are you tired? no i am pig

X is coming home with more and more to say that he only knows how to say in Swedish. Much of the time it's not only vocabulary but also structure.

When you ask if you're tired in English the reply restricted to "I'm not tired". While in Swedish you would reply that you are "energetic" or "spry" more akin to "alert"...pigg.

So my son isn't tired. He's pig.

raising fluent sweglish speakers

Conventional terminology would label my children bilingual. I'd like to argue that before they achieve true bilingualism they will be fluent Swenglish speakers with an ability to put the emphasis of English or Swedish on their language usage at will.

I'm not only enjoying the humor of listening to the Swenglish constructions of my 4.year old's speech, but when analyzing it it makes me contemplate language acquisition for all of us. These little sponge-brains are fascinating to observe.

I don't know what this blog will become, but I thought I would start archiving the little-studied Swenglish language as spoken by my son (b. June 2004) and daughter (b. June 2007), X and K.

X: "I dropped my ba*LANCE" (emphasis on second syllable) = tapade balansen = lost my balance. (autumn 2008)

X: "I can troll this" = I can do magic (Christmas 2008)

X: "I'm bläddring [through the pages]" = I'm flipping through pages (January 2009)