RSSWhat is the Russian for swede (the vegetable)?
Aug 07
Believe it or not this evening I found myself asking this very question… and its suprisingly difficult to answer.
You see my girlfriend is from Lithuania which means she is fluent in Russian and Lithuanian, and also speaks very good English, however just occasionally we find a word that stumps her.
Today in the supermarket, swede got her, no dictionary listing for it… very bizarre.
Turns out that I had failed to realise the Turnip/Swede link (from my perspective a Swede is a winter root vegetable and Turnip sole purpose is for Blackadder sketches). In fact the Swede is called a Swede because its the swedish version of the Turnip, in fact a Turnip is a smaller whitey fleshed version of what we brits called a Swede.
So the answer to the question, for all of you who are still reading, is ‘Repa’ which is the Russian for Turnip.
There you go, you can all sleep better tonight. 
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