most revered national poets, Evert Taube, with his eastern background, despite being very familiar with the west coast, wrote _Svarta Rudolf_ (yes, that's the original title of 'Black Rudolph', even if you today sometimes encounter _Svarte Rudolf_).


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## DerFrosch

Lugubert said:


> And I'm surprised that you, supposedly in Stockholm, think that the difference is maintained in the "standard language".



Well, I've got Språkrådet on my side. Like I said, a lot of people (most definitely the majority, I take back what I said about that) don't make a difference in spoken language. But I'm arguing that it's still the norm in written language, albeit a norm which is increasingly being ignored.

This article sums it up pretty well: http://www.svd.se/konet-maste-fa-avgora-valet-av-adjektivandelse

It's admittedly a complicated situation, perhaps I wasn't clear about that. I guess it shouldn't be considered wrong to use the -a-ending for male persons, since this use is so widespread.

I also think there's a difference between words that are inherently masculine (_mannen_, _pojken_, etc.) and words that aren't.

1. "_Den gamla mannen_" sounds bad in my ears, in writing I would consider it wrong.
2. "_Politiker_", on the other hand, can describe both men and women. So "_den erfarna politikern_" would be undoubtedly correct if the politician was female. If it would be used about a male politician, it wouldn't sound that bad, since that sentence is correct in another case, we're used to the sound of it. Personally, I think "_erfarne_" is still more elegant here, but "_erfarna_" is not altogether wrong.

In any case, although there surely are regional differences, "dialectically" is not the right word here. After all, _Alexander den store_ wasn't a _Göteborgare_, was he?


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