It seems like I’m alone against the world when it comes to this in Swedish. Apparently, when people are used to something, they will fiercely resist the idea of doing it differently and refuse to hear any argument in this direction. Johanna is even telling me that I'm not allowed to have an opinion about it, because I'm not as used to this spelling as she is, and who am I to have an opinion about it, if Swedish is not even my native language. Well if it was, then I would probably be labelled as some sort of a
geek, nut or
retard, pretending to be too educated or something else. Whatever argument comes handy, it will be used. It doesn’t matter that I would face the same kind of resistance if I proposed something similar regarding my own language, or that the question goes far beyond Swedish itself. Maybe I’m just too arrogant to think that Swedish is part of the whole world’s cultural heritage and it should not be regarded as a mere property of the Swedes?
I just read the following in an
online news article:
Redan i början på 1800-talet fick en lieutenant i Sverige finna sig i att bli löjtnant. Militärerna var inte överdrivet förtjusta.
Ett intressant exempel är engelskans tape som blivit tejp när man talar om klisterremsan, men som stavas tape när man talar om en musikinspelning.
Ordet sjangsera ”förändras, försämras” kom in i Svenska Akademiens ordlista i denna stavning först 2013. I tidigare ordlistor fanns changera (fransk stavning) och från 1986 också alternativet chansera. Då fordrades det kunskaper i franska för att hitta i ordlistan. Ofta är det klokt med försvenskning, men ibland får vi finna oss i att bära med oss 500 års språkhistoria eller mer i stavningen.
Vem vill läsa Jötebåsch-Påsten?This is not conservatism. Conservatism is when you look into your own language and find a way to express the new concept with a word that already exists. For example, the word "dator". I really like this way of making sure Swedish remains Swedish. This is like making Swedish 0,000001% more Swedish. Introducing the word “computer” would make it 0,000001% less Swedish. But of course, you can’t stop this from happening, unless you establish and charge an “Académie Suédoise” with doing it. But they also won’t succeed 100% of the time, so the word “computer” might indeed find its place in Swedish, like it did in Danish. This is 1 poäng plus for Swedish. Oh, I wish it was one point, but, unfortunately, now I have to give it 1 poäng minus

And, I forgot, if the word “computer” found its way into Swedish, it would indeed be spelt "kampjottarr," which is goddamn ugly, but saying this is some blasphemy and I’m also committing the crime of having an opinion about something that is none of my business. Well, the fact that I’ve spent many hours learning [some] Swedish doesn’t matter!
I really don’t see the point in introducing the word “changera” into Swedish in the first place. In Bulgarian, which I doubt any of you cares about, I see this every day. Journalists use French, German and in this day and age predominantly English words for concepts which were already named and established probably before even English came into existence! But why not just use the foreign word, I guess this way we’re more international? When I was a kid, I would look at these words with a lack of understanding and confusion. When I learnt French, English and a little bit of German, I started to understand perfectly what they mean, but I refuse to use them and I think that being a journalist or a public figure and treating your language this way should be considered a crime. I think somebody should go around and fine them every time they happen to do it more than five times in the same broadcast. They think they’re educated, but by using a shitload of foreign words, they’re showing nothing but illiteracy, putting out there whatever word they heard last in their English-language materials without taking an extra five seconds to find a more convenient Bulgarian one, which has existed for millennia. This sounds like a beginner student trying to substitute an English word because they haven’t yet attained a sufficient level in Bulgarian.
So I think using foreign words when you can use native ones is not always good. Respelling foreign words to make them look like they were part of the language long ago is even worse. Because at the end, what are we all going to speak – the exact same language? It’s going to have different versions – British English, American English, Bulgarian English, Swedish English and so on. The differences will lie in spelling and pronunciation, not in vocabulary or cultural background. And what will my point in learning Swedish be – an alternative spelling for English, rather than a language of its own?
Linguoboy wrote:Do you really think English spelling should be the model for the world?
English has done a pretty good job. French has too. Danish has.
You gotta appreciate it.
Linguoboy wrote:Honestly, sometimes I wish we respelled more words in English. Then I wouldn't have to grit my teeth every time I heard someone pronounce bruschetta with /ʃ/.
How are you gonna spell it – broskätta? And then how are you going to guarantee that the pronunciation will not become /bru'h
wɛta/. And when it does, what will be the point in using an Italian word if it’s no longer Italian? Could you not find somewhere in English or Swedish some other way of saying “a piece of bread with some stuff on top of it”? And how am I going to decipher what this word means and where it comes from, without opening some huge dictionary and doing a lot of work? How will the other Swedes/Americans that will not open these books know? Wouldn’t it be easier if they can see that the word looks Italian?
linguoboy wrote:Woods wrote:Well, it's not about knowing five other languages. You should only know what the word you're using means and where it comes from. If you keep the French spelling, it looks fancy and you know it's French. If you change it – you no longer know where the word comes from and something is lost. And you still have to learn the other spelling – so either way you have to learn how to write the word, you just learn to write it one way or another – what's the difference?
I'm really not sure what the point is you're making here. Most speakers of Swedish do not learn French. So they only ever have to learn one spelling.
I was saying that if they have to learn one spelling, it might as well be “bureau” instead of “byrå.” Maybe it will not make that much sense right away, but it will make much more sense in the long run.
Indeed, just look at the irony: every scholar in Sweden is required to have English as their first foreign language. Which means that they will
have to learn the
historically correct spelling anyway, no matter if they want it or not. So, in spite of the arguments that have been laid out here, if one learns to spell "byrå" in Swedish and "bureau" in English, one will have to learn two spellings, and if the word was written with its original spelling in Swedish too, then the Swedes would have to learn only one spelling!
This being said, I am not against some mild, very consistent changes in orthography, which align foreign vocabulary with the spelling of the language, while at the same time preserving the root of the word. Like in English we write “community” instead of “communauté,” “reality” instead of “realité” and so on. But we don’t write “biewrau” instead of “bureau” or “leftenant” instead of “lieutenant,” because that wouldn’t make any sense!
So Johanna, I hope I've not become your arch enemy now and I hope that you will underestand that the fact that I have an opinion that is counter to what has been adopted in Swedish does not mean that I disrespect Swedish - on the contrary, I'm very much interested in this language and I would love to learn it - in order to find all the uniqueness and culture that has been preserved in it (as you probably could understand, I am not after the misspelt French words that annoy me, but after some other things – like purely Swedish or at least Germanic and Scandinavian words and concepts).
I would expect a proof of that should be the mere fact that I'm interested in this language and I'm trying to learn it (and if you look into my profile, you're going to see that the largest amount of posts that I've written on UniLang have been in the Swedish forum indeed (strange, isn't it?)
Some people no longer write
mig and
de, but
mej and
dom. Do you think I should agree with that? If not, then why do you support the spelling
byrå, but not these changes? And if we change the spelling every ten years, what are we going to do with all the books that have been printed decades and centuries ago – burn them and rewrite everything?