Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 May 18

= May 18 =

Ej vs. inte
I have always wondered what is the difference between the words ej and inte in Swedish. They both mean the same thing, "not". But ej is much more common in actual Swedish and inte is much more common in Finland-Swedish. Are they interchangeable, or do they have some sort of grammatical difference? J I P &#124; Talk 21:30, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * "Ej is usually only found in the written language: ej genomfart, no thoroughfare" DuncanHill (talk) 21:37, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * See also this thread from the archives. DuncanHill (talk) 21:39, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Asked by the same questioner, I see. --Viennese Waltz 09:02, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Eight years ago. J I P  &#124; Talk 11:52, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * You don't remember asking the same question eight years ago? I'm surprised. --Viennese Waltz 11:55, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

As mentioned in the linked discussion, ej (and also icke) is more formal and/or old-fashioned. In a poem from 1782, I found this line: "jag minns icke hvar (och vet ej hennes namn)", meaning "I don't remember where (and don't know her name)". --T*U (talk) 13:16, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I made a search in two different Swedish Bible versions and came up with rather significant differences: In the 1917 translation, "icke" is used 3642 times, "ej" 236 times, "inte" 0 times. In the 2000 translation, "icke" is used 11 times and "ej" 16 times (both mostly poetic), while "inte" is used 2607 times. --T*U (talk) 13:48, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I can't lay my hands on it at the moment, but I feel sure I've read somewhere that until the late 19th Century "icke" was the only negative. Holmes & Hinchliffe mention that it's nowadays often used for English loan-translations, such as icke-rökare 'non-smoker'. DuncanHill (talk) 13:56, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I can see that "icke" was the only form used in the Bible translation from 1686, but "ej" must have come in as a more informal form at least in the 18th century, as in the 1782 poem I quoted above. A much-used formula would be the pair "icke" ... "ej heller" (meaning neither...nor). --T*U (talk) 14:20, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * According to the Swedish Wiktionary, ej was spelled ei in Old Swedish, and before that eighi. Since it is unlikely to have died out and then have come to life again, it should be possible to find uses in earlier texts. --Lambiam 22:03, 19 May 2021 (UTC)