[Millennium]

I've recently come across a song in a language I can't identify. The title is "Håll Om Mig Nu", which apparently means "Hold Me Now". When I originally heard the song and didn't know the title I thought it sounded like French, but it's definitely not that. My next guess, once I learned the title, was Swedish. so I tried running the title through an online English/Swedish translator to see if I could get a match. It doesn't match exactly, but it's close; whatever language this song is in, it sounds like it may be related to Swedish.

Any ideas?

[rjenkinson]

it's probably swedish.

-r.

[von Wrangell]

Originally Posted by Millennium

I've recently come across a song in a language I can't identify. The title is "Håll Om Mig Nu", which apparently means "Hold Me Now". When I originally heard the song and didn't know the title I thought it sounded like French, but it's definitely not that. My next guess, once I learned the title, was Swedish. so I tried running the title through an online English/Swedish translator to see if I could get a match. It doesn't match exactly, but it's close; whatever language this song is in, it sounds like it may be related to Swedish.

Any ideas?

As rjenkinson said, it's Swedish.

[Millennium]

Thanks, but that's not the same song.

I suppose I should have stated where I found this. It's a fan-made music video of an anime called Princess Tutu. It's at http://www.silverwolfie.net/main1.htm under the "Videos" section; currently it's first in the list. There's a bunch of silly rigamarole involved in downloading it; for example, they insist on putting it a password-protected zip file. The video's worth it, though.

[bigbird]

I downloaded the video, and as a native speaker I can say that it's definitely Swedish.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by bigbird

I downloaded the video, and as a native speaker I can say that it's definitely Swedish.

I download the video, and as a native German speaker, it definitely sounds French to me.

-t

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by von Wrangell

As rjenkinson said, it's Swedish.

As the Swedo says, Swedish it is. Incidentally, it is said that Sweden is drawn from the Nordic 'Svin-thjod' literally meaning 'pig-nation'.

Make of *that* what you will

V

[von Wrangell]

Originally Posted by voodoo

As the Swedo says, Swedish it is. Incidentally, it is said that Sweden is drawn from the Nordic 'Svin-thjod' literally meaning 'pig-nation'.

Make of *that* what you will

V

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_Sweden

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suiones



Damn Norwegians......

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by voodoo

Incidentally, it is said that Sweden is drawn from the Nordic 'Svin-thjod' literally meaning 'pig-nation'.

It is said... by whom exactly? Icelanders with a grudge against the poor Swedes?

It’s from Svēa Rīke (Old Swedish), meaning ‘the Kingdom/Nation of the Svear’ (Svēa = genitive plural of Svēar). Svēar originally meant something like ‘the independent/confident (ones)’, directly from the *swe- root meaning ‘(one)self’.

Yah.

Edit: Beaten to it by a mere Swede! And one with far more extensive explanations than mine (albeit in link form). What are the odds?

[Kerrigan]

Land of the pigs? This name was probably given by those Icelanders who think they're Arabs

[Millennium]

Swedish, huh? OK; thanks.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by Oisín

It is said... by whom exactly? Icelanders with a grudge against the poor Swedes?

This topic always stirs up some lively etymology discussions. Especially in a mixed Nordic company and after two beers

V

[Monique]

Looks like vietnamese.

[Jawbone54]

Larry: I wonder where we are.
Schuyler Davis: Maybe the sign will tell us.
[the sign is written entirely in Greek letters. Curly-Joe and Larry try to sound it out]
Larry: [laughs] You know, I...
Moe: I'll smash the first guy who says it's all Greek to me.
Larry: [waves a thumb at Curly-Joe] Well, it's all Greek to him.

From The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (1962)

[Monique]

Cyrilic is very different.

[Oisín]

What does Cyrillic have to do with either Greek or this thread?

[itistoday]

Pretty sweet song, and the editing in the video was good too although the anime itself seemed to reek of fruitiness.

[rjenkinson]

Originally Posted by Oisín

What does Cyrillic have to do with either Greek or this thread?

well, the cyrillic alphabet was developed from the byzantine greek alphabet. not sure why she mentioned it though.

-r.

[ghporter]

I still don't see what Cyrilic has to do with anything else in this thread... Even the Three Stooges joke is about "modern" Greek.

Whatever-I'd have said the text Millennium posted was Swedish because of the 'Å' in it; it's the symbol for the Angstrom Unit, named after Swedish physicist Anders Jonas Ångström. It kind of grabbed my attention, though I don't know if any other languages use this character.

[Kerrigan]

And what does vietnamese have to do with any of this? Definitely coming out of left field, Monique

[ghporter]

Vietnamese looks nothing like the text Millennium posted-or anything European, for that matter. It's pretty distinctive.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by ghporter

Swedish because of the 'Å' in it; it's the symbol for the Angstrom Unit, named after Swedish physicist Anders Jonas Ångström. It kind of grabbed my attention, though I don't know if any other languages use this character.

Swedish uses å/Å along with Norwegian and Danish. German, Swedish and Finnish use ä/Ä, Swedish, Icelandic and German use ö/Ö and Norwegian, Icelandic and Danish use ø/Ø and æ/Æ.

So, a text containing å can be Norwegian, Danish or Swedish, but if there is an ö in it too then it is Swedish. If it has å and ø it is Norwegian or Danish.

Note that in Norwegian and Danish aa is equal to å, but not in Swedish. Kind of like nn can equal ñ in Spanish.

V

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by voodoo

Kind of like nn can equal ñ in Spanish.

V

Is that in Spain only?

I learned Spanish in college, but they never taught us that here in the U.S.

Of course, most of the people who were teaching us were graduate students from Mexico or Puerto Rico, so they told us to ignore "vosotros" and the associated verb forms because they don't use it in Mexico.

