# Swedish: Cardinal directions



## Tjahzi

I stumbled upon a thread disscussing the names of the cardinal directions in various languages and was just about to give my Swedish input when I realized that the situation is rather dubious in Swedish, or, at least that appears to be the case for me. I remember being over this with myself in the past without being able to come to any satisfying conclusion, but hopefully taking the question here will prove more succesful. 

Now, at a quick glance, Swedish appears to have three words for each direction corresponding to a singel English word for the same direction. 

An example, "south", translates to "syd", "söder", "södra". At a closer look, those can be reduced down to two when we take into account that "södra" is just the definite form of "söder". However, it's harder to distinguish "söder" from "syd". I've tried making example sentences in order to find out "what soudns better when", but without much success. In addition to that I did some googling and still didn't come up with any coherent conclusion, although minor patterns were observed.

(i=in, mot=towards, till=to, från=from, söder/syd=south, norr/nord=north, öster/öst=east, väster/väst=west)

"i söder" vs "i syd" *658 000* vs *709 000*
"i norr" vs "i nord" *1 290 000* vs *2 020 000*
"i öster" vs "i öst" *288 000* vs *377 000*
"i väster" vs "i väst" *653 000* vs *382 000*

"mot söder" vs "mot syd" *97 400* vs *88 800*
"mot norr" vs "mot nord" *113 000* vs *283 000*
"mot öster" vs "mot öst" *112 000* vs *20 900*
"mot väster" vs "mot väst" *56 600* vs *31 400*

"till söder" vs "till syd" *168 000* vs *31 800*
"till norr" vs "till nord" *42 500* vs *27 100*
"till öster" vs "till öst" *23 800* vs *26 900*
"till väster" vs "till väst" *16 900* vs *49 900*

"från söder" vs "från syd" *122 000* vs *42 900*
"från norr" vs "från nord" *279 000* vs *32 700*
"från öster" vs "från öst" *66 700* vs *190 000*
"från väster" vs "från väst" *57 500* vs *68 700*

I was hoping for a pattern indicating a distinction between "active" and "static" similar to the one made by most Swedish locative preposition(and preposition like words) such as "här/borta/ute/i" vs "hit/bort/ut/in". However, this obviously proved not to be the case. Why do people prefer to say both "till/från söder/norr" but "till/från öst/väst"? To me, these numbers indicated nothing (except that "north" is not most popular cardinal direction among Swedes!) but instead brought additional confusion. 

Or could this inconsistency be cause by me wrongfully having mistaken the identity of "väst/öst" vs "väster/öster"? I grouped the former together with "syd/nord" due to all of them ending with dental plosives and the latter, just like "norr/söder" end with "r". Still, rearrangingthose numbers doesn't reveal any clear pattern, especially not any similar to the "active" vs "static" distinction" that I was hoping for.

As you can see, I'm helplessly lost in my search for clarification. Do you have the/an answer? Or some information which could bring one, or have you found any flaws in my analysis? Or do you have any information on how other languages handle this situation? Hearing how Norwegian and Danish deals with it would be very interesting. Also, do you know how this distinction arose in the first place? All I can think of right now, having, at least temporarily, dismissed the "active" vs "static"-theory, is that it's gender related, but not even that makes much sense right now. Help and/or input highly appreciated.



PS. Please do not ask for the underlying reasons of this obsession of mine.


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## mariaper

You use the words "syd, väst, ost/öst, nord" together, for example. "sydväst, (southwest), nordost(northeast). In other situations it is more common to use söder, norr, väster, öster.


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## María Madrid

Södra är ju en adjektiv, eller hur?


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## Tjahzi

mariaper said:


> You use the words "syd, väst, ost/öst, nord" together, for example. "sydväst, (southwest), nordost(northeast). In other situations it is more common to use söder, norr, väster, öster.



I'm a native Swede. I know that when combining mutliple directions, one uses the "short" forms. However, in most other situations, the different forms are all mixed and almost completly interchangeable. My questions are;

1) Is there an actuall difference in meaning?
2) What is it?
3) How did this distinction appear?
4) Why in Swedish?
5) Do other languages have it?



María Madrid said:


> Södra är ju en adjektiv, eller hur?



