Video of Northern Swedes and their strange alternative to ja. Shoop? Tchoo?
This is very cute and quirky. Northern Swedes apparently don't just say ja but if they want to save even more time they just make a short intake of breath and shrug their shoulders.
Check out the video:
How do you even render that in writing? Shoo? Tschoo, perhaps? :p
15 Comments
It’s basically just jo pronounced whilst breathing in, and it’s called ingressive speech. It occurs here and there over the world. You can read more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingressive_sound#Inhaled_affirmative_.27yeah.27
It's the Swedish word jo. In Northern dialects it's common to say jo instead of ja in general. For what it's worth this ingressive jo also occurs in Central Sweden, although less frequently. In any case it's not some dialectal oddity that only Northeners would understand :)
Haha, I've had a few friends from Northern Sweden and they were doing this all the time! It was so confusing in the beginning, and I never learned how to do it.
By the way, the sound can mean a lot more than just "yes" - here's a Swedish beer commercial making fun of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNhOW9JVYzs
I told this to my family and I'm only going to respond to them like this from now on. I'm going to get kicked out of the house, I'm sure.
Ship said by breathing inward I think, minus the i. I think I'm just gonna use this instead of ja because yolo.
Would people in Stockholm understand me if I was just like SHOOooop to them?
I wish I could choose the Swedish dialect I want to learn but the pronunciation is already so hard for me as it is lol.
Sshht, Lund, you're taking all the fun out of it! Hehe :D I've never heard of this phenomenon but it's still quite entertaining to listen to.
I am amazed that this is common all over Northern Europe. :o I used to hear it back home in north-eastern Scotland with "aye". Made me curious, since my family are 'well-spoken' folks originally from the south.
Haha, this is extremely common is Finland as well. :D We do it probably because it's much easier than opening your mouth and saying "kyllä".
That video popped up in my youtube-suggestions as well, I think I would be really confused if I hadn't seen it! Never heard of something like it. But now I want to learn to pronounce it correctly! How would you know if you're doing it well?
You can't do it wrong! But just listening to the video will help you get an idea of what it usually sounds like.
ah, the girl in the video tells the presentator that he's doing it wrong! But I think I've got it. One more step towards my 'have people think you're a native Swede'-goal :P
Nah, it was fine. Though he did sound a bit tense, which might be what she was remarking on.
