Danish Hygge
The Danes have a word that's hard to translate, and no foreigner can hope to pronounce, but it's as Danish as roast pork and cold beer. It's hygge , and it goes close to illuminating the Danish soul. The closest native English speakers can come phonetically is "hooga" ... if we try forming our mouths for "ee" while saying "oo." It doesn't translate directly into any other language but we can illustrate it in action ... Gather the family and invite over your closest friends. Push the sofas and chairs up close to the coffee table. Turn off the lights and light some candles. Better still, light a fire in the hearth, serve plenty of good food and drink, raise your glass and make a toast or two, or three, and feel the warmth flow around the table. Smile at each other until you see the candlelight shimmering in each other's eyes. You've got hygge !
Luckily, we didn't have to use near-synonyms like coziness, fellowship, security, reassurance or well-being to describe the concept .. Because they just don't add up to hygge, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Strangely enough, hygge didn't originate in the Danish language, but in Norwegian, where it meant something like "well-being." It first appeared in Danish writing around the end of the 18th Century, and the Danes have embraced it wholeheartedly.
One good thing about hygge is that you can apply it anywhere. Danes allocate it generously to everything commonplace. " Hygge is essentially a phenomenon of overabundance," according to newspaper columnist Anne Brockenhuus-Schack. "You can't hygge yourself very much if you're cold and hungry." Other pundits profess that hygge is born of the climate: The Danish winter is notoriously long and dark, but summer nights can be remarkably bright and balmy. Anthropologist Henny Harald Hansen subscribes to this theory of hygge. "It's a term that has grown out of our cold and darkness, when we come together around a source of heat. Our ancestors surely didn't decide to settle here in December !" she writes. However, most Danes also think that sitting at a seaside picnic table or amid the flora of a summer garden is just as hyggelig as huddling close to the fire on a Winter's night.
A critical ingredient in hygge is familiarity. This doesn't suggest intimacy, however . that's an entirely different word: råhygge , or literally " raw hygge " which is when you get beyond superficiality into the real meat of existence like the meaning of life or your monthly average disposable income, after tax.
The High Season of Hygge is Christmas Danes generally lead a secular lifestyle most of the year, but when it comes to religious holidays, they pull out all the stops. In fact, some people believe that early Danes adopted religion in order to get the occasional day off !
But as the Danish sun approaches its winter solstice, the hours of daylight are squeezed down to little more than six hours. This makes for a lot of darkness, but the Vikings fight back with millions of candles, red-capped elves, rice porridge with cinnamon and an exhausting social agenda. Then on Christmas Eve, the quest for hygge even drives the Danes to lighting real candles on their Christmas trees .. Is it surprising then that homeowners' insurance is expensive here ?
Luckily, we didn't have to use near-synonyms like coziness, fellowship, security, reassurance or well-being to describe the concept .. Because they just don't add up to hygge, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Strangely enough, hygge didn't originate in the Danish language, but in Norwegian, where it meant something like "well-being." It first appeared in Danish writing around the end of the 18th Century, and the Danes have embraced it wholeheartedly.
One good thing about hygge is that you can apply it anywhere. Danes allocate it generously to everything commonplace. " Hygge is essentially a phenomenon of overabundance," according to newspaper columnist Anne Brockenhuus-Schack. "You can't hygge yourself very much if you're cold and hungry." Other pundits profess that hygge is born of the climate: The Danish winter is notoriously long and dark, but summer nights can be remarkably bright and balmy. Anthropologist Henny Harald Hansen subscribes to this theory of hygge. "It's a term that has grown out of our cold and darkness, when we come together around a source of heat. Our ancestors surely didn't decide to settle here in December !" she writes. However, most Danes also think that sitting at a seaside picnic table or amid the flora of a summer garden is just as hyggelig as huddling close to the fire on a Winter's night.
A critical ingredient in hygge is familiarity. This doesn't suggest intimacy, however . that's an entirely different word: råhygge , or literally " raw hygge " which is when you get beyond superficiality into the real meat of existence like the meaning of life or your monthly average disposable income, after tax.
The High Season of Hygge is Christmas Danes generally lead a secular lifestyle most of the year, but when it comes to religious holidays, they pull out all the stops. In fact, some people believe that early Danes adopted religion in order to get the occasional day off !
But as the Danish sun approaches its winter solstice, the hours of daylight are squeezed down to little more than six hours. This makes for a lot of darkness, but the Vikings fight back with millions of candles, red-capped elves, rice porridge with cinnamon and an exhausting social agenda. Then on Christmas Eve, the quest for hygge even drives the Danes to lighting real candles on their Christmas trees .. Is it surprising then that homeowners' insurance is expensive here ?
posted by Mario Reichert at 3:10 AM
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