this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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[–] Scurvotron@lemmy.blahaj.zone 59 points 10 months ago

Never meet your heroes

[–] teegus@sh.itjust.works 57 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'm too scandinavian to get this

[–] lugal@sopuli.xyz 14 points 10 months ago

As a true Scandinavian, do you also speak Hindi?

[–] gerryflap@feddit.nl 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Even as someone who's Dutch this seems quite obvious. I guess it's not obvious to English speaking people because shark is nothing like haj.

[–] bstix@feddit.dk 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Okay, that's odd. Both English and Scandinavian used to be closer on this, using the same original word "sea dog" originated in old Norse or so.

However both languages changed it to something else since that.

Both languages borrowed words from Dutch, but not the same Dutch word.

The English took "Schurk" for scoundrel and applied it to the fish, while Scandinavia took "Haai" describing the fin.

Curiously, Scandinavian also took Schurk and made it into "skurk", but also uses "haj" as a scoundrel just the same as English in the word "loanshark" = "lånehaj" etc.

So the words have the same origin, but it was split in Dutch while being passed back and forth between languages.

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 10 months ago

Blåhaj is the very concept of the blue shark. This is unfathomable to the human mind.

[–] jojo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] brown567@sh.itjust.works 7 points 10 months ago

Our beloved 💙

[–] HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What does it mean in Hindi?

[–] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 16 points 10 months ago

Me with my A2 level of swedish 🤓

[–] Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 10 months ago

I just bought my first Blåhaj about an hour ago ❤️🦈❤️

[–] BoiLudens@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago
[–] casmael@startrek.website 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] Duranie@literature.cafe 2 points 10 months ago

Smitty Werbenjägermanjensen says hi back! 👋

[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 5 points 10 months ago
[–] Deconceptualist@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

In German the word for shark is der Haifisch or just der Hai. According to Wiktionary this comes from Middle Dutch, and Old Norse before that. Same for the Swedish haj here. Even English used to have haye but it fell out of use after the 17th century.

I think you can figure out the "blue" part.

[–] LordAmplifier@pawb.social 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Wait till you find out how it's pronounced. It's /ˈbloːhaj/. Here's an audio recording (still not 100% correct because you'd need to pronounce "blow" with a Glasgow accent, but this video is way funnier than the serious ones). I still call mine /blɑ.'hɑːd͡ʒ/, or just /hɑːd͡ʒ/ :3

[–] DumbAceDragon@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

But consider: Swedish is a fictional language made up by a furniture store to sell sawdust and horse meat rolled into funny little balls

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Close. Swedish is a failed attempt at Danish, as is Norwegian.