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Gnägg! 10 animal noises that sound very different in Swedish

What noise does a horse make? "Neigh" of course, but not in Sweden. Instead, Swedes think horses are more likely to "gnägg", one of many differences in opinion over animal onomatopoeia.

Published: 31 May 2017 06:59 CEST
Updated: 28 August 2023 06:23 CEST

Gnägg! 10 animal noises that sound very different in Swedish

Gnägg, my friend, gnägg. Photo: AP Photo/Michael Probst

1. Pigs

In the English language it’s universally accepted that pigs say “oink, oink”, but let’s be honest, that’s a bit of a stretch. The Swedish representation of the animal’s sound, “nöff nöff”, probably comes closer to capturing their snuffling – to these ears at least.

2. Horses

Horses “neigh” in English, but in Sweden they’re seemingly much better with their lips, as they say “gnägg”. Not convinced.

3. Dogs…

In English, dogs “woof”. In Swedish, they “voff” or “vov”, so we can more or less agree on this one. Except when it comes to smaller dogs…

4. … particularly yappy dogs

Because apparently, high-pitched, yappy dogs in Sweden “bjäbb”. Yes, that’s right, “bjäbb”. We’re not making this up.

5. Frogs

Frogs “croak” in English, and if we’re being fair that doesn’t sound entirely accurate, but they most certainly do not say “kväk” or “kvack”, which apparently the Swedes have convinced themselves into believing.

6. Cats

In English, cats “meow”. In Swedish, they “mjau”. It’s definitely closer than the Japanese description of a cat’s noise – “nyaa, nyaa”.

7. Mice

Real mice “squeak”. Swedish mice “pip”. So close, yet so far…

8. Bears

In Sweden the bears “brum”. Confusingly, this is also the sound a car makes in Swedish.

9. Ducks

In English, ducks “quack”. In Swedish, they “kvack”, which seems reasonable enough, at least compared to some of the previous examples (horses, I’m looking at you).

10. Humans

What isn’t reasonable enough is this noise made exclusively by Sweden’s humans – by far the oddest species – seemingly in order to keep conversations as short as possible. This will never become normal to these international ears:

Article written by Lee Roden in 2017 and updated by The Local’s editorial team in 2023.

How positive are Swedes towards foreign accents?

The study asked Swedes to identify the accents of 12 different people speaking Swedish, before rating the speakers on their trustworthiness, friendliness, ambition, confidence, appeal and whether they were ordentlig, a Swedish word which describes something similar to being “proper” or an upstanding citizen.

These qualities were then ranked from one (not at all) to six (a lot), before being combined into a total score for each speaker.

Respondents were not told if they had guessed the accent of a speaker correctly or incorrectly before ranking them.

Speakers of Swedish with an English accent had the highest score on this scale: 3.86, although this is still low considering that the highest possible score was six. The English speaker spoke British English and has lived in Sweden for 41 years.

Finns came just behind on 3.85, with Germans coming third with a score of 3.79.

These three accents were also considered to be the easiest to understand, no matter how strong or weak the accents were considered to be.

In fourth place with a score of 3.62 was a female speaker with a förortsaccent, which is not an accent at all but rather a dialect of Swedish spoken in the often immigrant-heavy suburbs (förorter) of large cities. Although some aspects of förortssvenska have been influenced by languages spoken by people who have immigrated to these parts of Sweden from abroad, many speakers of förortssvenska were born in Sweden and have lived their entire lives here.

Next up were Somali, Arabic and Turkish accents, with scores of 3.32, 3.29 and 3.24 respectively. Polish, Persian and Spanish accents followed with scores of 3.23, 3.21 and 3.15, with a Bosnian accent the lowest placing foreign accent at 3.06.

The lowest result in the study overall was for a male speaker with a förortsaccent, with a score of just 2.95.

Women ranked more highly than men

Interestingly, female speakers made up four of the top five, although the most positively rated accent (English) was a male speaker. There was also only one woman in the bottom five (the Spanish speaker) suggesting that Swedes are more positive towards women with foreign accents than men.

The respondents were also asked to guess what level of education the speakers had, where they could choose between junior high school or equivalent (grundskola), senior high school or equivalent (gymnasium), post-secondary school education that was not university-level, and university-level studies.

Accents from closer countries scored more highly

As a general rule, Swedes assumed that people from countries which are closer geographically had a higher level of education than those who were from further away. English came top again, followed by German and Finnish, while a male speaker of förortssvenska came last, with the speaker with a Bosnian accent coming second to last.

In general, speakers of the accents which scored highly in terms of positive associations were also assumed to have a higher level of education, and the same can be said for the accents which had the most negative ratings.

There is a caveat, however. The positively-rated accents – English, Finnish and German – were those which speakers were best at identifying. Almost 90 percent of Swedes in the study recognised an Finnish accent, with just under 85 percent recognising an English accent and slightly under 70 percent recognising a German one.

This means that in these cases, respondents were judging these specific accents, and may have been influenced by prior contact with speakers of Swedish from these countries such as friends, coworkers or public figures, or commonly held assumptions about them.

That was also the case for the male förortsaccent, which was the fourth-most recognised accent – just over 40 percent of listeners identified it correctly.

For the other accents, listeners were unsure of their guesses, even those who guessed correctly. Only one in twenty listeners could recognise the Turkish accent, for example.

This means that assumptions made about speakers with less easily identified accents may be due to other factors than their nationality, such as the strength of their accent and their gender.

Indeed, the most common incorrect guess when a listener could not identify an accent was Arabic, often bringing with it negative ratings in the other categories.

Political views also make a difference

The study also looked at whether certain traits or beliefs in the listening Swedes affected how they ranked each speaker.

Men rated each speaker more negatively than the average score given by all listeners, while women rated them more positively.

There were also clear differences when it comes to politics, with right-wing voters more likely to have a negative opinion of foreign accents.

Listeners who identified as Sweden Democrats or Moderates rated almost all accents significantly lower than the average (Sweden Democrats rated English and Finnish roughly the same as average listeners, and Moderates rated German accents roughly the same as the average).

Christian Democrats and Liberals rated the accents similar to the average result for all listeners, while left-bloc voters belonging to the Centre Party, Social Democrats, Green Party and Left Party rated almost all accents significantly higher than the average.

The groups with the most positive attitude towards people speaking Swedish with an accent were women, the highly educated, voters in the left-wing bloc and, to a lesser extent, older people and people who earn less than 25,000 kronor a month.

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