Re: Swedish sambos

Prai Jei skreiv:

Trond Engen set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time continuum:

A Danish would rather introduce you to his <kæreste> (or so it seems to me).

The word suggest simply "dearest" indicating a person dearly loved,
deliberately fudging the issue of the precise legal relationship.

The current usage in Denmark is very wide -- it can be used for anything from a one night stand to a life-kong spouse -- and may reflect an older meaning.

In current Norwegian it's the common word for boyfriend/girlfriend ("news"paper headline: 'Ja, vi er kjærester!' "Yes, we're a couple!"). In old documents, however, it can be found in the meaning "wife".

I'm not so sure about contemporary Swedish. It may have an archaic or rustic flair there, a taste of old songs and countryside romance. But then again, maybe it's just my knowledge of Swedish that's tilted towards those areas. As I think it is for most Norwegians.

(Is the initial k pronounced as English ch?)

In Danish? No, <k> = [k] in any environment (though often unaspirated).

In most dialects of Norwegian it's [C] (the ich-laut) before all vowels except /a/, /o/, /u/ and /å/ (and for some reason it's spelled as <kj> before <e>, <æ> and <ø>, <k> before <i> and <y>). This sound seems to be dying, though, being replaced by /S/ in the speech of young people. In standard Swedish these sounds are already merged, if they were ever distinct. I don't think this is the case in the dialects, but I don't dare to be specific.

There are only a few dialects of Norwegian and Swedish (parts of Sunnmøre in Norway and Nyland in Finland, I think) that have the affricate [tS]. It's said to be an archaism.

I wonder if this has to do with the choice of verb. Both <bo> and <leve> translates to English 'live', but in different meanings. <bo> is locational ('jeg bor i Norge' "I live in Norway") and 'leve' is existencial ('så lenge jeg lever' "as long as I live").

Similar to older English "dwell" for the locational sense, a distinction lost in the modern tongue. "...These dwelt at Jerusalem" - 1 Chron 9:34 [...]

That's right. The Danish, Norwegian and Swedish translations all have "De bodde i Jerusalem". (Danish: <boede>).

--
Trond Engen
- with the usual caveat when speaking of other people's languages
.

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