So, it’s the very first time — I want to stress it — when Mormor took her grandchildren from us for half a day, or even the whole day, till the evening.
Mormor is grandmother in Scandinavian culture1. Swedish, Norwegian, Danish,
Our first kid will be 6 this year. Six year old. Right now she’s over five years and a half, and her mormor took both her and her little brother (of 4) for the very first time. I think it was never she took just the boy to her.
Their farmor, my mother, lives in another (unfriendly) country right now. And we’re very distant with her, so I am not sure she’ll ever truly join the family. Maybe when she’ll move to us, if that will ever happen.
So, physically, he’s unable to help us with the kids. However, knowing her, she won’t be too enthusiastic to get the kids. Unless I explicitly ask her to.
Well, we have a kind of a day-off today, thanks to the mormor.
Mormor is the equivalent saying maternal grandmother, in that it identifies it is your mother’s mother. Likewise, farmor identifies your father’s mother.
You also get farfar, and morfar. If you just want to use a generic word for grandmother or grandfather, you use bestemor or bestefar.
It can be described in English it is far too formal, and more a way to clarify to other people than anything else. I like the Norwegian way.
Had a set of Norwegian grandparents; I called my grandmother mormor, and call my grandfather beste. Not sure how common that contraction is, actually. Took me a while to find out as a kid that I had to refer to my grandfather as bestefar to other people.
— Part of the quote is from Reddit ↩︎