Swedish Language l Can Norwegian, Finnish and Danish Speakers understand it? (Nordic Language) 

The dogs are barking, but the caravan is moving on. Just pure jealousy.

"If you don't think like I think then you can f off" you are a mad man 😄 finns are much braver and honorable than most scandinavian countries so I'm not hating on them, I'm just stating the fact that they are not the same. The fact is that nobody in that room can understand her because she is too far different, linguistically.

And yet you don't accept Estonians who are also culturally Nordic and dpeak a similar language...

@@eksiarvamus Estonia is part of the Baltic countries both geographically and culturally

The point of this video is to have slightly different Germanic languages and see how much do they understand about each other. Sure, we're a Nordic country as well, but as a Finn I just don't see the reason why Finnish is included in this video. Finnish is not a Germanic language like Swedish, Norwegian and Danish so it makes zero sense to include Finnish in this context. Wouldn't it be silly to have a video about how much can a Finn and a Swede understand about Estonian, right?

It’s in another language family. That’s why it shouldn’t be there. It’s not a personal attack

@@kecleonboi Well, I have a BA degree in Spanish and English, so yeah... I feel offended by those comments, sorry. 😢A fun fact: the Legal Finnish (legalese) was developed using the grammar of Swedish as its base in order to ensure that everything is said unambiguously. That was told on the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation YLE's history documentary "Suomi on ruotsalainen" (Finland is Swedish).

​​@@kecleonboiFinland🇫🇮 is a Nordic country with Sweden 🇸🇪 Norway 🇸🇯 Denmark 🇩🇰 and Iceland 🇮🇸 politically, geographically economically, religiously, culturally and economically. They are all prosperous countries with high standards of living with high standards of living. Finland was ranked the happiest country 2018-2023 and the other Nordic countries are among the ten happiest countries. The other Nordic countries really don't need to be ashamed of Finland.

@@diamondsarenotforever8542 it doestn't change the fact that Finland is the western outskirts of the Uralic world lol Finns, Karelians, Northern Russians, Komi, Udmurts, Mansi. Smooth transition.

​@@anttirytkonen11man who cares about your BA degree?? Not even relevant 🤣

Definitely. Its a completely different thing to understand Scandi language when you're in a completely different language group. Swe, nor & dan are super similar.

It was Norse people who (re-)settled Finland after the Viking age, not the other way around.

@@cognomen9142 what do you mean? Sweden taking over Finland? I guess more people moved to Finland from Sweden back then, but also other way around. After ww2 then it was finns going to Sweden.

It kind of is to be expected. The difference is that all (Finnish speaking) Finns study Swedish for multiple years during their school education, and English is also closely related to the Scandinavian languages.

Its because we have obligatory swedish from 6th grade until 9th unless you go to high school, then you must do a couple courses. Wouldnt be surprised if universities also taught swedish as obligatory. And like she said we have slangs that are so similar to swedish. It all tbf depends on whete you're from. I could definitely understand better than her, but the dialect spoken where I live is more swedishy

That is impressive! To know both languages that well, to choose the language that expressed what they wanted to say the best … so cool!

A few years ago, I had a similar kind of experience at the airports in 🇨🇦 Toronto and 🇩🇰 Copenhagen on my way back to 🇫🇮 Finland after a trip across Canada with my sister: two elderly women were talking English, when we were waiting for boarding in Toronto. Once we had landed at Copenhagen and we were sitting by the gate for our flight to Helsinki, I heard they spoke Finnish instead, but all of a sudden they reverted back to English. I don't remember one hundred percent, but they might have even spoken Swedish as well. It was baffling. I started chatting in Finnish with them, and it turned out that they were siblings of whom one was a naturalized Canadian citizen and the other was a Finnish citizen, and who were seeing each other after a long time. It was so cool. 🤓

I am a Swedish speaking Finn and that's what we did in the train with my friends :P

@@Basheez No doubt and you are awesome. I am from a totally Finnish speaking area and struggle with Swedish, but it is so cool that we have people who master both of our languages. For me starting my studies at the university of technology was the first time I met people that were Swedish speaking Finns. It is our strength to have two languages and should do everything to promote them both.

