Frequently Asked Questions

How is your surname Lyckå pronounced?

I've (not yet) made a recording in .wav and .au format for those who are interested. It's probably not very much like what you expected if you are not familiar with Scandinavian languages... It seems that English people expect it to be pronounced more or less like the name of that poor russian dog who was the first cosmonaut.

What does those rings and dots on A and O in Swedish mean?

Ok, I might as well answer this properly...
The swedish (and finnish) alphabet consists of 28 letters. It starts with the ordinary latin alphabet as in English, except that W is not considered to be an independant letter. (It's just a funny looking V in Swedish.) After 'Z' we have three more letters: Å, Ä, and Ö. These letters are pronounced more or less like the vowel founds in four, care and bird. In general the Swedish vowel sounds are fairly different from the English, while the consonants are more similar.

Here is an approximate guide to Swedish pronounciation.
A like in English 'far', never like 'fare'. Can be long or short.
B as English.
C usually as S.
D as in English.
E as English 'met' or 'fear'.
F as in English.
G soft or hard as in English.
H as in Egnlish.
I as in English 'hit' or 'feet'.
J as English 'Y' in Yellow.
K as in English.
L as in English.
M as in English.
N as in English.
O formed further back in the mouth than in Enlish. (Did that make sense?)
P as in English.
Q as K.
R as in English.
S always without vibrating tounge. Not Z-ish.
T as in English.
U ? Not quite like English. I'll have to come back in this one...
V as in English.
X KS
Y Almost like german ü.
Z like S.
Å Like in 4 or more. (O kan sometimes sound like that too.)
Ä Like 'men' or beginning of 'a' in 'make', except before 'r', when it sounds like the vowel sound in 'fair'.
Ö Like ??? except before 'r', when it sounds like the vowel sound in 'bird'.

Where does that strange surname of yours come from?

Lyckå was a town in the province of Blekinge in south east Sweden many hundred years ago. In this time Blekinge was still Danish, so the Swedes (obviously) attacked the town and burnt it a few times. It was really not a very successfull town, even though the plans were fairly ambitious from the beginning... The only thing left now is the ruins of the foundations of the old keep. It's not even mentioned in the nearby modern town Ronneby's web pages. I have no idea how that poor name ever turned up in the Swedish surname registry of the Patent and Registration Office, or if its origin as a name has anything to do with that old town at all...

So why do you have that name?

Well, when my father was born, my grand father, Johan Andersson, wanted him to be called Bertil Johansson, being the son of Johan. The priest was stubborn though, and refused to write something confusing like that in the church records (which were the formal population records in Sweden until a few years ago). Father got the name Bertil Andersson. This was a fairly common name, and for instance my father had several study comrades with the same name. Eventually father decided that he wanted to have a surname that identified him a bit more precisely. He wanted to have the name of the farm he grew up on -- Lycke -- but it turned out that that name was taken by some others, and he could not have it unless he was related to them. Since he was already happily married by now, that was not an option. :-)

Then it turned out that the surname Lyckå was available, and that was as close to Lycke as my father could get... Actually, in ISO8859-1, which is the normal way to code Swedish in computers, there is only one tiny bit of difference between å and e. So, when the net strips away the 8th bits from each character in my name, Magnus Lyckå turns into Magnus Lycke... Just what my father had intended more than thirty years ago. Although I usually write my name Lycka in mails etc where just US ASCII works. This leads some Swedes who read that to believe that Lycka is really me name. Lycka is a Swedish word. It means 'happiness' or 'joy'. Not a bad quality in life, but a bit silly as a name perhaps...

Why Green?

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