Regional differences

Last week we had a lovely visit from a family member from Stockholm. I'm not exactly sure how one describes her relationship to me. She is the daughter of my brother-in-law. Maybe that makes her my Niece By Marriage ? There's a challenge for everyone out there, find out if there is an official title. Whatever it is, she's very nice. She was born and raised in Norrbotten but has lived in Stockholm now for the best part of 15 years. She has a great partner and they are expecting their first child due later this year. Her partner also lives in Stockholm, but very clearly originates from Skåne in the south of Sweden.

 

Everytime I meet or hear someone from Skåne, people around me assume that I'm gong to have trouble understanding them. To be fair, I did have trouble for quite a long time. All countries have regional accents and dialects but the Skåne accent is probably the most extreme in Sweden. About as strong as a Scottish accent is compared to a person from London. I remember the very first time I heard someone speak from Skåne. I was at a business conference and was so inspired by the presenter. I thought to meself that, if this man who is clearly an immigrant from France can learn to speak Swedish, then so could I. Of course I later found out that the presenter was not fromFrance, but was in fact from the Skåne region of Sweden. To me, they still sound like a French immigrant. That is maybe why I don't have a great deal of difficulty in following them when they speak. Unlike native born Swedes, I learnt Swedish surrounded by people from a myriad of different nations. Each of us with our own unique speech patterns and accents. As a result, we all got pretty good at picking out dodgy sounding Swedish words and translating them to the version of Swedish that we could understand. I have no problem in understanding a Swede who sounds like a Frenchman because I have listened to a Frenchman speaking Swedish. I think that's also why I can follow Danish and Norwegian verbal dialogues quite well. Despite them being different languages, I can pick up the common words even when they are expressed a little differently. In that respect I think that we immigrants have a little advantage over native Swedes. We're used to Swedish sounding weird.

 

All that being said, I do have my favourite and not-so-favourite Swedish regional dialects. Some require a bit more work than others. Obviously, learning Swedish in the north means that the Norrbotten dialect is, for the most part, the most natural for me to listen to. It helps that it is one of the more slowly spoken dialects. Plenty of time to digest the information without getting completely lost. At the other end of the speed scale, in my experience, we have Göteborg. That's a tough one for me due to the sheer speed and the tendency to run words together. It gets close to the NZ English monotone sound which must be a nightmare for any tourist visiting New Zealand. Stockholm Swedish has an obvious modern English influence to it. The melody isn't nearly as pronounced as you find in other parts of Sweden. I have come to rely a lot on the melody of the language in order to quickly pick up on meanings. So Stockholm requires another approach. The northern and inland parts of Norrbotten are the Mecca of Swedish melody. It is like living in "Swedish for Dummies". I don't mean that in an insulting manner. Quite the opposite, it is very helpful to have clear distinctions being words. If you get TOO far North, then there is the problem of Finnish accents coming into local Swedish, and that's a tough one for me. For some strange reason, the one regional dialect I identify the easiest with, is in Dalarna. Maybe because Dalarna lies in the middle, so it doesn't have the same extreme influences as other regions. I don't know the reason, I've never been to Dalarna and still have to look it up on the map. But I do know that if I have enjyed listening to Swedish on television, the majority of times the person has come from Dalarna. Maybe I'm a closet Dalarna resident and just never knew it. Nah, I hate mosquitoes.