Swenglish is a colloquial term referring to theEnglish language heavily influenced bySwedish in terms ofvocabulary,grammar, orpronunciation.[1]
The nameSwenglish is aportmanteau term of the names of the two languages and is first recorded from 1938, making it one of the oldest names for a hybrid form of English.[3] Other colloquialportmanteau words for Swenglish include (chronologically):Swinglish (from 1957),Swedlish (1995) andSweglish (1996).[4]
Swedish is characterised by a strongword stress andphraseprosody that differs from that of English.[5]
There are words that are similar in meaning and pronunciation, that have different stress patterns. For example, verbs that end with-era in Swedish are often French loanwords, where the French word ends with a stressed-er. The Swedish word gets its stress point at the same place, but this is not true in English. A native Swedish speaker might mispronouncegenerate by following the pattern of the Swedishgenerera[jɛnɛˈrěːra].
Swedish is apitch accent language.[5] Accent 1 is a low-high-low contour and accent 2 is a high-low-high-low contour, with the second peak in the second syllable.[5] This can give Swenglish speakers a "singing" quality to their speech. Particularly when exaggerating their Swedish accent in English, speakers add an extra cadence to their words that most native English speakers lack.[6]
Swedish lacks many common Englishphonemes. These are sometimes replaced by similar-sounding Swedish phonemes, or other English phonemes that are easier to pronounce. For example, when using the nearest Swedish vowels for the English wordsbeer andbear, a native Swedish speaker might pronounce both as[beːr]. In general, Swenglish will sound very articulated, due to Swedish vowels being more strongly articulated and not as often reduced toschwas.
Swedish also lacks some consonant phonemes common in English, such as voiceless dental fricative/θ/, which is typically realized as labiodental[f] or a voiceless dental stop[t̪], leading tothree being pronounced as "free" or "tree". Other missing consonants include voiced dental fricative/ð/, which is typically realized as a voiced dental stop[d̪]), voiced alveolar fricative/z/, which is typically realized voicelessly[s] and voiced palato-alveolar fricative/dʒ/, which is realized voicelessly[tʃ], somewhat more back[ʈʂ], or as a voiced palatal approximant[j] or fricative[ʝ].
There are examples of Swenglish being used in Sweden as a means ofbrand management. The Swedish telecommunications companyTele2 has long aired commercials with a black sheep calledFrank.[7] The pun of the commercials, extolling inexpensive service, is based on the English wordcheap, which usually is pronounced as "sheep" by Swedes—henceFrank.
As with most non-native speech, native Swedish speakers may pick the wrong word when speaking English based on what sounds right in their own language. While Swedish and English share many words, both from their Germanic origins, and from later French and Latin influence, there are several Swedish-Englishfalse friends, such asnacke (similar to English "neck") meaning 'nape, back of the neck', andeventuellt (similar to "eventually") meaning 'possibly'. Someloanwords have a more specific meaning in Swedish than the original English, such askeyboard meaning only 'electronic keyboard,synthesizer'. Compare the list ofSwedish-English false friends on Swedish Wikipedia.
Many Swedish compounds and expressions translate directly into English, but many others do not, even if the translations can be understood. For instance, the Swedishta med means 'bring', but is often translated as the literal "take with".
In June 2010,BP's Swedish chairmanCarl-Henric Svanberg famously caused a PR uproar after theDeepwater Horizon oil spill by referring to thecommon people as "the small people".[8] This was influenced by the Swedish expressionsmåfolket.[9]
In December 2019, climate activistGreta Thunberg was criticised by some right-wing commentators after saying said politicians should be put "against the wall", a term which in English can be interpreted asexecution by firing squad. She later apologised, saying "... that's Swenglish: 'att ställa någon mot väggen' (to put someone against the wall) means to hold someone accountable", and that she is against violence.[10]
TheSwedish language termsvengelska refers not to Swenglish, but to spoken or written Swedish filled with an inordinate amount of English syntax and words, with the latter sometimes respelled according to the norms of Swedish phonetics, orcalqued into Swedish.
English has become thelingua franca in many Swedish workplaces.[11] Swedish speakers often modify English business-specific terms with Swedish endings, such aspeaken, ('the peak' [of the season]),spotrater 'spot rates', andcancellera 'cancel'.[12]