I saw bunch of young guys in the train speaking Swedish, except of excess use of the Finnish word "v!ttu" 😂 *edited typo

That might be why she said "this is basic", because she sees it as basic schoolwork task

Kutoa is to knit but also weave and neuloa is to knit only. How do you know if someone is weaving or knitting? 🤣 They also pronounced crochet wrong in English as the t at the end is silent.

Hekling in Norwegian.

hii. kurze frage! i want to learn a scandinavian language so which one would be better to understand to the others easily. i have heard norwegian is the best but i just wanted to ask again

​@ Just pick whichever language you like the most. You'll easily be able to understand the other languages with some practice and experience. Most of us rarely if ever interact with our neighbors, which is why it is sometimes hard for us to understand each other. Also, some dialects are hard for even native speakers to understand!

​@Then it's between norwegian swedish and danish. Personally I have a bias towards swedish due to me being a native speaker but norwegian is arguably simpler grammatically. Danish is just a no-go and finnish isnt scandinavian

@If you want people to understand you... don't pick Danish

Yea same to me haha I understood the description about the giraffe I literally didn’t know there were still so much similarities in Swedish so I was really shocked

As Austrian I got your regen and natte doekjes. 😂

"Het dier heeft een lange nek (we can use 'hals' too)" in swedish the word nek (or neck in english) would be nacke but the swedish word nacke refers specifically to the backside part whereas hals can be the front or the whole thing

@@MarcusH... oh yeah same for us! 'Nek' for the front and 'hals' back

@@bastenkroodewell that's the opposite then lol

im a swedish speaker from östnyland (uusimaa) and our swedish sounds quite different from swedes

But Åland is Swedish or Finnish ?

Ålanders speaks perfect swedish buuut they have a heavy dialect. so you know they are from finland. Im 50/50 finnish/swedish but born in sweden

People from Iceland are too hard to find 😭

Fs for Faroe Islands

Greenland?

@@CaptRexSkyEye118 Greenland is Native American

@@marcellomancini6646 OK.

Exactly. I invite everyone that thinks there is nothing scandinavian about Finland to visit Åland and Svenskfinland. Join us for a crayfish party or sail in a clinker built sailboat. Visit the swedish-speaking countryside/hembygd/heimat filled with nearly identical houses and identical gärdsgårdar to the Swedish countryside, painted with the same falun red and ocher yellow colours so common to both Sweden and Norway. This weird modern compulsory need to completely disinclude Finland from Scandinavia stems from the Swedish national trauma of losing Finland to Russia in 1809, "didn't want it anyways", "we have lost our identity and we need to find a new one quickly - let there be vikings (that no one had given a single crap about previously)".

@@Pythonizah It also has to do with Finnish nationalism, square autistic thinking, and people tending to emphasis shallow jeopardy knowledge.

@@Xzazashake So black and white thinking, oh the irony

​@@XzazashakeNot true.

The language is different, but ppl are not.

The same goes for the Faroese language...

Yes!!! One day I’ll see my language here 🥲🥲❗️❗️

It is hard. Less than a million people live in Iceland 🇮🇸

Ja, det bor vel ikke så mange der. Tror det bare er sånn fem hundre tusen.

​På Færøyene bor det enda færre. Dessuten er Færøyene en del av Danmark.

Reading Danish is pretty easy, but spoken Danish is quite hard to understand for a Swede (perhaps easier for those living in Skåne (Scania) though. Like if I watch a Danish movie or TV-series without subtitles I would say I pick up like perhaps one word in a sentence, but if there are Danish subtitles, then I "hear" what they say. If a Norwegian on the other hand, it's much easier, I usually don't need subtitles at all, and just miss a word here and there.

@@Asa...S Even in Denmark it's been noticed that the language used in many new Danish tv series is based on youthful Copenhagen 'street language', which can be very unclear and the distinction between the words can be very difficult to identify. Even elderly Danes are said to use subtitles whe watching new Danish tv drama. But in one to one conversations with Swedes, mostly it's very easy to make oneself understood. But it's true that even though written Norwegian and Danish (at least when it comes to bokmål) are almost identical, and Swedish is a bit further away, spoken Swedish and Norwegian seem to be more similar. I love all those similarities and differences bweteen our languages, which at the core are very similar, but in practice sometimes a bit challenging.

