You know the feeling that you love someone so much that you’d want to kill them?
No? Well, to be honest, me neither, and I reckon (hope) few people do! But why, then, do Swedes use the same word for poison as for marriage?
Don’t be surprised, though, that in this blog post I will not just bash the Swedish language. Given the previous posts I figured that enough (bad) had been said just about the Swedish lingo, and no rotten dues were given to the ‘peculiarities’ of other languages. Dutch being one of them, but let’s not spare the French in the process! I feel that I am not a discriminating person, and therefore intend to complain equally about any language I know enough about, so…
So without further ado, this article will deal with:
… marrying and using poison in Sweden, trying the same in French but ending up with fish instead, and finally moving onwards to Dutch giving, poisoning and throwing up by surrendering. If you are not following this line of thought, be not worried, I cannot follow it either. Which is why I write this post, to share with you my confusion about the words these separate languages use for these very different things altogether (although I do admit that both fish and marriage can be seen as some sort of slow poison, and certainly could be related to throwing up…)
Svenska gifterna
OK, as the title suggests, let us start with Swedish first. After all, it was a good Swedish friend who suggested that these words may also be confusing (in addition to the morfar and farmor complexities discussed earlier in this post).
The words I am referring to are:
- Gift
- And gift
Yes, as the more astute reader will have noticed, both are precisely the same. Yet, if you are happily married and want to remain so, I highly suggest not to confuse the two with one another. Here is why: one of them (I won’t tell you which) means ‘poison’ whereas the other means ‘married’. For the time being, let’s keep it at this, shall we?
Dutch giving resembles throwing up?
In Dutch we have a word for giving that goes thus: ‘geven’. You of course should pronounce that ‘g’ as if there is some terrible pointy object in your throat – which I have observed does give non-native Dutch speakers the urge to throw up, yes. But that is besides the point, the point being, if you give something in Dutch, then the object that you are giving is called ‘gift’. Quite similar to English, whom also call it gift – but not comparable to the poison Swedes can give you, please keep that in mind. If an Englishman or a Dutch person gives you a gift, you might consider accepting it, but if a Swede – one of those Swedes that you are not married to, that is – gives you gift, better not accept it!
Is it that easy? No, there is a trick, of course. Because Dutch people also use the word ‘gif’ (without the ‘t’ for poison. Confusing, no?
Even worse still, is the confusion around the word ‘geven’ (giving in English). We Dutch people can give – although stereotypes might be applicable here, and we DO have issues with giving too much, granted – but Dutch people can also ‘forgive’ someone, by saying ‘vergeven’.
Literally, ‘ver-geven’ means ‘giving from far away’, but the average Dutch person who uses the word actually means he/she forgives you – possibly for an Englishman not having any proper coffee to serve. But ‘vergeven’ ALSO means ‘to poison’. And if you add an ‘o’ in front of these words, you get ‘over-geven’ which can mean either ‘throw up’ or ‘surrender’. I guess that as a field-marshal during a battlefield, you’d rather have your enemy to ‘just’ surrender, and not throw up all over you… What!? Let’s forget about this latter word ‘overgeven’ for now, and focus instead on the other words…
Brief summary:
- Swedish
- Gift – married
- Gift – poison
- Dutch
- Gift – a given thing
- Geven – giving
- Vergeven – forgiving
- Vergeven – poisoning
- And why not add English to the mix
- Gift – a given thing (voluntarily!)
- Gift – a talent or natural ability (which could possibly relate to marriage to Swedes?)
Who came up with this nonsense?
I’d love to say that it was the French, but I am afraid that in this case, it was the – ancient – Germans who did it. Or rather, ‘Proto’ Germans: the guys whose grandchildren were to become Germans, Dutch, English, Swedes et cetera. Our mormormormors and farfarfarfars, sort of…
What about them? Well, they started this thing, by using the term ‘giftiz’, which is a derivative from gebana and some addition behind it to make it sound cool (tiz). Gebana, in turn, can mean ‘to take, give or move’. Yes, well, that pretty much covers everything, right?
