Colon and semicolon in Swedish

Two Swedish punctuation marks I keep second-guessing are the colon (kolon) and the semicolon (semikolon). They look alike, they both sit inside a sentence, and they both replace a word — so this is my reference for which one to use when. (The dash gets its own post.) It's my own summary of the rules as laid out in Siv Strömquist's Skiljeteckensboken.

A mnemonic for the two: the colon points forward, the semicolon links back.

Colon (kolon)

A colon inside a sentence tells the reader to keep going — something that completes the sentence is on its way. You can almost always swap it for nämligen or det vill säga ("namely"/"that is").

It introduces an enumeration, an explanation, a specification or a summary:

Jag handlade det vi behövde: mjölk, bröd och smör.

Felet var enkelt: jag hade glömt att spara.

Capitalization

After a colon you normally continue with a lowercase letter — even when a full clause with its own subject and verb follows:

Han satt aldrig stilla: han sprang, han cyklade, han simmade.

There are three exceptions where you use a capital letter instead:

1. The next word is a proper noun.

2. The colon introduces a quote, a line of dialogue, a thought or a general statement:

   Efter matchen sa tränaren: "Vi gav allt."

   Slutsatsen blev: Det går inte att mäta allt.

3. Two or more complete sentences follow:

   Inför flytten gäller tre saker: Märk kartongerna. Boka hiss. Säg upp elen.

Special uses

The colon also turns up in a lot of small places:

• Abbreviations: S:t (Sankt), S:ta (Sankta)
• Subdivisions and references: Filipperbrevet 4:13
• Ratios and scales, where it's read aloud as "till": skala 1:50 000
• Ordinals: 3:e (but in running text, prefer the spelled-out tredje)
• Endings glued onto a digit or a letter: 6:an, r:et
• Harvard-style references, where the colon means "page": (Svensson 2020:17)

Semicolon (semikolon)

A semicolon sits between two independent clauses that belong together. It's gentler than a full stop: where the period chops the two apart, the semicolon keeps them connected and tells the reader to notice the link.

The trick I use: a semicolon stands in for a coordinating conjunction. If you could write one of these little words in its place, a semicolon works.

• och — addition
• men/utan — contrast
• för/ty — explanation
• så/alltså — conclusion

Förslaget var bra; tidpunkten var usel. (men)

Larmet gick inte; jag försov mig. (så)

Capitalization

Always lowercase after a semicolon, unless the next word is a name.

What goes on each side

Both sides have to stand on their own and share the same grammatical shape. They don't have to be full sentences — short, parallel pieces work just as well:

Först tvekan; sedan beslut.

What a semicolon can't replace

A semicolon can't stand in where a colon belongs — before an enumeration or a quote — and it can't replace a comma or a dash before a trailing modifier.

Special use

A semicolon can separate the groups in a list whose items already contain commas, which keeps the structure readable:

Menyn hade tre rätter: tomat, basilika och mozzarella; lax, dill och citron; choklad, grädde och hallon.

You'll also see it in dictionaries, separating senses of a word that lie far apart, and in maths, separating coordinates or arguments.

Colon or semicolon?

They look alike, and both compress text by replacing a word, but they point in opposite directions: the colon points forward to more information, the semicolon links back to what was just said.

The clearest way to feel the difference is to punctuate the same pair of clauses every which way:

• Jag var vaken länge i natt. Jag bakade en tårta. — Two separate sentences; a full stop always works.
• Jag var vaken länge i natt, jag bakade en tårta. — Just a comma between two full sentences usually feels too loose. Reach for one of the others instead.
• Jag var vaken länge i natt; jag bakade en tårta. — The semicolon ties them together: notice the link.
• Jag var vaken länge i natt eftersom jag bakade en tårta. — A conjunction makes the link explicit.
• Nu ska jag berätta varför jag var vaken länge i natt: jag bakade en tårta. — The colon pushes the reader forward to the explanation.

Almost the same sentence, but the colon and the semicolon send the reader in opposite directions.