After coffee and swedish punsh (sweet, arrak-but-not-liquorice-tasting liquor) the Grandmother gave Andrew the Swedish table flag. So now he's practically Swedish.
The Grandmother (not mine) is also an old teacher and when Andrew commented on the likeness of some Swedish words with archaic english (swedish "skriva", modern english "write", archaic english "skrive") she gave us a few interesting examples of archaic swedish that turned into modern english words.
"Window" for example, according to her, comes from the Viking word "vind-öga" which in english translates to "wind-eye". That's what they called the little hole in the house where light and wind came in. The word stayed in a distorted form in english, while it dissareared in Swedish. Today we call vind-öga "fönster".
An other example is the old swedish dialectal word "öfsadrôp " which litterally means to stand under the end of the roof outside the house - "öfs" in archaic dialectal swedish ("eaves" in english I believe). "Öfsadrôp" came to mean "eavesdrop", to stand and in secret listening to what is said inside the house. Today "tjuvlyssna" (thief-listen) in swedish. But the english eavesdrop is still in use.
2 Comments:
After coffee and swedish punsh (sweet, arrak-but-not-liquorice-tasting liquor) the Grandmother gave Andrew the Swedish table flag. So now he's practically Swedish.
The Grandmother (not mine) is also an old teacher and when Andrew commented on the likeness of some Swedish words with archaic english (swedish "skriva", modern english "write", archaic english "skrive") she gave us a few interesting examples of archaic swedish that turned into modern english words.
"Window" for example, according to her, comes from the Viking word "vind-öga" which in english translates to "wind-eye". That's what they called the little hole in the house where light and wind came in. The word stayed in a distorted form in english, while it dissareared in Swedish. Today we call vind-öga "fönster".
An other example is the old swedish dialectal word "öfsadrôp " which litterally means to stand under the end of the roof outside the house - "öfs" in archaic dialectal swedish ("eaves" in english I believe). "Öfsadrôp" came to mean "eavesdrop", to stand and in secret listening to what is said inside the house. Today "tjuvlyssna" (thief-listen) in swedish.
But the english eavesdrop is still in use.
Post a Comment
<< Home