#also idk if you meant more like.. how is sweden to live in ? sort of thing

[girl-bateman]

How’s Sweden?

Sweden is good! Its raining right now but I'm inside, so it's pretty cozy. Lets all pretend that its still warm and sunny and look at these nice pics from my summer <3

[norsesuggestions]

shelomit

replied to your photo

“19th century swedish poster to learn kids to spell in school I am...”

Additionally, dividing into syllables is likely not meant to help teach WRITING so much as to teach READING. My gut notion is that you've probably got an example here from later than my own time period, but in the anglophone world in the earlier nineteenth century, writing was considered a much more advanced skill than reading. Rural or impoverished students often attended school enough to learn to read, but not to write. While dividing the syllables may make no perceptible aid in learning to spell, the practice was used (again, in the English-speaking world) to teach reading for two different reasons: 1) for very early readers, having the syllables separated out visually might help them parse the sound mentally, esp. in English where our spelling conventions make no sense; 2) pedagogy of the time often involved group recitation/reading followed by a drill of questions from the teacher; if the teacher either wrote out or had handy a large chart with the syllables divided in this way, he/she could point to each syllable as the class pronounced it, or point to a particular syllable mentioned in a question or answer after the recitation.

:D

i got excited replying to this one and wrote up the longest reply, with so many sources, because i started to look up the history of education in sweden. then my computer crashed and ate my very long answer, which was a very tragic event.

but anyway, you talking about reading skills contra writing skills made me think of how we know that almost everyone, no matter their economic background, class etc could read in historical sweden.

in an attempt to reconstruct the reply, i was going to point at that in sweden reading skills was actually surprisingly high historically, much higher than many assume. we know this because sweden had a law between the 16th - 18th century were a priest of the swedish lutheran church would arrive, no matter which religion the person belonged to, to have these obligatoric questioning with every household in a area given to the priest. during this questiong, they looked up your knowledge of the christian bible, and of luthers texts (btw, during large parts of its history, it was illegal to fail the test. that is failing it, led to punishment. sweden was just That Sort Of Shitty Religious Dictatorship - like Country historically),

(historical sweden had zero religious freedom. it was a very shitty country be a non christian in. both jewish people and saami people were pressured to convert to christianity in historical sweden. saami people were forced converted to christinaity, were the swedish church attempted to porpusely wipe out the saami peoples traditonal religion. jewish people were still forced converted to christianity until late 18th century, as an requirment for living in sweden. historical sweden, had the oppisite of religious freedom)

anyway,

during these obligatoric questioning, husförhör as they are called, measured if one could read or not! then they wrote this down in their books, which then were kept forever and ever, and now i can if i so feel for it, look up my own relatives reading skills anno 1755. if that is my desire in life.

anyway, analysis of the data shows that around 70-90% of the entire population could reading during the middle of the 18th century, and about 90% at the end of the 19th century.

BUT, just as you point out, writing was not a skill they required from people to the same degree, and there were no laws that forced people to be able to write (there was a law which fined people if there kids were unable to read before they were 10 years old. the law was declared in 1737. because sweden was just That Kind Of Country historically). But! it was noted that when general obligatoric school was started in sweden, in 1842, 90% of swedens population could already read. that is, the adults could read i assume, but also, older kids starting in school could too already read.

tldr. when kids started in school in sweden during this epoch, they would actually not have so much trouble with learning to read, because reading skill was a thing in sweden because of all the laws.

ps. i suspect, as another replier also pointed out, and you too, that the syllable thing is mostly swedish education jumping on trends that existed in european education without thinking of why. although, i am sure there are some benefits to learning syllabels when learning to read swedish. although, the only time i remeber syllables being mentioned today in school, was one learning verse methods in the illiad haha.

also as a side note, i thing that is confusion in all this data, and which i have no answer to, is which language the statics means that the population could read in. in the statics for 18th century sweden, modern day finland would have been included. and even though i know the language of administration was swedish in finland during this time, from my understanding in day to day people spoke finnish in finnish speaking areas. wherehas, i assume they the stats means that they could read finnish fluentely, in these statisics, but idk honestly. same thing, with speakers of the saami languages within the swedish kingdom of that epoch. something i do not know enough about, but something i should definitly look up!