@@nielsulriksrensen9818 Yeah, it's really interresting! Also, there are so many different dialects in all of the Scandinavian languages that is easier or more difficult to understand. I checked out "Danske dialekter: Knud Erik fra Midt & Vestjylland", and I just hear a word here and there that I understand, but I don't understand what he's talking about, but when I watched "Danske dialekter: Charlotte fra Rønne på Bornholm" I probably understood 95 % of what she said. Some dialects are hard to understand even in our own countries.

The dialect in southern sweden sounds a lot more like danish than if you're from stockholm, göteborg, dalarna or the north. But I guess that makes sense, right? They don't use hard "R's" in the south for example.

Sveriges sak är vår.

We have not similar languges at all what are you saying? And sweden’s best friend is norway they r much more similar to you in everything like finland’s best friend is Estonia because we have similar language and people. Swedes and Finns are so different at everything scandinavians are much more similar and have many common things together

@@neelia1982 I am not speaking about the language. However, I can agree on some things you are mentioned. Here is the thing. Norway, Sweden and Finland do have Sami people and they speak a language with a lot of different dialects. Denmark does not have it. Swedish is taught at school in Finland and Finnish is a minority language in Sweden with some status, this is not the case for Norway and Denmark. Åland which belongs to Finland has Swedish as their official language. In the towns Haparanda and Övertorneå, many people speak both Swedish and Finnish. Finnish and Swedish have some words in common, which is loanwoards. Culturally, language and stuff, yes Estonia and Finland are closest to each other. Sweden is a big country, Finland too if we look to the size. F.ex people from the south of Sweden might feel closer to Denmark, Meanwhile people from the west might feel closer to Norway etc... Look at the Nato process... It explains a lot. I have friends from Finland, and they feel the same as I do. We both are secular, progressive countries, we have a quite long history together. Why do you get offended? Many Swedes, at least my friends and when I am reading articles about Finland, is always, at least almost always positive. We like what you've achieved. Estonia is nice to but they are further away, and it is true, Estonians and Finns are culturally very close to each other. There have been more Swedish spoken Estonians but now... Idk. Norway and Denmark are best friends I would say. Their languages are pretty much the same in the written form, Swedish is very similar but Norwegian and Danish are even more similar and they do understand each other better than a Swede and a Dane talking to each other. God natt vännen, Hyvää yötä ystävä!

@@neelia1982 Estonians have a totally different history than the Finns and we have practically nothing in common except a related language.

​​@@eliasnjetski1146Well said, det är sant. Glöm inte, att vi båda också har riktigt bra metal musik. 🤘 Hälsingarna från Finland.

Bis auf Finnisch sind das alles germanische Sprachen. Nah mit dem Deutschen verwandt.

swedish, norwegian and danish are germanic languages, so it is very similar to german, that might be why!

Not really Swedish is more similar nationwide as dialects were never encouraged.

@@lmatt88 I believe @CM-ey7nq was talking about dialects within Norway (and which one(s) Swedes are exposed to). My dialect from Northern Norway is definitely *not* of the "sing-songy" type. More like Finnish, intonation wise. (Of course words are completely different).

Finnish is a FinnoUgric Uralic languages.

@@lmatt88 I know a page of Swedish dialect samples if you think so! The most famous is Älvdalska, which is incomprehensible even to Swedes, it's almost like a different language. But there are plenty of northern dialects which are very hard for us Norwegians anyway.

@@Mnnvint yeah it's a minority which are very distinct though, Swedish encourages a national standard and all dialects are evolving towards that. In Norway it's different as dialects are heavily encouraged.

There's a good chance the creators of this video thought all Nordic languages were the same, so they brought in Finland, instead of just focusing on Scandinavian languages, which would've been more fun to see.

They will enter Valhalla unlike Finland

I doubt the younger generations know the difference between the two.. Even people from other countries think both are the same animal.

Yep. I´m Swedish and have no problem with Norwegian. But I really have a hard time with spoken Danish. I get that you understand each other in written form. It´s pretty easy for me to understand both, and as a matter of fact I think written Danish and Norwegian looks exactly the same.

@@michaelheimbrand5424 The differences between Danish and Norwegian Bokmål could often be fairly subtle if you don't have any voiced final consonants to look for....

​@@hakanstorsater5090it's the same language, or at least as similar as Portuguese is to Galician

I think it could work with someone from Finland if s/he came from the swedish speaking parts. That version of swedish has changed into something that I, as a swede, would have to concentrate as much as I’d have to with danish and norwegian. It’s so cool, word for word it is swedish (and often old version) but the way sentenses are put together makes it totally different. 👌🏼

@@gellawella What do you mean? Some traditional, rural dialect? The standard "High Swedish" Finland Swedish is rarely that difficult to understand, once you get the hang of the different melody.

