A Sveticism () is a
grammatical construction,
loanword or
calque originating from the
Swedish language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language spoken predominantly in Sweden and in parts of Finland. It has at least 10 million native speakers, the fourth most spoken Germanic language and the first among any other of its type in the Nordic countr ...
.
Sveticisms are particularly found in the
Finnish language
Finnish ( endonym: or ) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish ...
, because
Finland's governing bureaucracy was mostly Swedish-speaking until the 20th century. The use of Swedish grammatical constructions in official speech is a particularly persistent habit. The Swedish future tense is an example, being translated to +
third infinitive in
illative case,
e.g. < Swedish 'the house will be built'. The language regulator recommends against such usage in official speech.
Sveticisms are also common in
Norwegian.
Swedish loanwords in Norwegian include words such as ('celebrity'), ('friend') and the prefix ('electric') as well as phrases such as ('everything has been taken care of') and ('in the long run').
are loanwords, such as ''
smörgåsbord'', ''
ombudsman
An ombudsman (, also ,), ombud, ombuds, ombudswoman, ombudsperson or public advocate is an official who is usually appointed by the government or by parliament (usually with a significant degree of independence) to investigate complaints and at ...
'', ''
tungsten'', ''
orienteering
Orienteering is a group of sports that require navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain whilst moving at speed. Participants are given a topographical map, usually a s ...
'', ''
moped'' and ''
running the gauntlet'' (reinterpretation of Swedish {{Lang, sv, gatlopp).
References
Swedish language