@shelomit

sources

https://www-ne-se.ezp.sub.su.se/uppslagsverk/encyklopedi/l%C3%A5ng/husf%C3%B6rh%C3%B6r

https://www-ne-se.ezp.sub.su.se/uppslagsverk/encyklopedi/l%C3%A5ng/husf%C3%B6rh%C3%B6rsl%C3%A4ngd

http://bibblansvarar.se/sv/svar/hej-jag-ar-nyfiken-pa-nar

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkskola_i_Sverige

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utbildning_i_Sverige

https://popularhistoria.se/lasarfragor/hog-laskunnighet-redan-fore-folkskolan

[leirathemartian]

Am I too old for tag lists? :P

@raesand tagged me and I’m kind of in a procrastinating depression funk, so why not.��

basics what’s your name ➔ Hayley do you have a nickname ➔ nope, although a lot of people call me Leira do you have a middle name ➔ mmm too much sharing do you like your name ➔ It’s ok do people often mispronounce your name ➔ No, but they almost always misspell it  do you like the meaning of your name ➔ Well. The Anglo-Saxon meaning is pretty boring (”hay meadow”) but when I was a kid I was told/had a cross-stitch thing that said it meant “Lover of the sea” and I really like that. when is your birthday ➔ 11/22 how old are you ➔ 25 do you like your age ➔ Honestly, I don’t know. Every age has its pros and cons, I guess. I miss not being as stressed when I was a teenager, but I haaated high school. So, I don’t know. It’s stressful because I’m working on graduating and then I’ll have to get a job and be, like, a real adult and shit. what’s your zodiac sign ➔ Scorpio/Sagittarius cusp apparently

appearance what’s your hair colour ➔  Light brown/dark blonde is your current hair colour your natural hair colour ➔ Sort of, but the ends are bright blond do you dye your hair ➔ Yeah every so often I enjoy changing it up do you have natural highlights ➔ I did when my hair was long enough for it to absorb sun before I cut it off when was the last time you had a haircut ➔ A couple months. I need one, badly, lol what length is your hair right now ➔ Longish pixie do you have straight, wavy or curly hair ➔ Wavy/curly do you have frizzy hair ➔ 100%. It’s better than when it was long, though do you use a curling iron ➔ No do you use a hair straightener ➔ No do you braid your hair ➔ Sometimes. Used to all the time when it was long what’s your eye colour ➔ blue do your eyes change colour ➔ lol no 

do you wear contacts ➔ Only when I’m dressed up/being active if so, do you use colour contacts or regular contacts ➔ Regular do you wear glasses ➔ Indeed do you have naturally long eyelashes ➔ Mmmm not really do you wear braces ➔ Nope do you have dimples ➔ Nope do you have moles ➔ All of them do you have outstanding cheekbones ➔ Lol no my face is too round to have outstanding features. I also have no chin. do you have freckles ➔ Yes indeedy do you have piercings ➔ 8, all in my ears. Two lobe piercings, helix, daith, tragus, flat. do you have tattoos ➔ Yup, I have a Water Tribe tattoo do you wear make up ➔ Occasionally do you paint your nails ➔ Yes, fairly often do you wear jewelry ➔ Well, I always wear earrings. Plus usually my wedding band and an ourobouros ring. are you happy with your height ➔ It’s fine personality would you consider yourself outgoing or shy ➔ Neither  are you sarcastic  ➔ It’s my love language what’s your biggest fear ➔ Failure. Also heights and snakes, which are my actual phobias. are you religious ➔ Not anymore do you get easily along with people ➔ Ehhh. Depends on the person. do you cry easily ➔ Sadly

school do you go to middle school ➔ No do you go to high school ➔ No do you go to a private school ➔ No are you home schooled ➔ I used to be have you graduated from school ➔ From many schools, lol.  what grade are you in ➔ Errrr. 5th year PhD student so... 21st?

have you skipped a grade ➔ Yes, I skipped 7th grade. It was a bad idea, I wasn’t socially prepared for going to college early. have you been held back a grade ➔ No have you ever failed a class  ➔ I got a C- the first time I took Fluid Mechanics, which is failing in grad school, although I maintain that was because of bad teaching, because when I retook it I easily got an A.