Yes, "södra/norra/västra/östra" are the definite forms of "söder/norr/väster/öster" (or at least that's my assumption based on that they appear to follow the standard rules for suffixing). "Syd" and "söder" could both be considered adjectives too, or nouns. However, since I have this distinction (the "södra" from "syd/söder" one) pretty cleared out, I'm eager to find out the difference between those two (groups).


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## jonquiliser

I have no idea about any differences in meaning, but looking at your examples, I seem to get a messy picture when I try to settle for myself what sounds better. Only in some cases do the two versions sound interchangeable to me. Take for example these:

"i söder"  vs "i syd" :
"i norr"  vs "i nord" :
"i öster" vs "i öst" - both 
"i väster" vs "i väst" - both 

Don't know if it's just me though.

As a sidenote, in many cases it would sound more natural to me to use for example "söderut" or söderifrån", rather than "mot söder"/"från söder".


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## Tjahzi

I agree with you jonquiliser. Some of those combinations sound better than others, and constructions involving suffixes like "-ifrån", "-ut" and "-över" are, and should be, emplyed when when possible. However, both of the examples that you identified as being "incorrect" (that is, thumb down) are both the dominating ones in their respective pairs! Now, the question is, what makes you prefer the one, and the average population the other, of those? Surely there has to be some difefrence, ehh?


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## jonquiliser

Still though, you googled, right? Because when I google, most of the hits on the first number of pages for "i syd" (as one example) seem to be either referring to a company (Syd, capitalised) or be a prefix (Syd-Afrika). Is that at all possible? Also, there isn't a big difference in numbers on your list (*658 000* vs *709 000*) so almost half the average population seem to be on my side anyway 

Seriously, though, I have no idea why some of the alternatives sound better to me than others. Nor do I know any rules related to this.


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## Tjahzi

Indeed, my google survey definatly could be flawed, but the essential part is that there is no clear answer. Unless I missunderstodd you, you stated that "i syd" sounds simply incorrect to you. What my numbers do is that they indicate that people in general find those equally passable (since, as you say, there really is no big difference, both are used). Half the people don't necessarily agree about "i söder" being the only possible option, but more than half surely disagree about "i syd" being outright incorrect!  Even more so with "i norr/nord".

Anyhow, the problem remains that none of us seems to have a clue why these separate forms have emerged in the first place and what the difference between them is, or was, for that matter. Since I've been over this myself without getting anywhere, I was hoping someone here could help me take this investigation further. Feel free to test something!


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## sdr083

Don't know if it's of any use or interest to you, but Norwegian does not have this difference.  However, instead of _frå nord/vest/sør/aust _you can write _nordfrå/nordafrå/nordanifrå, vestfrå/vestafrå/vestanifrå, sørfrå/sønnafrå/søranifrå, austfrå/austafrå/austanifrå_.  This applies only in the last case, though, you cannot do this with _mot/i/til_.
(I am here referring to Nynorsk, since I'm not up to date on Bokmål spelling.  In spoken Norwegian there are probably also other possibilities.)


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## Tjahzi

Ahh, thank you sdr083! That information was infact exactly what I was asking for.  

Swedish, too, tends to merge prepositions and cardinal directions as in your examples, but we also have 2 (or 3 if you want) versions of the name of east direction. Obviously, that is not the case for Norwegian. So, have Norwegian lost a form, or has Swedish created a new? I still don't know.


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## Lugubert

Öst etc. seems to be used mainly for land directions, and ost etc. to sea. Despite being a professional translator, I'm not too careful of my choices. And it's just too easy to find contradicting usages. For winds, the _östanvind_ could just as correctly be named _ostan_. The Far East is _Fjärran Östern_, but East Asia is _Ostasien_.


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## Wilma_Sweden

Instead of searching in Google, I searched in Språkbanken, a corpus of texts collected by Göteborg University. I got rid of a lot of false hits that way. I also looked in NE:s dictionary, and together I came to the below conclusion (rule of thumb):

Nord, Syd, Öst, Väst are used in bridge positions (i.e. the card game).
Nord, Syd, Ost, Väst are used in nautical and meteorological contexts as well as when combining intermediary directions (sydväst, nordost)

Norr, Söder, Öster, Väster are used elsewhere.  (norrifrån, söderut, i norr)

I couldn't find any etymological explanation to the synonymous forms or their age.

I can't paste full URL's, but I hope you'll find your way there anyhow:
_ spraakbanken.gu.se/konk/_ and _ne.se_ (subscription only).

I hope this sheds more light on the subject.

/Wilma


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