OK, it is time for a geography lesson, or rather more specifically, Topography and even more precisely, etymology of topography. In more humane words – the meaning and origin of place-names.
Maybe you’re thinking along these lines right now: “ Gee-sh, geography, topography, what the hell, don’t I have anything better to blog about?”.
Please, stop that line of thoughts and never you worry, I won’t make this tedious and boring, as you are probably remembering classes were back in ‘the ol’ days’. No, in fact, topography can be – is – great fun if you know what to know about it! So let’s start with that…
Here’s a map of Sweden Scandinavia: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Denmark included – courtesy for this map goes to Google Earth. Oh, and there is Ireland and part of England in the map as well, but never mind those guys, they’re not important!
Map of Scandinavia
I have often heard people complain that they can’t remember the difference between Norway and Sweden (ouch, that will hurt the ego of several Swedes), but there is actually a quite easy way of remembering, if you know something about the etymological topography.
Norway, according to etymologists*, comes from ‘the way North’ or the Northward route. It’s quite reasonable when you think about it, really. ‘Nor’ = north, but then pronounced someone in a rush, and ‘way’, well… it speaks for itself, doesn’t it? So, Norway is the way to the North. If you look at the map, it is clear that Norway is the longest and smallest of the countries present, namely North of Denmark and Germany, and bordering the Atlantic ocean. Sweden, on the other hand, is snuggling right next to Norway, and borders the Baltic Sea (and some of Finland).
So what about Sweden? Well, for starters let’s use the term that Swedes use for themselves: Sverige. It’s a mixture of two words, basically: Svea and Rike - or if you like some more exclusive names, try Sweoland or Sweorice (Old English) or Sviariki (Old Norse). ‘Rike’ means something like empire, realm or kingdom. Remember history class about the German Third Reich? That’s the same thing, Rike and Reich, a big-ass empire ruled by a monarch.
- Map of Sweden with Svealand highlighted
For the ‘Svea’ part we have to delve deeper, though. Back in the days when Sweden was invented, the Swedes were not so well distributed across what we now call Sweden. In fact, the ‘Swedes’ of that time actually only lived in Svealand (see dark-green section in the image below). This is where most of Swedish history happened. Most of the area south of Svealand belonged to Denmark – some Southerners still think this is true or desirable – and most of the area north of Svealand was… well… empty, except for a few nomadic Saami.
So Svealand. Still leaves us with an unaccounted ‘svea’. But for people back in those days ‘originality’ was not such an issue as it is today, they were practical people instead. They were a people who called themselves ‘svea’ – or Suiones – and their land they called ‘svea-land’, land of the Svea.
But we’re not there yet: Svea in itself also means something. We don’t know exactly how the old Swedes went about figuring out their own people’s name, but we do know that the name has resemblance to the Proto-Indo-European word ‘swih’. That roughly meant ‘one’s own’, so ‘us’.
I am glad that we've got that sorted out. Let’s briefly zoom in on Stockholm – after all, that’s what this blog is about. In a previous post I've already explained that ‘Stock’ probably means either ‘a log’ (Swedish for log is stock) or a fortress (German word for fortifications), and that ‘holm’ means islet.
Within Stockholms lan lies an area called ‘Enskede’. Dutch people might find this funny, because we also have a city called ‘Enschede’ – and yes, the letter-combination ‘sch’ is pronounced in that rough choking sound only native Dutch people seem to be able to make. Enskede was made up somewhere in the 1900, and it is difficult to find out the exact etymology of the word, but the Dutch Enschede used to mean ‘near the border’ or ‘near the town hall’. It is short of the full sentence ‘An die Schede’, which means ‘on the barrier/border’.
Next up is Malmö – I am randomly picking out names so please don’t try to find logic in this summation – Malmö is located very near to Kobnhamn (Copenhaven, Denmark) and the third-largest city of Sweden. The original name for Malmö was much cooler, though, as it used to be called ‘Malmhaug’, in proper English gravel pile or ore hill. But for some reason – being in a hurry for instance – has shortened Malmhaug into Malmö. Yet, for people who don’t have the ö solidly located on their PC key-boards, it takes far more time to write Malmö than it does to type Malmhaug, so I opt for a return to the older name.
So that was the third-largest city, what about Gothenburg, the second-largest? Swedes call this place Göteborg, which they pronounce somewhat like this: ‘jjjeuttteborjje’. It was the capital city of the Geats – Götar, Geatas, Gauts, or whatever flavor of spelling you prefer in Swedish – which explains its name completely: ‘Göteborg’ is the ‘burrough/castle of the Geats’
Then there are the river islands that actually don’t have any rivers on them. I am referring to Åland, which is located in the Baltic sea right between Finland and Sweden. Germans used to call it Ahvaland, which means land of water – and this makes much sense given the fact that the place is surrounded by water – but later on the word was adopted and adapted by Swedes into Åland, which means river land (Ån = river, and land = land). It makes no sense, but hey, that’s language for you!
By now, you might have gotten the hang of this, and in order to refrain losing readers due to the length of this epistle, I will cut things short (even though many place-names still require explication), and spare you more details… for now!
But just before ending, let me quickly highlight that there are some nations that in the past few centuries, have shown remarkably little creativity and enormously audacious ‘borrowing’ behavior when it comes to place-names. To (place)name a few:
- Stockholm is also a place in Canada, Saskatchewan, township in Minnesota, ‘unincorporated town’ in New Jersey, a town in Maine, New York, South Dakota, Winsconsin, and two small villages in Sweden itself, located in Blekinge and Skane county. Apparently the name had a nice ring to it, or nameplates were cheaper to make by the dozen. All these locations – including the Swedish ones – are similar when it comes to linguistics; everyone speaks fairly decent English although with a horrific American accent.
- Swedish Stockholm town sign
- Other occasions of such stealing also occur, yet are covered up by ‘adding’ something to the new place name. More specifically, by adding ‘new’ to the place name. Think about New York, New Jersey, New Orleans (any other ‘new’ – place we have). Not to say that using a name twice is a bad thing per se – although it is a missed opportunity for creativity – simply adding ‘new’ to it makes the stealing even worse in my eyes. Not only are you stealing it, but you’re openly acknowledging your theft and emphasizing the hope that this new place will be better, or at least ‘more new’. What is next, Newest-York? Later-Jersey? Post-Orleans?
With that said, I end the geography class for today and hope you will have learned a valuable lesson – I am not going to think one up for you, you just figure out for yourself what the purpose of reading this all really was!
*etymologists are scholars who dedicated at least 4 years of their life to being trained in the art of arguing and squabbling amongst each other concerning the meaning and origin of names and words. Typical for their work is a high heterogeneity and lack of consensus, marking etymology as a very creative and flexible research area. It is also very difficult to earn a living in this field of expertise, unless you remain in an academic setting, grow a long beard and become a professor – the beard is a necessity for that!
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