I did have one teacher who was from Argentina. His mother was Argentinean and his father was from Spain, so he expected us to learn the "vosotros" forms because in Argentina they use "vos" and that was similar to "vosotros" (Whatever). He was fun, because he liked to speak Spanish the way his father did, (Castellano, I believe), with "ci" being pronounced as "thi" instead of "si". (i.e. cinco is "thinko" and not "sinko")

[ghporter]

I can't find any mention of 'nn' in my trusty University of Chicago Spanish-English, English-Spanish Dictionary, though I distinctly remember Ms. Horowitz talking about it in my junior high Spanish class. Yes, my Spanish teacher was named Ms. Horowitz.

Castillian is THE Spanish. Ask any Castellano. Technically, Spanish is defined by the Academy at Castilla, so those dialects that vary from Castillian are "wrong." Or more to the point they're more informal.

There's another Spanish Academy in Colombia, I think in Bogota. A friend who grew up there was quite proud of the fact that he spoke "proper" Spanish, and all the Spanish speakers around him where we were (central Honduras) only "approximated" it. Not pretentious, just noticing the differences.

I've noticed accent differences among Mexicans and Mexican Americans from various areas that don't seem too far apart, at least to me. There's a distinct difference between border Spanish and San Antonio Spanish (and Austin Spanish is different still), and if you speak to someone from the interior of Mexico just south of the border region, they'll sound quite different still. Accent isn't all of it-there are distinct usage differences, probably regionalisms, that sort of stand out. And I catch all of this without being more than "not going to embarrass myself (too horribly)" fluent in Spanish.

[Monique]

I stand corrected, I was wrong it is Swedish, I found the translation on the net.

[von Wrangell]

Originally Posted by Monique

I stand corrected, I was wrong it is Swedish, I found the translation on the net.

A bit late to the party ain't we?

[voodoo]

Ene doble or 'nn' is where ñ comes from in Spanish. 'Anno' becomes 'año' etc. So, nn *can* be equal to ñ, but really only in historical context because the sound of 'nn' is after all different from 'ñ'. For instance a girl called Anna in Spain wouldn't alternatively spell it Aña

Then again, it is usually Ana in Spain. Anna is Italian spelling, but both sound similar, one n or two.

Funny thing: in iTunes one can either search for 'nn' or 'ñ' and songs containing 'ñ' will show up in both cases. For instance, I have a song called 'La Soñadora' and I can write 'La Sonnadora' and it will be the only song that comes up. A song called 'Joanna' will not appear if searched for 'Joaña'.

Ahem. Carry on.

V

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by voodoo

Funny thing: in iTunes one can either search for 'nn' or 'ñ' and songs containing 'ñ' will show up in both cases. For instance, I have a song called 'La Soñadora' and I can write 'La Sonnadora' and it will be the only song that comes up.

And this song is, to further simplify matters, by an Irish artist?

By the way, I didn’t know Swedish didn’t use aa for å. What do they do, then? Just not distinguish a from å? (In places where åäö are not allowed, I mean, like URLs (previously), certain forms and programs, etc.)

[Millennium]

Well, I've found the info. It turns out I was mistaken about the title: there is no "Nu" in it. It's just "Håll Om Mig", and it's by Swedish artist Nanne Grönwal.

I've started watching the anime now. I don't understand how it can possibly be as good as the video made it out to be, but somehow it actually manages to work. This, despite being some kind of twisted cross between Revolutionary Girl Utena, Card Captor Sakura, Ranma 1/2, thrown into a blender with 1/4 cup of cocaine. Highly recommended.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by voodoo

Funny thing: in iTunes one can either search for 'nn' or 'ñ' and songs containing 'ñ' will show up in both cases. For instance, I have a song called 'La Soñadora' and I can write 'La Sonnadora' and it will be the only song that comes up. A song called 'Joanna' will not appear if searched for 'Joaña'.

Ahem. Carry on.

V

Interesting historical stuff; thanks. I know that La Sonnadora is in Spanish, and that Joanna is not; how does iTunes know this?

And are you a closet '70's fan by some chance?

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by ghporter

Interesting historical stuff; thanks. I know that La Sonnadora is in Spanish, and that Joanna is not; how does iTunes know this?

It doesn’t: searching for ‘nn’ brings up both ‘nn’ and ‘ñ’, but not vice versa, since ñ is never used for nn, only the other way around.

Edit: By trying, I just found out that searching for ‘aa’ does not show results with å. It should.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by Millennium

This, despite being some kind of twisted cross between Revolutionary Girl Utena, Card Captor Sakura, Ranma 1/2, thrown into a blender with 1/4 cup of cocaine.

I don't watch much anime, but still,

[Judge_Fire]

Originally Posted by voodoo

So, a text containing å can be Norwegian, Danish or Swedish

Or Finnish, we keep the Å in the alphabet for compatibility reasons, in practice really only for names.

But we choose to call Sweden by the name 'Ruotsi', because it sounds tougher.

J

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Judge_Fire

Or Finnish, we keep the Å in the alphabet for compatibility reasons, in practice really only for names.

But... don’t all Finno-Swedish place names have pure Finnish equivalents as well (like Åbo/Turku, etc.)? Wouldn’t you always use the Finnish name if you’re talking/writing in Finnish? Why would you need å in the Finnish alphabet at all, then?

[Judge_Fire]

A lot of place names are untranslated, or more accurately, the Swedish names are simply considered regular names. We're not too concerned about foreign influences: not the way the nationalistic movement was back in the day when translation mania happened.

Same goes for people, as many family names follow the same logic. In the end, so many names with Å occur in everyday use that the letter is considered part of the Finnish language, although phonetically it's 100% redundant - our 'O' is pronounced exactly the same.

J