"En hund"
Translation:A dog
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Is the feminine form of HUND also an insult in Swedish? I've read Vikings asked to be buried with their dogs, so I'm wondering if contemporary Sweden is mysoginist, & if they're still canophiles, versus, for instance, a Japanese dialect equating dog with 'traitor', or North Koreans eating dogs.
No, luckily it's not. The modern Swedish word for female dog is "tik", and it carries no pejorative meanings whatsoever. There's also the far less used "hynda", which is possible to use in the b***h sense, although this pretty much never happens.
In general, though, we use "hund" for females and males both, and only specify (through "tik", "hona", "hane", "honhund", or "hanhund") when we need to.
As for your second question, there are lots of dogs in Sweden, and they're generally well-treated. For instance, there are practically no wild dogs, our animal welfare laws are among the world's strictest, and pet insurance is the norm rather than the exception. If that makes us canophiles, I'll leave for others to decide - but there's definitely no or at least very, very little dog-based hate in the language. I know I for one love my little ball of fluff a lot. :)