{"id":15798,"date":"2018-06-30T12:53:12","date_gmt":"2018-06-30T11:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=15798"},"modified":"2018-06-30T12:53:12","modified_gmt":"2018-06-30T11:53:12","slug":"fair-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=15798","title":{"rendered":"Fair friends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/blog\/vanner.gif\" width=\"208\" height=\"208\" style=\"float:right; margin:0 0 20px 50px;\" alt=\"Bra v\u00e4nner \u00e4r som stj\u00e4rnor. Du ser dem inte alltid, men du vet att de alltid finns d\u00e4r.\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I learnt two words for friend in Swedish this week &#8211; <strong>v\u00e4n<\/strong> [v\u025b\u02d0n] and <strong>kompis<\/strong> [k\u0254mp\u026as]. The former is translated as &#8220;buddy&#8221; in my Swedish lessons, and the latter as &#8220;friend&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><strong>V\u00e4n<\/strong> can mean friend, comrade, lover, mate, pal, sympathizer, well-wisher or acquaintance, and is also an old word for fair or beautiful. It comes from the Old Norse <em>vinr<\/em> (friend), from the Proto-Germanic <em>*winiz<\/em> (friend, loved one), from the Proto-Indo-European <em>*wenh\u2081-<\/em> (to seek, desire, love, win). <\/p>\n<p>The element <em>-win<\/em> in names such as Darwin, Edwin, Godwin, Irwin, etc comes from the same root, as does the name Venus (via Latin).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kompis<\/strong> cane be translated as brother, buddy, friend, chum, comrade, crony, mate, mucker, and is a contraction of <em>kompanjon<\/em> (partner, associate) +\u200e <em>-is<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>V\u00e4n<\/strong> appears in expressions such as:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; flickv\u00e4n = girlfriend<br \/>\n&#8211; pojkv\u00e4n = boyfriend<br \/>\n&#8211; hj\u00e4rtev\u00e4n = beloved, close friend, sweetheart<br \/>\n&#8211; ov\u00e4n = enemy<br \/>\n&#8211; v\u00e4ninna = female friend (of a female)<br \/>\n&#8211; v\u00e4nlig = friendly, kind, gentle, amicable, affable<br \/>\n&#8211; v\u00e4nling = kind, nice, sweet<br \/>\n&#8211; v\u00e4nskap = friendship<br \/>\n&#8211; v\u00e4nskaplig = friendly, amicable<br \/>\n&#8211; v\u00e4ntj\u00e4nst = a service done out of friendship<br \/>\n&#8211; v\u00e4nkrets = circle of friends<br \/>\n&#8211; v\u00e4nort = sister town, twin town<\/p>\n<p>Other Swedish words for friend or acquaintance include:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; kamrat = friend, associate, chum, comrade, fellow, mate, partner, fellow<br \/>\n&#8211; bekant = friend, acquaintance<br \/>\n&#8211; polare = brother, buddy, mate, dawg, mucker, crony, pally<br \/>\n&#8211; fr\u00e4nder = kinsman<\/p>\n<p>Which of these are most commonly used?<\/p>\n<p>The words on the image mean &#8220;Good friends are like stars. You do not always see them, but you know they are always there.&#8221; This is one of the things that pops up when you search for &#8220;v\u00e4nner&#8221; (friends), e.g. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mellowdesign.se\/shop\/tratavlor\/tavlor-med-text\/bra-vanner-ar-som-stjarnor-svart-tratavla-med-text\/\">on this site<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Sources: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/v%C3%A4n\">Wiktionary<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.bab.la\/dictionary\/swedish-english\/v%C3%A4n\">bab.la<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I learnt two words for friend in Swedish this week &#8211; v\u00e4n [v\u025b\u02d0n] and kompis [k\u0254mp\u026as]. The former is translated as &#8220;buddy&#8221; in my Swedish lessons, and the latter as &#8220;friend&#8221;. V\u00e4n can mean friend, comrade, lover, mate, pal, sympathizer, well-wisher or acquaintance, and is also an old word for fair or beautiful. It comes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,10,36,45,67,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-language","category-old-norse","category-proto-indo-european","category-swedish","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}