We have a word in the Swedish language that doesn’t really have a corresponding word in any other language — «fika». It can be both a verb and a noun and it simply means ‘to have a cup of coffee’.
Originally it was a special kind of slang word amongst travelling ‘merchants’ back in the 1700. They made up many words — had almost like a secret language — by reversing the syllables. Back then the regular word for coffee [kaffe] could be kaffi in certain dialects and hence it turned out to be «fi ka».
This word has really stuck and is nowadays fully accepted in regular speech, I would say. There’s also the word «fik» a noun, which means a very simple café…a joint/greasy spoon.
Nowadays, to have a «fika» could also mean a cup of tea, a soft drink, coffee with a sandwich or a pastry but originally it was strictly a cup of coffee with nothing else.
There are also constructions with «fika» in it, like when you’re working and have coffee breaks…that’s ‘fikarast’.
Many of those ‘travelling merchants’ were gypsies and when they couldn’t make up new words like the ‘fika’ word they took words from Romani or Finnish and several of those words have stuck too.
Oddly enough, in older times when the Swedish military used tin mugs for their soldiers, those were stamped/engraved with the letters F.I.K.A. (meaning Försvarets Inköpsavdelning = Defense Purchasing Department).
Fika is an important concept in Swedish culture because we’re one of the top countries when it comes to coffee consumption.
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