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MED Magazine - Issue 44 - April 2007 Language Interference 'Show some leg!' Background Swedish is a Germanic language with a long history of linguistic loans. Like most languages, it has always undergone change: German had a considerable impact on Swedish syntax and vocabulary during the Middle Ages, due to the activities of the Hansa league merchants, while in the 18th century, upper-class French was a major influencing factor. Since World War II there has been a massive influx of English loan words, although the effect of English on Swedish can been seen as far back as the early 19th century. Reasons for borrowing Loan words filling lexical gaps fulfil obvious needs: we need new words to talk about new things. Loan words may also fulfil other, less tangible, social needs, like indicating status. In Sweden, English terms connected with British specialities such as shipping and industry were imported in the 1800s, as were words connected with new fashions and interests. Particular situations may influence the forms taken by loan words; imported terms relating to shipping, for example were often rendered phonetically. The sound of skysail, thus became skajsel and a royal [sail] became röjel. The word yawl, meanwhile, was rendered in Swedish as jål and capsize as kapsejsa. It’s easy to see the need for a spoken lingua franca in international environments like sailing vessels. Terms connected with other industries, however, are clearly based on written, rather than spoken, models: chuck, shunt, trolley and dynamo, all retain their English spelling although they are (even today) pronounced according to Swedish rules. Sports terminology also seems to have been based on written, rather than spoken sources. Both curling and cricket are imported using the English spelling (despite the initial c being foreign to Swedish orthography) and any adjustments to spelling tend to be minor: single becomes single and bicycle, bicykel for example. Social context also influences the form of a loan word; more popular terminology is modified to fit the conventions of written Swedish, while less widely-used vocabulary retains its English form. Thus we see lawn tennis - and its associated terminology - rendered using the English spelling, while football – appealing to a much wider cross-section of the population - becomes fotboll and free kick appears as frispark. In other fields – such as fashion or etiquette - use of English loan words may indicate an interest in British customs; so we see the Swedish snobb gentleman, as well as the word fashionabel, which became popular, despite earlier usage of modern, from the French moderne. We thus have early precedents of English loan words, and a range of reasons for importing them. Loan words are imported for practical reasons, as labels for new things and concepts, or for social reasons such as novelty or fashion. We can also see how loan words which are mainly used in spoken language tend to be phonetically rendered, while those appealing to popular culture often appear as loan translations. All these factors continue to play a role in current Swedish importation of English words. False friends Owing to their common origins, Swedish and English feature a number of words that look alike but which, over the centuries, have developed different meanings. One such example is the Swedish sjö (lake) and English sea. Here we have the added complication that the Swedish word is occasionally used to mean ‘sea’ - especially when describing maritime conditions (grov sjö/rough sea) - as well as being used in fixed collocations, like till sjöss for to/at sea. This shows how even very basic terms may change their meaning, yet continue to be used in their original form in certain contexts and in fixed expressions. A more recent example is the pair märke (Swedish for brand) and the English brand; in both cases there is the same underlying idea of signalling ownership or origin by some kind of mark, but it is expressed in different ways. Among contemporary, frequently confused, false friends are pairs such as:
Among these pairs, certain patterns are apparent: abstract concepts, always difficult to define, differ deceptively in meaning (consider the difference between UK and US shortly, presently); food terms seem to develop in different directions, and administrative terminology carries traces of different historical developments. Accidental false friends Occasionally, the same combinations of letters are found in different languages without causing problems. The words have such totally different meanings - and may even belong to different grammatical categories - that they are rarely confused. Such words are generally not regarded as false friends since their obvious falsehood excludes any notion of friendship. Among the few such accidental pairs are:
