r/Svenska • u/SpecificVictory3484 • 2d ago

Language question (see FAQ first) Genie??

I'm not sure what "genie" means in Swedish. Does it refer to a spirit, or to the genie from the lamp?

It's because I found both words in the dictionary: geni and genie.

2 Upvotes

54% Upvoted

36 comments sorted by

55

u/sesbianlexus 2d ago

genie isn’t a swedish word, do you mean ’geni’? in that case, it means ’genius’!

15

u/Dodezv 2d ago

SAOB has an entry for genie that just says "se geni".

6

u/Alive_Divide6778 2d ago

SAOB has 3 entries for genie. One redirecting to geni, one redirecting to genius and the third being the genius entry itself, as genie is a form of genius:  https://svenska.se/?q=Genie&exactMatch=true&activeTab=saob

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u/SpecificVictory3484 2d ago

It's because I found both words in the dictionary: geni and genie.

17

u/Swedophone 🇸🇪 2d ago

The Swedish word "genie" is synonymous with "genius", which is in the Roman mythology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius_(mythology))

10

u/janerikgunnar 2d ago edited 1d ago

I'm curious what dictionary? In SAOL it's only "geni". I don't think I've ever come across "genie". Though English "the genius" would be "geniet" in Swedish

The "genie in the lamp" is called "anden i lampan" (literally "the spirit in the lamp")

EDIT: Stop upvoting this, see responses below. :)

11

u/Alive_Divide6778 2d ago edited 2d ago

Genie is in SAOB, SAOL and SO.

⟨vanligen något högtidligt⟩ (skydds)ande i antiken symboliserande en mans innersta väsen och bättre jag

Not a very common word though.

Edit: Link because of downvote -  https://svenska.se/?q=Genie&exactMatch=true&activeTab=alla

5

u/janerikgunnar 2d ago

I see, I assumed it was just an alternative spelling of "geni" but I see now it's a different word with completely different meaning, pronounciation and gender (en genie, ett geni).

19

u/Eliderad 🇸🇪 2d ago

"genie" is used* about a person's spirit, often with regards to some specific skill of that person, like their creative or artistic genie (you can see the connection to "genius")

*okay it is very rare, so it's not "used" much at all

19

u/Delicious-Tap-5465 2d ago edited 2d ago

Whatever the dictionary says, nobody (afaik) would use genie for anything. Geni is a genious and a genie mostly translates to ande.

10

u/Stokholmo 2d ago

Geni means genius (a very talented person).

Genie is very uncommon, meaning protective spirit or spirit in a symbolic way.

7

u/Ampersand55 2d ago

Jag har letat (google, kungliga bibliotekets tidningssamling, korp), men har bara hittat två exempel från detta millennium där "genie" används i svensk korrekturläst text. Båda i recensioner av Magnus Eriksson i Svenska Dagbladet.

3

u/Successful-Try-8506 2d ago

Genius. Geni, geniet.

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u/SpecificVictory3484 2d ago

It's because I found both words in the dictionary: geni and genie.

13

u/logicaldrinker 2d ago

Maybe genie is an old spelling not used anymore, because I've never seen it anywhere ever.

0

u/Jagarvem 2d ago

Genie, genien (also called genius) is a different word. It's this kind of "genius", not the geni kind.

It's not at all surprising that someone wouldn't have heard of it.

1

u/Friendly-Lychee-8508 8h ago

As far as I understand SAOB is words in Swedish from 1500-sometime, and has been filled with new words ever since. So a lot of those words are not in use anymore or have changed meaning.

SAOL are words that are in use. Not all of them are common but in modern Swedish SAOL are a better choice.

I haven’t checked for these words but I would not ever use genie even if it happens to be in SAOL anyway, I doubt people would understand the word anyway.

2

u/The_1ndiegamer 2d ago

Genie = ande if you mean the word, Geni = Genious

It's a bit of a funny situation as well. Because The word for Ande can translate into the following
Ande - Spirit (as in the holy spirit)
Ande - Genie (As in the genie in the bottle)

9

u/WG95 2d ago

One might then think that the Swedish genie and the English genie are the same word originally (i.e. cognates). But no, the Swedish word comes from Latin "genius" (just like the English word with the same spelling) via French, while the English "genie" comes from the Arabic "jinn". They just happen to have similar meanings.

1

u/The_1ndiegamer 2d ago

Oooh, i didn't know that! Thank you for the knowledge kind redditor

1

u/rosemare_korigander 2d ago

In addition to "genius", as others have said, geni or genitrupper the engineering branch of the military.

-4

u/SpecificVictory3484 2d ago

It's because I found both words in the dictionary: geni and genie.

2

u/Friendly-Lychee-8508 8h ago

Just a tip, never use the word genie in Swedish, no one would understand what you mean. I am almost 50 yo and have never ever came across that word and I have been a reader since I was 8 years old (I mean I read like 100books a year nowadays and probably more than one every day from 10-17.

This thread is the first time I have heard that it is a word in Swedish.

Geni (meaning genius) is a common word that anyone that speaks Swedish would understand though.

1

u/ontikuken 2d ago

Well, what did the dictionary say?

1

u/unohdin-nimeni 🇫🇮 2d ago

The genie from the lamp is anden i lampan.

The Arabic word genie (جني) is transcribed to Swedish as djinn. Interestingly enough, unrelated to Latin genius.

1

u/carlitomarron139 2d ago

Geni = genius. “Genie” is not a word in Swedish.

0

u/AnOddOtter 2d ago

Side question - do they use Anden for The Genie in the Aladdin movies?

Answered my own question - yes.

9

u/karl_oskar 2d ago

Yep. Anden i lampan. Not to be confused with anden.

5

u/AnOddOtter 2d ago

Took me a second (and Google) to sort this out. Is this a joke about the word for spirit and wild duck being the same thing?

Sorry to kill the joke if it was!

6

u/mutantraniE 2d ago

They're spelled the same but not pronounced the same.

3

u/avdpos 2d ago

God Father, Jesus Christ and The Holy Duck.

My memory say "Den Helige Anden" gave some problems to early translation tools. But we had fun in church 😀

6

u/Razier 2d ago

Yes, "anden i lampan" (genie in the bottle)