#scandinavian things

[therealvinelle]

Hi, I was rereading AFTHOTWTL and noticed this <<“I told her he didn’t have her best interests at heart,” Edward told him darkly, “and to stay away. I’ll translate Lille Eyolf for her, I know enough Danish.>>

Is this a typo, or does Edward’s seriously not notice the difference between Danish and Norwegian? LOL

(Anon is referring to mine and @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin's cowritten fic A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to London)

Norwegian and Danish are mutually intelligible, to the point where I sometimes do a double take, "ohh it was Danish, that's why it felt weird". More, due to Norway not having our own written language until the 19th century, we were all writing Danish anyway. In the 19th century we were still writing Danish, but by then nationalists wanted to either Norwegianify it or else construct an entirely new written language based on certain dialects (this lead to the creation of New Norwegian).

The result was still mutually intelligible with Danish, and our languages remain mutually intelligible to this day. (More so in writing, as I for one just have to smile and nod when Danes talk to me.)

Edward was perfectly within his rights when he said he could read Lille Eyolf.

(For what it's worth, yes, Swedish is also mutually intelligible with Danish and Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese, not so much, as they have continued speaking the language spoken by the original Norwegian settlers.

Here is a fun site for you if you want to compare languages, as it has compiled every available translation of various Norse texts.)

[weirdthoughtsandideas]

Ok, I am filled with nostalgia rn.

So, there was this scandinavian travel agency that had these family themed trips, and their big mascots were Lollo and Bernie.

This song is a mix of swedish, norwegian and danish and I am not sure which language is which sometimes

Now, they were ok - but there were other sets of characters that used to perform on the hotels that they had here.

They were called "three little bears" and was a grizzly bear, a polar bear and a racoon (which, in the scandi languages is called a "wash bear"). They were... well...

They weren't as marketable.

BUT, they had the best songs! Like, I heard them sing the last time when I was... 6?? And all the songs are still playing in my mind. But the songs were not available anywhere?? They had these CDs, but the CDs were so hard to get? More or less impossible, and if they were available they were too expensive.

But now, they have, after all these years, uploaded these songs on Spotify. Complete with new, cartoony designs! But the singers seem to be the same ones back on the original CD, cause I recognized the voices.

They have swedish, norwegian and danish versions, I will link the swedish versions because. Yeah.

This is their "main theme". But all three of them have their own theme songs.

The grizzly bear's theme is that he likes to eat cookies and chocolate, but when his tummy is too full, he has to get up and "bump around" lol.

My ultimate favorite was the racoon's theme song

As mentioned, in the scandinavian languages call racoons tvättbjörn or vaskebjørn depending on the language, and it means "wash bear". So, of course, the racoon's name is Tvättis ("Washy"). Her song is, of course, about washing. But it's very catchy.

Now, the polar bear have a song too. But they release every song as a single, and they have literally started releasing them in august, the latest release of a song was september 22nd (so, 3 days ago when I write this). So perhaps, soon, her song will be up too. I remember it vividly - her name was Isidor and what I remember from her song is that they sang "Iiiiisi-diiiiisi-door". Probably won't explain much to you, but every time in my life I hear the name Isidor I instantly think of that song.

There was another character - Uncle Grubb. He hated the bears and wanted to capture them. When they performed at hotels, uncle Grubb tried to disguise himself to lure them into traps (and always failed). He is in many ways very Robbie Rotten-like.

His song is one of the catchiest. He sings about how he's gonna capture the bears and the bears sing in the background about how he never can capture it.

In conclusion, these are very classic kid themed songs and I have been bopping to them for an hour. I mean, now I finally have the full songs again!

All I had in my head since I was 6 years old was random lines.

"En ☝🏻 för alla🙌🏼 , alla för en! 🐻🐼🐻‍❄️"

"Iiiisii-diiiisiii-dooor! 🐻‍❄️"

"Farbror Grubb! 🥸 Men han kan inte 🙅🏼 fånga oss! 🏃🏽"

"Tvättis heter jag🐻🧼 , en tvättbjörn🦝som är glad 😁!"

[scandinavia-jokeblog]

universal language: okay scandinavian languages, today’s word is ‘good’ how do you say that

swedish: bra

norwegian: yes, i will use that too

universal language: in which language would that make sense

norwegian: oh shut up! english has a lot of old norse influence since england used to be under the danish kingdom, but no one cares about that

danish: that’s true, and yet we’re still the forgotten scandinavians

universal language: FINE, you three can have that word

danish: oh, i won’t use it. my words will be ‘god’ or ‘godt’ depending on the context, but the d is silent

universal language: but god is...

danish, interrupting: i’m older than english so shut up and choke on your stupid british tea

[kittengrantaire]

Things that makes me happy: Swedish, Danish and Norwegian radio have created a program together where a journalist from each country discusses cases together with the others, and they’re all speaking their own language and there’s no English involved and I’m so happy they’re keeping the language understanding between our three countries alive

[floralsong]

Blogging from the hostel in Norway! I love Europe - three hour busride and suddenly you are in another country. Though I suppose Norway is pretty similar to Sweden. (because we were “united”… sorry Norway for probably being assholes back in the days) The language is more or less the same save for some weird words and fucked up spelling. Keep laughing at every sign I see. lovely day!