Still, the English giving, the Dutch geven, German geben, Icelandic gefa, Norwegian gi and gjeva, and Swedish giva and ge all derive from this single word.
What’s the connection to marriage, then?
Well, old English – and doubtless other old folks too – used the term gifta/giftu for the ‘payment for a wife’ or if you will, the ‘wedding payment’. In those days, men had to pay a wedding gift to the bride’s parents and – depending on the particular culture but in most of Scandinavia – they had to give their wife-to-be a fair amount of money as well. This money then was used for the ‘new marriage’ so in effect the gift was for both of them, but when the pair would de-couple, then this gift was for the woman, and not the man. But let’s not get into that too deeply, because people those days were complicated – it is not that they had anything else to do.
For now it is important that the link between Swedish ‘gift’ (being married) and the old English word ‘gift’ as a wedding price makes complete sense. If the Old Englishman had paid his gift (price), than the Swedish lady would be gift (married) to him. It’s all so easy!
But… aren’t we forgetting about the poison!?
The answer to that is quite simple, actually. If you want to poison someone, you’ll have to ‘give’ the poison to him. Suppose your arch enemy – for the ease of this argument let’s assume he’s Dutch – approaches you with a nice cold refreshing drink and offers it to you, saying ‘you are ‘vergeven’. Well, I wouldn’t be too keen on accepting that drink then! He is either ‘forgiving’ you, or he is ‘giving’ you poison.
A deeper explanation to this can be found in High German – around the Middle ages those guys who lived in what is now Germany talked this gibberish. Those guys used the term ‘gift’ (something given) for the doses of a medicine given by kvacksalvare (Swedish for quacks). Back in those days doctors were highly distinguished but quacks they remained, and the consequence of most of their ‘medicines’ was direct or indirect poisoning! Gradually as science progressed, the link between this ‘gift’ and poison became quite clear, and now it all makes sense, right?
So… how about the French?
Yes, I know that’s why we are ALL reading this, because I promised a good French-bashing. Actually, there is little connection between the prior-discussed confusion and the French language. French are perfectly capable of making their own mess, and don’t need any Proto-German to do it for them, so this section is really a completely different matter all together. But let’s connect it anyway!
We’ve just established that gift can be either being married or poison or some sort of natural-borne talent, right? So what is the term for poison in French?
- Never trust a French person when he talks about fish
Yes, indeed, it is poison. Whereas the English used to be very creative in stealing words from the Proto-Germans, somewhere during the Middle ages they switched tactics to stealing words from the French instead. This might be one of the reasons why English is the language with most words, they basically stole all of them!
Anyway, English theft aside, French poison is poison (and equally poisoning are their cheeses, but let’s not go there). However, when in France, don’t be startled when a waiter asks you if you want to have poison for diner. He’s probably asking you if you want fish, the French word for fish being ‘poisson’. That is poison with an extra ‘s’.
Poison (the stuff you DO NOT) want, is derived from the Latin potio, meaning ‘a drink’. The French (and second-hand English) word ‘potion’ has the same roots, but a completely different meaning nowadays. I would not mind drinking a potion against some illness, but I would rather omit drinking a poison that is related to the same illness!
Poisson (the squiggly slimy thing in the water or on your plate at a French fish-restaurant) comes from – again – Latin, from the word ‘pisces’, from where the English may possibly also obtained their word ‘fish’.
Recommendations:
Depending on the purpose of your discussion, you might want to think about the following:
- In France, fish are poison
- In Sweden, you can either be married or be given a poison by someone who gives you the gift-word
- In the Netherlands, you want to get gifts, but not gif. If someone ‘vergeef’ you, better think twice before drinking from their proposed cup
- In England, please rebuke them for their language-theft and lack of creativity whatsoever!
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