Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
has a large
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
inventory, with nine vowels distinguished in quality and to some degree quantity, making 18 vowel phonemes in most dialects. Swedish pronunciation of most consonants is similar to that of other
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...
. Another notable feature is the
pitch accent
A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ( ...
, which is not found in most European languages.
There are 18 consonant phonemes, of which and show considerable variation depending on both social and dialectal context.
''Finlandssvenska'' (Finland Swedish) has
a slightly different phonology.
Vowels
![Swedish monophthongs chart](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Swedish_monophthongs_chart.svg)
Swedish has nine
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s that, as in many other
Germanic language
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...
s, exist in pairs of long and short versions. The length covaries with the quality of the vowels, as shown in the table below (long vowels in the first column, short in the second), with short variants being more centered and lax. The length is generally viewed as the primary distinction, with quality being secondary. No short vowels appear in open stressed syllables. The
front vowel
A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherw ...
s appear in
rounded-unrounded pairs: –, –, – and –.
* Central Standard Swedish is a near-close near-front compressed vowel that differs from by the type of rounding. In other dialects, may be central.
* are mid .
* has been variously described as central and front .
Rounded vowels have two types of rounding:
* , , and are
compressed , , and
* , , and its pre- allophone , and its pre- allophone , and are protruded , , , , , , and .
Type of rounding is the primary way of distinguishing from , especially in Central Standard Swedish.
, (in stressed syllables), (with a few exceptions) and are lowered to , , and , respectively, when preceding .
* ''ära'' → ('honor')
* ''ärt'' → ('pea')
* ''öra'' → ('ear')
* ''dörr'' → ('door')
The low allophones are becoming unmarked in younger speakers of Stockholm Swedish, so that ''läsa'' ('to read') and ''köpa'' ('to buy') are pronounced and instead of standard and . These speakers often also pronounce pre-rhotic and even lower, i.e. and . This is especially true for the long allophone. Also, the allophone is sometimes difficult to distinguish from the long .
In some pronunciations, traditionally characteristic of the varieties spoken around
Gothenburg
Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...
and in
Östergötland
Östergötland (; English exonym: East Gothland) is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish) in the south of Sweden. It borders Småland, Västergötland, Närke, Södermanland and the Baltic Sea. In older English li ...
, but today more common e.g. in Stockholm and especially in younger speakers, and merge, most commonly into (especially before and the retroflex consonants). Words like ''fördömande'' ('judging', pronounced in Standard Swedish) and ''fördummande'' ('dumbing', pronounced in Standard Swedish) are then often pronounced similarly or identically, as .
In Central Standard Swedish, unstressed is slightly retracted , but is still a front vowel rather than central . However, the latter pronunciation is commonly found in Southern Swedish. Therefore, ''begå'' 'to commit' is pronounced in Central Standard Swedish and in Southern Swedish. Before , southerners may use a back vowel . In Central Standard Swedish, a true schwa is commonly found as a vocalic release of word-final lenis stops, as in e.g. ''bädd'' 'bed'.
In many central and eastern areas (including Stockholm), the contrast between short and is lost. The loss of this contrast has the effect that ''hetta'' ('heat') and ''hätta'' ('cap') are pronounced the same.
In Central Standard Swedish, long is weakly rounded . The rounding is stronger in
Gothenburg
Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...
and weaker in most North Swedish dialects.
One of the varieties of is made with a constriction that is more forward than is usual. Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson describe this vowel as being pronounced "by slightly lowering the body of the tongue while simultaneously raising the blade of the tongue (...) Acoustically this pronunciation is characterized by having a very high F3, and an F2 which is lower than that in ." They suggest that this may be the usual Stockholm pronunciation of .
There is some variation in the interpretations of vowel length's phonemicity. , for example, treats vowel quantity as its own separate phoneme (a "prosodeme") so that long and short vowels are allophones of a single vowel phoneme.
Patterns of
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s of long vowels occur in three major dialect groups. In Central Standard Swedish, the high vowels , , and are realized as narrow closing diphthongs with fully close ending points: . According to Engstrand, the second element is so close as to become a palatal or bilabial fricative: . Elsewhere in the article, the broad transcription is used.
In Central Standard Swedish, , and are often realized as centering diphthongs , and .