Loan translations Loan translations should not cause confusion, and are often considered to be native words. There is, however, a potential danger in returning the loan, i.e. attempting to translate it back into English. Thus, a disaster film/movie - Swedish katastroffilm - could become a catastrophe film, and the Swedish translation loan växthuseffekten (English: greenhouse effect) could be rendered as the hothouse effect, an entirely different concept. The most common error in back-translating loan translations lies, however, in the temptation to follow Swedish writing patterns in compounding, i.e. to write even multiple compounds as one word. Similarly to languages such as German and Dutch, Swedish can build compounds of impressive length by adding qualifiers, a Germanic characteristic that Swedish learners of English all too often try to apply to English word formation. (At the same time there has been a recent tendency, blamed on the influence of English, to cut up Swedish compounds, with often hilarious results.) Invented English words When a language gains prestige, inventions of similar-sounding words are to be expected. The most common examples are found in brand names and on T-shirts, but some are incorporated in the learners’ language. Among words that started life as brand names are babysitter, now the term for a particular style of baby chair; freestyle, now denoting any brand of portable stereo or walkman, and pocketbok, the Swedish term for paperback. In other cases, Swedish has shortened the original English word forms: a happy ending thus becomes a happy end, a basket ball is simply a basket, and a bodystocking is a body. To indicate sizes in children’s clothing, Sweden uses the pseudo-English centilong, a convenient concept, but of little use in English shops. Spelling English spelling is difficult to learn even for natives, let alone for language learners who are used to a spelling system which is almost phonetic. The differences are seen mainly in loan words used among young people (often in spoken language), such as loser, spelt ‘looser’ to render the vowel length. Similar reasons may explain the often doubled consonants in cred (for credibility), laptop, flipflop and a few others. Unlike, for example, Finnish and Estonian, where phonetic spelling of loan words is the rule, Swedish language users generally preserve the original English spelling; attempts by Swedish language advisors to introduce Swedish adaptations like “jos” for juice have been unsuccessful. It is among punctuation marks that we find the largest number of unexpected changes, especially in the use of apostrophes denoting genitives. The confusion of its and it’s is as widespread in Sweden as it is in the UK and beyond, and we see an increasing use of the apostrophe even where there is no genitive in sight. (In written learner English, even plural -s, or the 3rd person singular -s may appear with apostrophes.) The English use of the semi-colon has also entered the Swedish language and is now commonly confused with the ordinary colon. The English use of capital letters is another new habit rather indiscriminately used and thus adding to the wider confusion of learner texts. Such errors, caused by confusion between neighbouring but not identical systems, travel back and forth and ultimately appear in both languages. Prepositions Prepositions are notoriously volatile: they have changed in English over time (see, for example, Shakespeare’s use of them) and they continue changing in many languages, influenced by analogy, language transfer, even fashion. No wonder they are difficult to learn. Among common examples are spatial prepositions: Swedes sit in, Englishmen on a sofa, Swedes arrive to, Englishmen at or in a place or country, and Swedish flowers grow on, English flowers in a meadow. Grammar and syntax Like all language learners, Swedes tend to overuse elements in English that have no equivalent in Swedish. One example is the lack of a progressive aspect in Swedish, leading to a noticeable overuse of the progressive in learner English. This situation is hardly improved by the slogan 'I’m lovin’ it'! The -ing form of the verb in its various uses is one of the greatest hurdles. Swedish combines prepositions with to + infinitive, uses to + infinitive after most verbs (modals excepted) and prefers to + infinitive in subject position – causes of a great many learner errors in English. Tense differences may cause misunderstandings: the Swedish habit of using the simple past instead of the present in phrases like ‘Det var trevligt att ses’ (it was nice to see you); ‘det här var gott’ (this was good) may raise eyebrows when used as opening phrases, but more serious problems can result from use of the wrong tense. Swedish scientists presenting their research in English often use the present perfect tense which is typical of their mother tongue (experiments have been performed), while the international scientific community uses the simple past (experiments were performed). In the highly economical style of such writing, switching tenses may lead to unintended implications. The future Swedish learners of English are exposed to English texts at an early age and in massive quantities (teaching from the age of seven, subtitled films and TV programmes, advertising, and so on). The high status of English makes it an impressive influence and a strong competitor for the language learner’s attention. As a result, we see an increasing degree of English interference and a certain hybridisation of Swedish, especially among young people. The question is, what will happen to English when the borrowers return their loans, and English as a lingua franca is influenced by all its many different users? Further reading Lånord i svenskan. Om språkförändringar
i tid och rum, L-E. Edlund & B. Hene (Norstedts 1996) Next in the series In the next article we’ll take a look at borrowings and false friends between Czech and English. Copyright © Macmillan Publishers Limited 2007 This webzine is brought to you by Macmillan Education |