I have heard almost all finns can say: jag är bög. Haha just to make fun of us. Is that true? (A swede)

@@birgerfurugard7259 The song 'Portion Boys feat. Åke från Team Sweden - Nej Nej' would indicate you might be correct...

@@hakanstorsater5090 hahaha thanks for that faboulus song

@@birgerfurugard7259 all finns can say "jag heter homo peter" i dont know why though lol 😁

Should embrace it more :) We're all like brothers up here, and if World were to be fucked up, we 5 (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland) could be a nice little super world power :) And we all kinda understand eachother except the finnish language :P So if you can speak atleast a lil swedish and understand, it will go long with all countrys :)

They are all (except Finnish, that is) North Germanic languages, so we share a lot of words with German. I had German in school, but didn't really pay attention. Still I can understand a lot when I read German. Funny story: I attended a course, and everyone were Dutch besides me. I was also the only one attending over video call. In the breaks they all switched to Dutch, but left the audio on, so during the week I got used to the sound and structure of the language. When the instructor started a session on one of the last days, he forgot to switch back to English, and I didn't even notice before another student made him aware of it. I could basically understand everything by picking out some words and guessing at the rest. I'm thinking Dutch and German have about the same differences as Norwegian and Swedish.

I'm Dutch. I understood most of the Swedish too. Some parts were very easy, some parts I had to pay close attention, some parts I was lost.

@@BobWitlox I basically grew up with Swedish. We had more Swedish TV channels than Norwegian ones, I live only 10 miles from the border, and a lot of swedes move here for work.

@@AudunWangen If you can speak swedish (or norwegian), english and german, you can pretty much understand everything in dutch. I don't speak fluent german so I have some trouble understanding spoken dutch, unless they speak slowly, but I can read it pretty much perfectly. And I have a friend who speaks all three languages fluently, he has no problems at all understanding spoken dutch. Even if it's a bunch of dutch people speaking normally to eachother. I also think it's quite fun. :)

German is the 3rd language I learned and I was able to understand a bit, so I figured a German would understand some

No I speak Swedish with Danes and Norwegians. Finnish-speaking Finns switch to English if you try to speak Swedish with them even though they're supposed to be bilingual. But that's fair as all the Finnish I know are what I gleaned while watching Finnish children's shows on the telly as a kid. Moi mukulatti, yksi, kaksi, kolme and so on.

Children don't need English lessons, all they need are cartoons. Saying that Norwegians and Danes have to learn English... Maybe you should inform yourself about origin of Bokmal

A bokmal is the same as a bookworm. I guess you mean Bokmål? The "å" can also be written like "aa", and "ä" can be written like "ae" if you don't have a Scandinavian keyboard. @@BojanPeric-kq9et

@@tovep9573do you have óüöúőűáéí set on your keyboard? Or čćšđž? If no, why not? Please, don't say that č and ć are the same sign, or that a and á are same because sounds are totally different...

@@BojanPeric-kq9et It is a fact that the younger generation of Finns speak better English than the old as their formal education of the language now starts earlier. We should also start the formal education of Swedish earlier to improve the results. Due to the proximity of Sweden, companies functioning in both countries and co-operation at all levels, Swedish is the next after English in the order of importance of languages.

Don't you learn Danish at school?

@@MrGunnar69 yes but i still do not understand it well 🥲

@@serenity6010 I don't think even the Danes understand Danish, at least not in spoken form.

@@serenity6010 That´s hilarious, and yes I´m Swedish. Also, interesting that you understand Swedish. I don´t understand anything Icelandic. But I have tried to listen to it. I think I heard sometime that it is like a lot of ancient Swedish in Icelandic (?).

Sæll! Gaman að hitta þig! Ég er að læra íslensku. Great to meet Icelanders online and at least someone from there watching this. Too bad there's no one to take part in the video, though

Doekje must have common roots with Norwegian "duk", which normally refers to a table cloth, but with a bit of good will (not always or necessarily) it can also be used in a broader sense. "Teltduk" simply means "tent fabric". Fallskjermduk, the fabric of a parachute. Glassfiberduk. Although fabric in Norwegian is "stoff". And the Swedes have their näsduk and handduk, probably among other words too. But did you know that the Danish word "viskestykke" means a kitchen cloth? Sort of logical, as it directly translated means "wipe piece"😂

True finnish is uralic like hungarian Of course Norwegian is still much different from russian bt still has familiar stuff maybe

True. Russian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish & Icelandic are indo European languages. Finnish is an Uralic language.