have you been sent to the principals office ➔ Homeschool doesn’t have principals :P

have you skipped school ➔ A lot in college/grad school, usually for mental health reasons have you cheated on a test ➔ Not that I can remember

family do you live with your biological parents ➔ dear god no not anymore do you get along with your parents ➔ Ehhh. My mom and I are good, but my dad still likes to try to control me. do you tell your parents everything ➔ Fuck no. do you have strict parents ➔ Yes.

do you have siblings ➔ Two brothers are you the oldest ➔ Yes. are you in the middle ➔ ... are you the youngest ➔ ... are all of your grandparents still alive ➔ No, one of my grandfathers is dead friendships do you have a best friend ➔ I do! Friends since we were 12. And my husband is up there too. do you have more than 10 friends ➔ I don’t think so, not close ones anyway. do you have at least 2 friends you can trust with your life ➔ Yeah, probably do you have a lot of guy friends, a lot of girl friends or equal girl and guy friends ➔ Mmmm.... slightly more women. do you text with your friends a lot ➔ Not particularly relationships what’s your relationship status ➔ Married have you ever been in love ➔ Quite a lot do you believe in love at first sight ➔ I love all animals at first sight :P

have you ever been in a relationship ➔ Am in one, lol have you ever had a secret admirer ➔ I don’t think so. Been one, though. have you ever been asked out on a date ➔ Yup!

have you ever been kissed ➔ Yes have you ever made out with someone ➔ Yes have you ever been cheated on ➔ Also yes, he was an asshole have you ever been proposed to ➔ Yes do you want to get married ➔ I’d hope so, since I am do you want kids ➔ Eventually, once I have a real job country where were you born ➔ USA where do you live right now ➔ USA have you ever been out of the country ➔ Not as much as I’d like but yes. do you prefer country or city ➔ Country do you like sightseeing ➔ Haha yes, I am unashamed that I enjoy being a tourist is one or more of your parents from another country ➔ No what places would you like to visit  ➔ I’d like to go back to Scotland/Ireland. Also Iceland, Sweden, Thailand, South Korea, Greece, .... etc. are you fluent in more than one language ➔ Sadly, no. what languages can you speak ➔ English and I still retain enough Spanish to say hi to someone/read signs. Same with French. I know a tiny bit of Swedish.

health do you have any allergies ➔ No are you lactose intolerant ➔ Slightly. I have IBS and sometimes it’s a trigger. IT depends on the amount. have you had surgery ➔ Fix a broken elbow, another to fix a deviated septum have you had stitches ➔ Not that I can remember have you broken a bone ➔ Said elbow has someone close to you died of a disease ➔ My grandfather died of cancer do you exercise a lot  ➔ Hahahahaha no. I used to LARP/do archery, but sadly drama ruined that for me. I also many moons ago rode horses (and owned them!) but now I’m poor. experiences have you ever had a near death experience ➔ No have you ever been on a plane ➔ Yup quite a lot have you ever had an allnighter ➔ God no. I need a lot of sleep. have you ever been to school/work after a sleepless night ➔ Yeah have you ever been in a physical fight ➔ See above re LARP. We literally hit each other for fun. Also, used to do Muay Thai. have you ever been to a wedding ➔ Yes, including my own, lol.  have you ever been to a funeral ➔ Yes have you ever lived in a different country ➔ Maybe one day have you ever been drunk ➔ Ugh yes. Lately every time it gives me a migraine, though. have you ever been trick or treating ➔ Yes, I miss being a kid and so that wasn’t weird. :’D have you ever been in a school play ➔ Yes, I was a theater kid in high school have you ever been to a camp ➔ Horseback riding camp have you ever driven a car ➔ Own one, so quite often skills how many languages are you fluent in ➔ One have you ever read a book in another language ➔ Does Beowulf count? can you roll your tongue ➔ Yes can you braid hair ➔ Yes. Regular, french, dutch, and fishtail. can you do a handstand ➔ Haha no, I’m fat and unathletic. habits do you crack your knuckles �� Mhm do you bite your nails ➔ You caught me doing it right now do you bite your lips ➔ Sometimes, I’m an anxious biter/skin picker

