When it comes to our icy neighbours in northern Europe, we tend to boil them down to flatpack furniture, Eurovision success, noir novels and gender equality. But a new viral video is exposing a peculiar trait of the Swedish language, and leaving the rest of the world shaking their heads...

In the northern town of Umeå - where there can be as few as six hours of daylight and where Stieg Larsson committed his tattooed heroine to ink - the locals have a rather odd way of saying yes.

Instead of a flat "Ja" typical of the rest of the country, they do this: 

[H/T: The Local]