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SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

Swedish word of the day: jul

What better time to take a look at the Swedish word for Christmas?

Published: 10 December 2018 12:27 CET
Updated: 21 December 2023 08:44 CET
the word jul on a black background by a swedish flag
Are you looking forward to jul? Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

That word is jul, which you’ll hear in the greeting God Jul! (Merry Christmas!) and as a prefix added to just about any noun or word to give it a festive feel, such as julsång (Christmas song), julstämning (Christmas atmosphere), julshoppa (to shop for Christmas gifts and items), julmat (Christmas food), julstäda (to clean the house for Christmas)… we could go on.

And on and on: if there’s one thing Swedes enjoy more than holiday preparations, it’s creating compound words. Another option is to turn jul into an adjective: julig means “Christmassy”.

  • Don’t miss any of our Swedish words and expressions of the day by downloading The Local’s new app (available on Apple and Android) and then selecting the Swedish Word of the Day in your Notification options via the User button

English speakers might spy a resemblance to the outdated term “yule”, and there are related words in most Nordic languages: Norwegian and Danish jul, Icelandic jól, and Finnish joulua. All these words do indeed share an origin in Old Norse jól and can be traced further back to similar words in proto-Germanic languages.

In both English and Swedish today, jul and yule are specific references to Christmas: the Christian holiday and the surrounding season.

But that wasn’t always so.

The meaning of older forms of the word jul were used to define different parts of the winter season depending on where in Sweden or Scandinavia the speaker was located.

In fact, language historians aren’t sure exactly where it originally came from or what it meant in the earliest times, whether it was always linked to a specific festival or feast, or started out as a more general term for the winter season. The only thing that’s known for certain is that it predates the Christian celebration of Christmas, and that you’ll hear it a lot throughout December in Sweden.

Example sentences:

Jul, jul, strålande jul, glans över vita skogar

Christmas, Christmas, brilliant Christmas, shine over white forests (lyrics to a beloved wintery tune)

Snart är det jul!

It’s nearly Christmas!

Need a last-minute Christmas gift idea?

Villa, Volvo, Vovve: The Local’s Word Guide to Swedish Life, written by The Local’s journalists, is available to order. Head to lysforlag.com/vvv to read more about it. It is also possible to buy your copy from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Bokus or Adlibris.

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For members

SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

Swedish word of the day: nyckelpiga

These little red and black insects are starting to pop up in gardens and fields all across Sweden. But where does their name come from?

Published: 14 May 2024 09:18 CEST
Swedish word of the day: nyckelpiga

Nyckelpiga, or nyckelpigor in the plural, is the Swedish word for the red and black spotted insects known in English as ladybirds or ladybugs.

Their name is made up of two words in Swedish, nyckel, which is the word for key, and piga, meaning a maid or other female servant, so it could be literally translated as a “keymaiden”.

In many European languages, these insects have names which relate to the Virgin Mary. 

In English, legend has it that farmers prayed to the Virgin Mary asking her to protect their crops, and when ladybirds appeared to eat aphids (a common garden pest), they called them “Our Lady’s birds”, which over time was simplified to ladybirds.

They’re known as mariquita in Spanish and marieta in Catalan, while in Danish and Norwegian they’re called mariehøner or marihøner (literally: Mary hens), and in German they’re called Marienkäfer (Mary beetles).

The Swedish term has a less obvious relationship to the Virgin Mary, and dates back to Sweden’s Catholic past.

Mary is believed in Catholicism to have seven sorrows, which are all events in her life often depicted in art by seven swords piercing her heart. The most common ladybird in Sweden has seven spots, which were seen as representing these seven sorrows.

  • Don’t miss any of our Swedish words and expressions of the day by downloading our app (available on Apple and Android) and then selecting the Swedish Word of the Day in your Notification options via the User button

Seven was also considered to be a holy number in general, and it was believed therefore that ladybirds held the keys to heaven on behalf of Mary. According to an old Swedish folk tale, anyone who releases a captured ladybird would be let through the gates of heaven, and in many countries they are believed to be able to reveal when someone will marry.

In Sweden, it was said that if one landed on your hand and walked along your fingers, it was measuring new gloves for you, which meant that you were either going to attend a wedding or a funeral, and in France, a woman could put a ladybird on her finger and count out loud until it flew away, with the number reached representing how many years would pass before she would marry.

Another word for ladybird in Swedish is gullhöna (yellow hen), which most likely refers to the less common yellow ladybirds with black spots.

These ladybirds were believed to be able to predict the weather in some parts of Sweden. In Bohuslän, ladybirds meant good weather, and if you saw one, you were supposed to say gullhöna, gullhöna, flyg, flyg, flyg, så blir det sommar och gott, gott väder (ladybird, ladybird, fly, fly, fly, then it will be summer and good, good weather). In Värmland, however, seeing a ladybird meant the opposite: bad weather and rain.

Example sentences:

Tycker du inte att det har varit ovanligt många nyckelpigor i år?

Don’t you think there has been an unusually large number of ladybirds this year?

Nyckelpigor är ett bra nyttodjur att ha i trädgården då de äter bladlöss.

Ladybirds are a good beneficial insect to have in the garden, as they eat aphids.

Villa, Volvo, Vovve: The Local’s Word Guide to Swedish Life, written by The Local’s journalists, is available to order. Head to lysforlag.com/vvv to read more about it. It is also possible to buy your copy from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Bokus or Adlibris.

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