Swedish profanity


Swedish profanity can be divided into several categories. A substantial number of curse words in Swedish have religious origins. Euphemistic variants of the religious curses are commonly used as well. References to genitalia or bodily functions are common in the Swedish profanity vocabulary. Notably, no word for sexual intercourse is commonly used in invectives, unlike many other languages. However, calques of English fuck using knull, knulla do occur; this comes across as more offensive than fuck does in English. In general, knull, along with genitalia slang words like kuk and fitta are the most offensive single words. By contrast, most of the traditional religious profanities are not considered very offensive today; this is in line with Sweden's long-standing secularism.
Some commonly used profanity is borrowed from other languages, such as English: Shit vad snygg hon är, German: Det var en scheissefilm, and Finnish: Perkele!. An overt attitude expressed regarding this phenomenon may be that some Swedish speakers find the native profanities lacking the required 'punch'; again this might be related to the perceived ineffectiveness of the traditional religious profanities; borrowing allows speakers to avoid the much more offensive native sexual vocabulary.
Other common English-origin profanities used are bitch and fuck. Such words are often rendered in a more-or-less diligent English pronunciation, suggesting code-switching, though more assimilated Swedish approximations, for shit, for fuck, are also common. More humorous is spelling pronunciation of fuck as, but the verb fucka upp, calqued on fuck up, and its participle uppfuckad, for fucked up, usually have the spelling pronunciation.
Commonly used as euphemisms are certain numerals, especially sjutton, and variant form tusan from tusen, plus nonsense numerals used as intensifiers like femtielva.

Intelligence profanities

;Idiot, idiotisk
;Puckad, pucko
;IQ-befriad
;Efterbliven
;CP

Sexual profanities

;Bög
;Hora
;Slampa, slyna
;Lebb
;Knulla, knull
;Kåt, kåta upp
;Sätta på

Religious profanities

;Fan
;Förbannad, förbannat
;Helvete
;Herregud
;Jisses, jösses
;Jävel, djävel.
;Satan
The religious profanities are often combined in tirades for extra emphasis or for comedic effect: satans helvetes förbannade jävla fan.

Scatological

;piss
;skit
;skitstövel

Body parts

;arsel, arsle
;fitta
;kuk
;röv, rövhål

Disabilities

; mongo
; särbarn, sär
; cp
; missfoster, miffo
; efterbliven, utvecklingsstörd

Animal invectives

Note that "dog" does not commonly figure as an offensive profanity, with expressions like din hund! "you dog!" being understood as jocular or archaizing.
;Nöt
;Kossa
;Pippa; göka
;Höns-
;Apa, ap-
;Kåtbock
;Gris

Death

;Gå och dö!
;As
;Lik

Ethnic">Ethnic slur">Ethnic and political slurs

Pejoratives relating to ethnicity, occupation or political views often have the suffix -e.
; bonne, bonnig
;neger
;blatte
;svenne
;turk
;jugge
;sosse
;nasse
;rasse

Constructional and word formation patterns

Interjections are often constructed with a following också "too, also", e.g. fan också!, skit också!, helvete också!, somewhat like e.g. French !. Some can be preceded by fy "fie", especially fy fan!.
Some traditional profanities are commonly constructed as genitive attributes when used as an intensifier in combination with another profanity, e.g. helvetes skit lit. "hell's shit", satans helvete lit. "Satan's hell".
Second person personal pronouns in invectives are usually replaced by possessives: thus din idiot!, lit. "your idiot!", i.e. "you idiot!". Note that possessives agree with nouns in gender, thus din idiot in common gender, but ditt pucko in neuter.
Derogatory nouns and adjectives can be formed using semi-productive suffix -o, e.g. pucko, mongo, fyllo, fetto, neggo, pervo. This is at least partly influenced by English formations in -o like wacko, weirdo, pervo.
Compounding is frequently used to coin novel profanities. Compounds of the bahuvrihi type, often involving body parts, can often be associated with insults, thus the relatively mild dumhuvud like English ""; a more offensive example is svartskalle lit. "black-skull", ethnic slur for a dark-haired or dark-skinned person. The exact semantics of Swedish compounds is sometimes open to interpretation, and this may be utilized for comic effect, thus surfitta lit. "sour-cunt" may be understood either as "someone whose cunt is acidic" or "someone who is acidic like a cunt". The same ambiguity applies e.g. to kukhuvud, like English "dickhead". Sometimes, when an element can be used as derogatory or intensifying in either prefixed and suffixed positions, the relation between elements in the compound can be reversed with basically no change in meaning, e.g. idiotfitta and fittidiot combining "idiot" and "cunt".
One particular compounding construction takes the profanity as the head of the compound and the referent as the modifier: thus hundjävel means approximately "bloody dog", but the head of the compound is jävel, and hund "dog" is the modifier. This is often pleonastically modified with jävla, as jävla hundjävel "fucking bloody dog". Alternatively, this can be analyzed as a derivation with -jävel as a suffix. The formation is extremely productive and basically any concrete noun can be suffixed with -jävel, e.g. lådjävel "bloody box", kyrkjävel "bloody church". Other comparable morphemes that are more or less productive are -helvete, -äckel, -fan, -fitta, -mongo.
A number of intensifying prefixes are used more or less productively, e.g. skit- lit. "shit", rå- lit. "raw", tok- lit. "crazy", skogs- lit. "forest".
Some elements can be used either as attributive adjective or as compound first element, which is a marked accentual distinction in Swedish, to produce a subtle semantic difference, thus mongo hund or mongohund.