favourites

what’s your favourite movie ➔ Hmmmm. I honestly don’t know. Star Wars is up there. what’s your favourite tv show ➔ Avatar, Parks and Rec, Steven Universe, House what’s your favourite book ➔ Hahahahahaha I have like, no joking, 50 favorite books. It would be easier to do favorite authors: N.K. Jemisin, Ann Leckie, Tolkien, Robert Jordan, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Jacqueline Carey, Brandon Sanderson, Douglas Adams, Robin Hobb, Margaret Atwood... ok I’ll stop there. I’ll put it this way. I regularly read 150-200 books a year so there’s a lot I like. what’s your favourite song ➔ I don’t really have one, I guess. what’s your favourite colour ➔ Purples/blues what’s your favourite animal ➔ Catsssss what’s your favourite season ➔ Autumn!

this or that summer or winter ➔ Winter, I love the cold and hate the heat. It’s miserable right now and humid as fuck.

day or night ➔ Ehhh I mean I’m always exhausted so. Neither :P cats or dogs ➔ Cats but I also love dogs. rain or shine ➔ A balance of both. coffee or tea ➔ Coffee. Black. reading or writing ➔ See above re reading 200 books a year. Lol. I mostly associate writing with work. humorous or serious ➔ Humorous, especially with TV

brown or blue eyes ➔ Idk eyes are pretty

single or group dates ➔ Meh kind of over dates. I’d rather hang out with friends and play board games. texts or calls ➔ Texts. Calls exacerbate my anxiety. driving or walking ➔ Driving. I’m lazy. last

last phone call ➔ My vet checking on my cat, who has a cold. Lol. last text ➔ My dad asking me to come down tomorrow last song you listened to ➔ Something from the Star Wars soundtrack last thing you ate ➔ Chicken curry. last thing you drank ➔  Water. I’m boring. last purchase  ➔ Chips and dip last time you cleaned your room ➔ Couple days ago, I guess?

People to Tag I have no idea, lol

[sanaseva-archive]

Hi! I really like languages and I'm so interested in Norwegian after watching Skam but you keep mentioning that because you speak Swedish you didn't need to learn Norwegian. So I read a bit on it but I can't stop thinking of it. How much alike are the two languages? How can you communicate with each other without changing your own language? Please speak freely if you want to answer this, I'm so curious! Tusen takk

hi there! no worries asking questions about it. this might be easier off anon, so if you want to learn more after reading this, please message me or come off anon

alright, first things first, norwegian, swedish, danish and icelandic have the same roots, i suppose you can call it. they’re all north germanic languages originating i suppose from old norse (well… like… mostly influenced by that language right now? idk how to explain this part). icelandic is the language most alike old norse as it is today.

if i rmbr correctly, the languages branched out a bit, but not too far. icelandic and norwegian are northwest germanic languages, incl faroese, and swedish and danish are northeastern. back in the days (like… way back) they were considered dialects i suppose, and were entirely mutually intelligible.

it still is, i suppose, if you and your fellow scandi makes an effort. the thing is that, our languages in the standard language of our country in written form is basically completely comprehensible. every other time you might stumble across a word and it means smth different in the other language than yours, or you may not know the word but you will definitely understand it in context.

examples:

english: i love you

norwegian: jeg elsker deg

swedish: jag älskar dig (where “dig” is basically nowadays pronounced “dej”, which is the same in many norwegian dialects)

and

english: are you crazy

norwegian: er du gal

swedish: är du galen

now, i know that norwegian is more closely related to english than swedish, and here are some things i’ve noticed which backs up this statement:

english: you are not alone

norwegian: du er ikke* alene

swedish: du är inte* ensam (though, another word for “ensam” is “allena”, it is nowadays rarely used, and thinking of this sentence it can’t rly be used)

* please note also that swedish does use “icke” sometimes, oftentimes the same way english uses “non-”. e.g. “a non-problem” could become “ett icke-problem”. this is mostly used in i suppose argumentative form, to put emphasis on the irrelevance of something.

english: neighbour

norwegian: nabo

swedish: granne

now, some words are the same but mean different things!

english: understand (or like, get it, etc)

norwegian: skjønner

swedish: förstå*

the skjønner part here is different. we say “förstå” or “fatta” (”fattar du?” > “skjønner du?”) where “förstå” is the “real word” and “fatta” is more of the slang of it. idk if it’s been accepted as a word yet or not lol

the word i relate “skjønner” to is the swedish “känner” which in english is the verb “feeling” (not the noun as in “a feeling” but as “i’m feeling”), which in norwegian is “føler”. “föl” in swedish is a foal..