​@@stalker3839Scandinavian languages are in the Indoeuropian family. Just like Russia is.

finnish and russian have their similarities like no articles and loan words

​​@@fakelaw8123 Russian language is still in the Indoeuropian family.

Hungarian is completely different from the other two, it's like Russian and Hindi or something similar...

⁠​⁠@@hakanstorsater5090not entirely different , we share a very few similar core words like hand or ice and stuff.

@@SzilardPc Yeah, I know, but communication would probably be worse than for instance between a Spanish and a Russian speaker...

They would get the words that they could see how they were written. It is really easy to read danish.

Not for all! I studied at University of Copenhagen together with some norweigans and some swedes, and they didn't have many problems. They would understand me just fine most of the time when i spoke to them in danish (and the other way around). I see many people calling danish pronounciation gibberish, but in practice, my experience is, that it's not as hard as people make it sound like.

So good see you again , Azemin from Denmark 🇩🇰 , hope see you more often 😊

@@Noah_ol11 Thank you for the kind words☺️🙏🏼🙏🏼

Do you continue to make videos with world friends ;

In Denmark we are also taught 3 languages in school. Danish, English from grade 1 and German or French from grade 5 (except southern Denmark near the German border, where they have chosen to teach german from grade 1). In High school we then continue with danish and english, and choose between continuing with german/french or start beginner level of a new language (e.g. spanish).

Not weird at all. A lot of ppl like that in Finland.

@@butterflies655 I know, but the stereotype states that Finnish people are closed off, introverted, and socially retracted. I was making a humorous observation that took the knowledge of the stereotype as a presupposition.

​@@sortingoutmyclothes8131actually they tell the same of other Nordic countries as well.

​​@@sortingoutmyclothes8131I think they wouldnt put a typical finnish weirdo in a video like this, they put the most social one they could find😂

@@leob4403 The most introverted and socially retracted Finns would also be among the least likely to move to South Korea...

In german we say häkeln, but I also can see the relation to the not anymore so common phrase of einen Stoff wirken, which means something like to loop or sling threads to a textile.

@@juwen7908 I guess it's possible that Swedish and Danish could have borrowed the term from different (Low) German varieties. Seems to have happened on a few other occasions, such as Swedish arbeta vis-a-vis Danish arbejde...

​@@hakanstorsater5090yes virka is borrowed from german wirken

@@leob4403 Ah, still related to the verb "work", but with a very specific semantic evolution in Swedish, then...

A lot of things are long in Africa.

Well, maybe we don‘t.

Oh, actually of you want to hear all languages from Scandinavia it should be Suomi and Faroese too.

@@mateuszjozefiak4388 Faroese is very similar to Icelandic. On the other hand, Faroese, Greenlandic, Sumi are local languages, they are not considered an official country. Since Iceland is a country, I would have liked to see it next to these four🥺

@@Mehrab_Azimi Well good luck in finding someone who speaks icelandic or faroese in south korea

@@mateuszjozefiak4388Suomi means Finland. Are you talking about sami?

title says nordic not scandinavian

@@lleeexxand he explained why we don’t understand finnish and vice versa.

Of course, it belongs to the same family as the Estonian language, although Finnish speakers have been in contact with the Swedish language for a long time and are familiar with it.

@@VeryClearLanguages And they also learn it at school, which was said in the video. I'm proud of the Finnish girl for remembering that much, because most Finns I know just forget most of it once they stop learning it lol.

It’s Scandinavian. What you’re talking about is that they aren’t related linguistically

Don‘t be this resentful, we haven‘t tried to conquer you for ages.

The only word I got in the entire thing was "Africa" so you beat me :)

@@BeyondThisExistance do you think the only animal in Africa is giraffe? 😭😭

@@Armenia.Europe Nope, I have seen many animals in Africa, yet never seen a giraffe. The only word I got though was "Africa" from her, since I don't know any Swedish, Norse, Finnish or Danish :)

@@BeyondThisExistance AGGHH SORRY , I thought you said: (you got by the word “Africa”)

I am German and understood almost nothing. But it was nice to listen to them. 😊

@@GoodOldErin Really?

