What does "Hej Gamle Man" mean?

[TallRobert]

Well, the subject line should say it all...What does Hej Gamle Man
translate to?

I looked at a Swedish-English dictionary on the internet and came up with:

Hej = Hello (informal)
Man = Man or person

but there was no entry for "Gamle". The closest word was Gamla, which
means Old. So my guess is "Hello Old Man" or something like it. (Do you
like my voyage into the Swedish language?!?! <g>)

Am I even close?

TallRobert

[Michael Flint]

In article <4ugk9j$r...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,

You hit the nail right on the head! "Hej Gamle Man" means
"Hello Old Man"!

Take care.
Mike

[Mary Saelens]

tallr...@aol.com (TallRobert) wrote:
>
(Do you
>like my voyage into the Swedish language?!?! <g>)
>

I did the same thing and I came up with that too. "Oh those who are wise,
please hear us!! Are we right or wrong?" <LOL>

-
LuvsB&B ATW...@prodigy.com

[Philip M Reynolds]

In Article <4ugk9j$r...@newsbf02.news.aol.com> TallRobert
writes:

>Well, the subject line should say it all...What does Hej
>Gamle Man translate to?

You can look up an English translation of the whole song at:

http://www.hedgford.demon.co.uk/ABBA/texts/helloold.txt

This translation was done by Nils Kreysing and Jarkko Ahonen,
and revised by me.

Philip M Reynolds
o ____ Internet: ph...@hedgford.demon.co.uk
|L_ \ / Web page: http://www.hedgford.demon.co.uk/phil/
(_)- \/ Opinions are mine only unless otherwise stated

[Ricky Fux]

On 9 Aug 1996, TallRobert wrote:
> Well, the subject line should say it all...What does Hej Gamle Man
> translate to?

> [...]

> but there was no entry for "Gamle". The closest word was Gamla, which

> means Old. So my guess is "Hello Old Man" or something like it. (Do you

> like my voyage into the Swedish language?!?! <g>)

Hello TallRobert!
"Hej gamle man" means indeed "Hey old man". (So you were close!).

In Swedish the two different forms for the masculine (here: gamle) and the
feminine genus (here: gamla) went over to the feminine form only.
But there are some exceptions where the masculine form can appear, too:
- If you want to sound old-fashioned or
- if you write something on a high level of language
- at certain words (gammal, stor, kaer,...)

I'm not quite sure if the -e form has to be used always when you call a
male person. Maybe the Swedes can answer this question better (hi Micke &
Charles). But in every case it's also usual to say e.g. Kaere xy (who is
male) instead of Kaera xy. (It means Dear xy, e.g. on the top of a letter).

Ricky.

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[Corey Clemans]

Ricky was the closest in his response. This is how the adjective for
"old" works:

gammal = old

Manen är gammal = The man is old

Kvinnan är gammal = The woman is old

Hej gamle man! = Hey old man!
Hej gamla kvinna! = Hey old woman!

In this instance, they are using the older (somewhat outdated) form of the
adj. gammal, with case endings. Nowadays, you'd most likely hear

Hej gammal man! Nu, har vi svensklektion för idag! Hej då! Kässe

[Tamara Bakker]

In article <4uh7ee$r...@melon.myna.com> mira...@myna.com (Michael Flint) writes:
>Path: nic.wi.leidenuniv.nl!highway.leidenuniv.nl!surfnet.nl!howland.erols.net!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!nntp.primenet.com!winternet.com!n1ott.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!tor.istar!east.istar!news.myna.com!dh-13
>From: mira...@myna.com (Michael Flint)
>Newsgroups: alt.music.abba
>Subject: Re: What does "Hej Gamle Man" mean?
>Date: Sat, 10 Aug 96 05:33:38 GMT
>Lines: 27
>Message-ID: <4uh7ee$r...@melon.myna.com>
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>X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4
>In article <4ugk9j$r...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,

> tallr...@aol.com (TallRobert) wrote:
>>Well, the subject line should say it all...What does Hej Gamle
>Man
>>translate to?
>>

>>I looked at a Swedish-English dictionary on the internet and
>came up with:
>>
>>Hej = Hello (informal)
>>Man = Man or person
>>

>>but there was no entry for "Gamle". The closest word was
>Gamla, which
>>means Old. So my guess is "Hello Old Man" or something like
>it. (Do you
>>like my voyage into the Swedish language?!?! <g>)
>>

>>Am I even close?
>>
>>TallRobert
>
>You hit the nail right on the head! "Hej Gamle Man" means
>"Hello Old Man"!
>
>Take care.
>Mike

Because the gender of the word man is male, gamla (which is used as the
Swedish word for old when the gender of the next word is female) becomes
gamle.

So: old man = gamle man
old woman = gamla kvinna

That causes the confusion!