# Swedish: bösspipors



## Pizzas

Hi, I am trying to understand this sentence using Google Translate and an online dictionary, and there are a few words that I don't understand.

I sin bästa sömn väcktes allesammans af ett par bösspipors instickande genom fönstren och befallning att stiga upp och tända ljus, hvilket de genast gjorde, och funno huset omringadt af bofvarne, som voro väl beväpnade och medförde lykta. 

In his best sleep awakened everyone by a couple of barrels boring through the windows and ordered to get up and light candles, which they promptly did, and found the house surrounded by scoundrels, who were well armed and brought lamp. 

My understanding is that someone was sleeping in a house, and his sleep was interrupted when the armed scoundrels outside of the house put a couple of barrels through some windows.

Does the word bösspipors refer to wooden barrels or the barrel of a gun? If it refers to a gun, did the scoundrels shoot the windows or just break them by hitting the gun against the glass?


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## Dan2

In an experiment to see if someone who knows a little Swedish (me)  equipped with a dictionary can do a better job than Google Translate, I  offer the following translation.  The native speakers can make  improvements.

I don't recognize the 's' at the end of "pipors", so I assume "pipor", I assume "bofvarne" is a typo or older spelling of "bovarne", and will not try to exactly translate "bästa sömn".  There are some older verb forms, and in general some word choices might depend on when this was written.

"In their sleep, they were all awaked by a couple of gunbarrels sticking thru  the window and (by) the order to get up and light candles/turn on the lights, which  they immediately did, and found the house surrounded by villains who  were well armed and carried lanterns."


Pizzas said:


> Does the word bösspipors refer to wooden barrels or the barrel of a gun? If it refers to a gun, did the scoundrels shoot the windows or just break them by hitting the gun against the glass?


Gun barrels.  I don't think we know whether the windows were broken.


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## Pizzas

Thank you so much, Dan2! Well done! This was written back in the 1850s. I'm using it for research, and Google Translate has become my fast friend since I don't know any Swedish. I'm normally able to get the gist of what's going on, but sometimes, it's gibberish.


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## Pizzas

And considering where these people were (Chatham Island in the Galapagos Archipelago), it's very likely that there wasn't any glass on the windows.


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## hanne

Bössa is a rifle. Bösspipa is the pipe of a rifle (or whatever it's called, the long metal part that's what you'd see if it's coming in through the window). Bösspipor is plural, bösspipors is plural, genitive. (they were awoken by the sticking in "of rifle pipes" through the windows). It just says that the guns came in through the window, nothing about how, so you're probably right there wasn't any glass.

Out of general curiosity: What's the book?


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## Tjahzi

The combined analysis provided by Dan2 and hanne is accurate. The language does indeed seem to be very old fashioned and a young/uneducated speaker might even have some problems understanding it.


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## Dan2

Pizzas said:


> ... ett par bösspipors  ...





hanne said:


> Bösspipor is plural, bösspipors is plural,  genitive. (they were awoken by the sticking in "of gun rifles"


Knowing English and German I considered the possibility that this was a genitive 's', but I didn't think Swedish would have it here.
One says, "Jag har ett par vänner som ...", not "vänners", right? Was the 's' used in older Swedish?


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## hanne

I don't see the similarity to your example with friends, but no, you wouldn't say vänners.

If we take away the plural it becomes easier to construct the sentence in English (which I avoided earlier, because it looked too confusing ): "they were awoken by a rifle's sticking in through the window"


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## Tjahzi

Nah, although the construction itself is very old fashioned, it would be identical in contemporary Swedish. The problem is the confusing word order. 
 
Let me simplify and rephrase: 
  
_De väcktes av instickandet av ett par bösspipor genom fönstren._

They were awoken by the insertion of a couple of rifles barrels through the windows. (Note the identical word order.)
 
As such, we have a genitive construction, here presented through the usage of _av/of_. The original was more or less the same, but it was presented synthetically.


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## Dan2

OK, I see now.  When Hanne related the 's' to "a couple *of* gun barrels", I thought the claim was that it was that "of" that created the genitive (like "value *of* gold" = "gold'*s* value").  If that were true, we'd also expect "ett par vänners".

But I see now that the 's' relates not to "par" but to the the gun barrels' "possession" of the "instickande".  So this would be like "ett par vänners bil", where the vänner possess the bil, hence the 's'.


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## Tjahzi

Indeed. This is a case of a partitive genitive.


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## Pizzas

Thank you all for your very thorough explanations! 

The book is Fregatten Eugenies resa omkring jorden åren 1851–1853, under befäl af C.A. Virgin by Carl Skogman. I'm researching the American whale ship, the George Howland, and the Eugenie comes into contact with it.

I wonder if there are any schools in the Boston area that offer Swedish...


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## Sepia

hanne said:


> Bössa is a rifle. Bösspipa is the pipe of a rifle (or whatever it's called, the long metal part that's what you'd see if it's coming in through the window). Bösspipor is plural, bösspipors is plural, genitive. (they were awoken by the sticking in "of rifle pipes" through the windows). It just says that the guns came in through the window, nothing about how, so you're probably right there wasn't any glass.
> 
> Out of general curiosity: What's the book?




You are almost right - only it is not the barrel of a rifle. "Studsare" is a rifle. We are talking about smoothbores - in other words: Shotguns. Maybe even very menacingly looking double barreled shotguns.


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## Tjahzi

Sepia said:


> You are almost right - only it is not the barrel of a rifle. "Studsare" is a rifle. We are talking about smoothbores - in other words: Shotguns. Maybe even very menacingly looking double barreled shotguns.


 
Today, _bössa_ is rather colloquial and refers to all rifle-like firearms, not just shotguns in particular.


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## JohanIII

Sepia said:


> ...smoothbores - in other words: Shotguns.


Might be, but could also be muskets.

Bössa is, as Tjahzi says, now used both for smoothbores and rifles, and is older than the rifle technology (a rifled gun - the bore was rifled, not smooth). I don't know if the word could imply a rifle at the time of the story or writing, but what kind of bössa was used here could be either or a mix, as smoothbores were still not uncommon at the time.


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