* in norwegian you can also say forstå

english: laugh / smile

norwegian: le / smile

swedish: skratta / le

here you’ll see that the swedish word for laugh is different than the norwegian word. instead it means “smile” in swedish (nowadays, i don’t know if it has meant laugh in the old days lol)

english: people need people (or humans need humans)

norwegian: mennesker trenger mennesker

swedish: människor behöver människor

the word trenger is not a word we use in swedish, i’ve never really heard that word before. however, swedish has a word called “tränger” which is basically pronounced the same way, except with ä rather than e. this means…

fuck what does it mean?

well, suppose you’re in a crowd far back and you want to get through the crowd? you kinda “tränger” past the crowd to get there. or if you cut a queue, you’re an asshole that “trängs”.

obviously it doesn’t mean the same thing, but if i only read the word “trenger” online, before i watched skam, i would’ve imagined it being equivalent to “tränger”. had i read something like “jeg trenger sjokolade” (i need chocolate / jag behöver choklad) i might’ve understood it. lmao

now, moving on from that…

swedish uses the extra letters “å ä ö” and norwegian uses “å æ ø” (fun fact: they have it in the “wrong” order in the alphabet ;) they read it “æ ø å” lol). the characters mean the same, are basically pronounced the same where the pronunciation varies depending on dialect. danish also uses the same extra letters as norwegian.

each language has their own “standard” except norwegian because they decided to be extra and have two.

bokmål is the one closest related danish i think, which in turn means swedes have easier time understanding bokmål rather than nynorsk. (that is not to say that swedes understand spoken danish very well, but that’s denmark’s personal problem…)

the grammar structure is basically the same. to me, norwegian gives off an old swedish vibe wrt some of their words, and way of saying things.

examples i’ve noticed watching skam:

english: don’t touch me

norwegian: ikke rør meg (when dickhelm said this to noora)

swedish: rör mig inte

here you notice how the action in swedish is moved to the beginning of the sentence, where norwegian keeps it basically the same as in english. this is also why i do believe i understand norwegian is said to be closer related to english than swedish. we can’t really say “inte rör mig” or “icke rör mig”.

english: my mother

norwegian: mora min (e.g. when isak talks about his mum, but i think they also say “min mor” in some contexts ?)

swedish: min mamma (”mor” is an older way of saying mother. could be compared to english “mother” vs. “mum” though in english it’s alright to say “mother” whereas in swedish we’re currently in some sort of linguistic development it feels like, and you can’t really say “mor” without sounding… a bit off, i suppose)

i understand it as this:

the more exposed you’ve been to norwegian, the easier time you will have speaking with a norwegian. and, say, you live at the sweden-norway boarder, and you have a norwegian on norway’s side, you will understand your norwegian neighbour better than, say, someone from the southern part of sweden called skåne. (yes, this is again a lowkey diss at skåne and in turn denmark, since danish is a fucked up language beyond hope of saving)

i personally haven’t had a lot of exposure to norwegian. i live in the north of sweden towards finland, which means i’ve had more exposure to finnish than norwegian. finnish is not a related language though, so i don’t understand finnish - i used to understand a little but i grew out of it i suppose.

since i haven’t heard much norwegian bar from some norwegian tourists every summer (they always come to sweden bc we cheap) i have never been particularly good at understanding spoken norwegian. they have a different… shall we say tone? like the “melody” of when you’re speaking.

admittedly, after watching skam i have learnt to catch on that “melody” which has led me to understand spoken norwegian much better.

so really, the languages are very much alike, mutually intelligible - especially if making effort to understand and be understood. norwegians typically have easier time understanding swedish (and i suppose danish) since norway has a bunch of dialects and two standard languages they need to comprehend, whereas sweden doesn’t really have that except for a few dialects…

… and some dialects i wouldn’t call dialects, i found an article on wiki on it called westrobothnian. many of these smaller “dialects” aren���t heavily influenced by the standard language, and if you’re not familiar with it (as in: your grandmother doesn’t speak it regularly) you wouldn’t understand a shit.

i hope i made sense