@@daseteam Yes, for me it was difficult to understand. I'm better in understanding Roman languages.

If you call rabbits hares, then what do you call the European hare? Is it also hare? How do you differentiate between the two species if you use the same word for both? Finnish has "rusakko" for the European hare and "jänis" for rabbit to make sure it is clear which animal we talk about. I think I'd be confused if there was just one word for two different animals. 😅

@@mitsusah2612 but we don’t have just one word for different animals, we have Kanin and Hare but both can be used interchangeably depending on context. Mostly we just call pet ones “kanin”, wild ones “hare”

@@Robman92 Yeah, we have a separate word for pet rabbits or bunnies too. I mean, you have hares and rabbits in wild, right? Two different animals. The European hare and the smaller rabbit. Do you use just one word for two different species? Because you have so far only meantioned words "kanin" (for pet/bunny) and "hare" (for rabbit) , but in English, we have now meantioned three different animals (bunny, rabbit and European hare). So, do you not have a third word for the third animal?

@@mitsusah2612 European hare is still a hare tho, just an other species of hare. We would call European Hare a “europeisk hare”. There’s Hare and Kanin with their sub-species ofc

@@Robman92 So, if you hear someone says "Det finns en hare där" there is no way to know if it is a wild rabbit or a hare? How very odd.

She has probably never heard the word crocheting being said, so she said it like it's spelled. :)

If I remember correctly, Finnish had about 5000 loanwords from Swedish / Old Scandinavian, while Swedish had about 20 loanwords from Finnish. Extremely unbalanced interactions...

@hakanstorsater5090 That has nothing to do with my comment, but I'm not surprised by your random fact 😃 Finnish was thought as a language of barbarians while Swedish was a language of educated people, so why would Swedes have tried to copy Finnish. Finns needed to learn some Swedish because it was often the language of official things (though many in common folk never needed to do those but anyway) and also they learners it as a way to get better standing in the society.

@@magicofshootingstar5825 Considering Finland's been our closest non-Scandinavian neighbor for centuries, and Finns the largest immigrant group (although today it's Arabs), I actually find it a bit surprising that the impact is so miniscule. Even Romani - as a criminal cant - has had larger impact...

Finnish doesnt have similar words with Swedish. Maybe because of the closeness and history they are using some words of Swedish origin, but thats it.

Sorry but no, Finnish may have a lot of loanwords as Sweden had colonized it centuries before, but in no way are they similar languages. Completely different families with different grammar and history.

@@TheHungarianOak I feel like finnish is closer to Magyar than any of the Nordic languages

@@empiraafy of course it is, and even so, we cannot understand a word of Finnish.

They do have similar words. I think you're probably confusing me saying they have similar words to them being similar languages. That's not what I'm saying. Tagalog and Spanish are not similar languages at all but they do in fact have a lot of similar words.@@TheHungarianOak

Helsinki dialect however is called slang in Finnish "Stadin slangi". It is a sociolect, but always referred by the word slang. It's very unique dialect in Finnish language with huge vocabulary of loan words. Almost all people in Helsinki speak "modern slang", but fewer speak and know "old slang".

Very different countries.

thirdie cope

I´m Swedish and don´t speak dutch. Although there are often some words or sentences that sounds crazy Swedish. My mother is fluent in Dutch and has given me some examples over the years. Not the best example but the only one I can think of: The atlantic wall in Holland is called something like "afsluitsdijk" (sorry for butching it). We call it "Atlantvallen". But "avslut" in Swedish is roughly translated to finish or stopping, and "dike" is ditch. So to me it looks like "avsluts-dike" or something like ditch that stops something. That was probably not so clear but anyway, I´m always fascinated in the Dutch language although I don´t understand it.

@@michaelheimbrand5424 That's cool! Though the Atlantikwall is not the Afsluitdijk. The Afsluitdijk was constructed in 1927 and is indeed a dike, connecting Noord-Holland and Friesland. nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afsluitdijk

@@Tweeteketje Ahh! That makes sense, and yet another similarity between Dutch and Swedish. I must have seen a sign when I drove there some 15 years ago, and it stuck. Thanks for the update.