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SWEDISH LANGUAGE

Our top picks of the 36 ‘new’ words that defined Sweden in 2021

A new list of the 36 words that defined Swedish society this year have been unveiled. Unsurprisingly, the Covid-19 pandemic dominated Swedish discourse in 2021.

Published: 27 December 2021 15:20 CET
a child playing with letters of the alphabet
Which of the Swedish words below is your favourite? Photo: Tomas Oneborg/SvD/TT

At the end of every year, the Swedish Language Council and language magazine Språktidningen choose a selection of words that became part of daily conversation over the last 12 months. 

Although it’s called “the new word list,” the words aren’t always completely brand new, and quite a few of the words are English loans.

This year, 36 words made the list, with most having something to do with the impacts of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic or the climate crisis. Here are The Local’s 10 favourites: 

Coronabubbla

One of the government’s main recommendations during the pandemic was to keep a distance from others and avoid spending time with people from different households. This meant people had to choose who would be in the tight circle of friends and family they could spend time with, or their “corona bubble”.  

Kommer du att vara i min coronabubbla? – Will you be in my corona bubble?

Coronahund

Did you get a dog this year? You’re not alone. According to the Swedish Kennel Club, the number of registered dogs in Sweden increased by 11 percent in 2020. But a dog is for life, not just the pandemic. As people head back to working from an office, kennels are struggling to keep up with demand. 

Han är min coronahund – He’s my corona dog

Domedagsskrollande

Bad news sells, and there’s been no end to the bad news in the last few years. We can’t stop ourselves from scrolling through negative news, mainly via social media. In English, we’ve taken to calling this doom scrolling. In Sweden it’s been called “doomsday scrolling”. 

Jag kan inte sluta mitt domedagsskrollande – I can’t stop my doom scrolling

Fono 

Remember when FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) was the new word one everyone’s lips? Well, now it’s FONO. Rather than missing out, it’s a Fear Of Normality that people are struggling with, if we ever return to more normal circumstances. 

Jag kan inte gå tillbaka till jobbet, jag har fono – I can’t go back to work, I have FONO

Gangfluencer

“If the gangsters of old were careful to keep a low profile, today’s criminals belong to a different school,” wrote Swedish magazine Allas in May. “They flash their money, expensive watches and designer clothes on social media and post stories from exclusive holiday trips.”

Gangfluencers lyxlivstilar finansieras av illegala aktiviteter  – Gangfluencers’ luxury lifestyles are funded by illegal activities

Generation corona

While it’s older people whose health has been disproportionately impacted by Covid-19, “Generation C” is increasingly defined by crises. Young people are reporting that they’re struggling with mental health and motivation for online learning. Those born after 1999 are coming of age in the midst of an unprecedented crisis and it’s their education and job prospects that are suffering. 

Det är en tuff tid för generation C / generation corona – It’s a tough time for generation C

Metaversum

The metaverse is a virtual reality where all digital content exists in an infinite multidimensional space. The word metaverse was coined in 1992 by American author Neal Stephenson in the novel Snow Crash. Today it looks more like online giants such as Facebook – newly renamed “Meta” – ruling over the entire internet. 

Jag vill inte vara med i Mark Zuckerbergs metaversum! – I don’t want to be in Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse!

Snällvägg

A nice news word! Växjö is among the growing number of cities that have a “nice wall” where you can give away winter clothes that you no longer need and pick up a coat if you need one. According to Språktidningen, the word is a translation loan from Persian ‘dīvār-e mehrabānī. The phenomenon originated in Iran in 2015 and has since spread around the world.

Jag skänker min gamla jacka till snällväggen – I’m donating my old jacket to the nice wall

Spökkök

This translates to “ghost kitchen”. It’s not that kitchens took Halloween extra seriously this year, but during the pandemic, famous restaurants relocated from city centres to offer take-away menus closer to where people live. People have been eating out less and taking away more, so kitchens are becoming quieter, and spookier.  

Det har förvandlats till ett spökkök – It’s turned into a ghost kitchen

Återförvildande

This is the Swedish word for “rewilding”; restoring nature to its so-called original state, before it was affected by human activity. But what that looks like remains to be decided.  

Vi borde återförvilda landsbygden – We should rewild the countryside

Here is the full list of this year’s 36 new words (in Swedish).

Do you want to learn more Swedish words? Villa, Volvo, Vovve: The Local’s Word Guide to Swedish Life, written by The Local’s journalists, is now available to order. Head to lysforlag.com/vvv to read more about it – or join The Local as a member and get your copy for free. It is also possible to buy your copy from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Bokus or Adlibris.

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LEARNING SWEDISH

Which foreign accents do Swedes like the most?

Swedes respond most positively to people speaking Swedish with English, Finnish and German accents, according to a new study from Sweden's Institute for Language and Folklore that took an in-depth look at a dozen foreign accents.

Published: 2 May 2024 15:29 CEST
Updated: 19 May 2024 08:28 CEST
Which foreign accents do Swedes like the most?

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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