By Nils William Olsson, Ph.D., F.A.S.G.

The Swedish language is a part and parcel of the Indo-European languages, stretching from India to Europe and through migration to the U.S., Canada, Mexico and South America. The language is a part of the North Germanic languages and is identified as an East Scandinavian variant together with Danish. The west branch includes Norwegian and Icelandic.

The main difference between these two Scandinavian branches is that Swedish and Danish have no diphthongs, or at least a very few. Thus the word for stone in Swedish and Danish is sten, whereas in Norwegian and Icelandic it is stein. The same thing is true for the word for bone – in Swedish it is ben, in Norwegian it is bein. There are other differences, but I don't wish to become technical. A few diphthongs can be found in Swedish. Thus a parish is Skåne is Raus and the name of the month of August is Augusti. The man's name of August is often pronounced Agust in the vernacular, showing how Swedes avoid diphthongs if at all possible. Curiously the Swede has no problem with the word for no, which is nej, nor for the popular forms for dig and mig (you and me), which are pronunced dej and mej. The Swedish word for pie is paj, where the English sound has been preserved and the Swedish word for the month of May is maj.

Though Finland is usually considered to be a part of Scandinavia so far as its culture and democratic forms are concerned, its language has nothing to do with the Indo-European languages, but belongs to the Finno-Ugric language family, which is believed somehow to be related to Hungarian and Turkish. The Finnish language is rich in vowels and diphthongs but poor in consonants.

Swedish has an alphabet which is very much like the English alphabet,with the notable exception that Swedish has three additional vowels, coming at the end of the alphabet – å, ä and ö. I shall return to these in a moment. On another respect the Swedes have almost totally eliminated the letter q. In older spellings this letter was followed by a v, much like in English, where q is followed by u. Thus before the spelling reform of 1906 the word for woman was qvinna, today the q has been replaced by the letter k, thus kvinna. The same thing happened to the words for mill = qvarn; twig = qvist and qvick = quick. In the case of proper names, however, there is a tendency to retain the old spelling, thus Qvarnström, Qvist, Qvick, Qvarfordt, etc.

Another letter, w, has been supplanted by v, and is no longer in the alphabet. However, it is often retained in surnames, sometimes to make the names seem more esoteric. Thus Wall, Wallgren, Wallenberg, Wikström, etc.

Often an H is slipped into a name, for no other reason but to make the name more unusual, thus we have surnames like Wahlgren, Dahlgren, Dahlstrand, Ohlsson, Pehrsson, Lundh, Strandh, etc.

Before the spelling reform in 1906 certain place names in Sweden had a silent H in the beginning of the name. This letter has now been eliminated. The more notorious place names are Hvetlanda in Småland, today Vetlanda; Hvalinge in Halland; Hvalstad in Västergötland, Hvena in Småland, Hvilan in Skåne, all today spelled without the h, thus Valinge, Valstad,Vena and Vilan. Be sure to check your place name in Rosenberg's gazetteer,*) before giving up.

One more of the spelling reforms of 1906 which might occasion you grief is the substitution of v for f in certain words, where f comes at the end of the syllable, such as löf, meaning leaf, which today is spelled löv. It is particularly common in surnames beginning with Löf-, such as Löfberg, Löfgren, Löfquist, Löfstrand, etc., where in translation the surname is always written with Lof- as the first syllable. For place names check out Rosenberg for spellings of Löfsätra, Löfsta, Löfstad, Löfvestad, Löfånger, Löfåsen, etc. A letter which is used infrequently is the letter c. It is found mostly in foreign loan words, such as ceder, cell, cement, center, check, cigarr, cirkel, cirkus, citron, civil, cykel, cylinder and cypress.

Let us now look at three extra vowels, å, ä and ö [Å, Ä and Ö] which appear at the end of the Swedish alphabet. I am not going to bore you with the history of these sounds, or how they came into being. The thing to remember is that they are separate letters and cannot under any circumstance be equated with a or o. They are just as important as other letters and must not be ignored. Ignoring the diacritical marks can spell failure for you in your research. As an example I can mention two parishes in Malmöhus län – one is Bosarp, the other is Bösarp.

It makes a world of difference in your research if you don't watch out for those diacritical marks. It is just as important as crossing a t, by not doing so, you are stuck with an 1.

Let us look at some Swedish words, where the diacritical marks change the meaning of a word –

Swedish Meaning      Swedish Meaning      Swedish Meaning

adel    nobility     ädel    noble

aga     punish       äga     own

agg     grudge       ägg     egg

akta    take care    äkta    genuine

al      alder tree   ål      eel

alv     subsoil      älv     river

bal     dance,ball   bål     bowl

bar     bare         bår     stretcher    bär     berry

bast    bast         bäst    best

bota    cure         böta    pay a fine

fall    fall         fäll    rug, pelt    fåll    hem

fara    travel       fåra    furrow

fasta   fast         fästa   secure

gast    seaman       gäst    guest

hal     slippery     hål     hole         häl     heel

hall    hall         håll    direction    häll    flat rock

hast    haste        häst    horse

kaka    eake,cookie  käka    eat

kalla   call         källa   well spring     

kapa    cut down     kåpa    garment

kapp    compete      käpp    cane

man     man          män     men          mån     degree

massa   mass         mässa   church mass

mossa   moss         mössa   cap

ort     community    ört     herb

raka    shave        råka    encounter    räka    shrimp

rata    refuse       räta    straighten

rova    turnip       röva    rob

saga    story        såga    saw          säga    tell\

skada   injury       skåda   behold

skal    shell        skäl    reason       skål    bowl

skålla  scald        skälla  bark

skara   crowd        skära   cut          skåra   cut

slakt   slaughter    släkt   family

tala    speak        tåla    endure

talja   pulley       tälja   whittle

tät     tight        tåt     string

trad    trade        träd    tree         tråd    thread

vag     vague        väg     road         våg     wave, scale

val     whale        väl     well

I could give you hundreds of additional words, that follow the same pattern, but the samples given here will demonstrate how tricky the diacritical marks are in making sense of what you come across.