In Southern Swedish dialects, particularly in
Scania
Scania, also known by its native name of Skåne (, ), is the southernmost of the historical provinces of Sweden, provinces (''landskap'') of Sweden. Located in the south tip of the geographical region of Götaland, the province is roughly conte ...
and
Blekinge
Blekinge (, old da, Bleking) is one of the traditional Swedish provinces (), situated in the southern coast of the geographic region of Götaland, in southern Sweden. It borders Småland, Scania and the Baltic Sea. It is the country's second ...
, the diphthongs are preceded by a rising of the tongue from a central position so that and are realized as and respectively. A third type of distinctive diphthongs occur in the dialects of
Gotland
Gotland (, ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a province, county, municipality, and diocese. The province includes the islands of Fårö and Gotska Sandön to the ...
. The pattern of diphthongs is more complex than those of southern and eastern Sweden; , and tend to rise while and fall; , , and are not diphthongized at all.
Consonants
The table below shows the Swedish consonant phonemes in spoken
Standard Swedish
Standard Swedish () denotes Swedish as a spoken and written standard language. While Swedish as a written language is uniform and standardized, the spoken standard may vary considerably from region to region. Several prestige dialects have develo ...
.
are dental , but can be either dental or alveolar . If is alveolar, then is also alveolar. Dental realization of is the predominant one in Central Standard Swedish.
Stops
Initial fortis stops () are
aspirated in stressed position, but unaspirated when preceded by within the same morpheme. Hence ''ko'' ('cow') is , but ''sko'' ('shoe') becomes . Compare
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
('cool') vs ('school'). In Finland Swedish, aspiration does not occur and initial lenis stops are usually voiced throughout. Word-medial lenis stops are sometimes voiceless in Finland, a likely influence from Finnish.
Preaspiration In phonetics, preaspiration (sometimes spelled pre-aspiration) is a period of voicelessness or aspiration preceding the closure of a voiceless obstruent, basically equivalent to an -like sound preceding the obstruent. In other words, when an obstru ...
of medial and final fortis stops, including the devoicing of preceding sonorants is common, though its length and
normativity
Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in ...
varies from dialect to dialect, being optional (and
idiolect
Idiolect is an individual's unique use of language, including speech. This unique usage encompasses vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. This differs from a dialect, a common set of linguistic characteristics shared among a group of people.
Th ...
al) in Central Standard Swedish but obligatory in, for example, the Swedish dialects of
Gräsö
Gräsö is an island in Östhammar Municipality, off the coast of Uppland province on the eastern coast of Sweden. It is also the name of a village on the island which lies at the southern end of the Gulf of Bothnia.
The island has an area of and ...
,
Vemdalen
Vemdalen () is a village situated in Härjedalen Municipality, Jämtland County, Sweden with 542 inhabitants in 2010.
Vemdalen has been developed as a skiing center. There are three popular ski resorts close to the Vemdalen; Vemdalsskalet, Klövsj ...
and
Arjeplog
Arjeplog (; Pite Sami: ) is a locality and the seat of Arjeplog Municipality in Norrbotten County, province of Lapland, Sweden with 1,977 inhabitants in 2010.
It is a popular winter test site for the Asian and European car industries and feature ...
. In Gräsö, preaspiration is blocked in certain environments (such as an following the fortis consonant or a morpheme boundary between the vowel and the consonant), while it is a general feature of fortis medial consonants in Central Standard Swedish. When not preaspirated, medial and final fortis stops are simply unaspirated. In clusters of fortis stops, the second "presonorant" stop is unaspirated and the former patterns with other medial final stops (that is, it is either unaspirated or is preaspirated).
The phonetic attributes of preaspiration also vary. In the Swedish of Stockholm, preaspiration is often realized as a fricative subject to the character of surrounding vowels or consonants so that it may be
labial
The term ''labial'' originates from '' Labium'' (Latin for "lip"), and is the adjective that describes anything of or related to lips, such as lip-like structures. Thus, it may refer to:
* the lips
** In linguistics, a labial consonant
** In zoolog ...
,
velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive an ...
, or
dental; it may also surface as extra length of the preceding vowel. In the province of
Härjedalen
Härjedalen (; no, Herjådalen or ) is a historical Provinces of Sweden, province (''landskap'') in the centre of Sweden. It borders the Norway, Norwegian county of Trøndelag as well as the provinces of Dalarna, Hälsingland, Medelpad, and Jä ...
, though, it resembles or . The duration of preaspiration is highest in the dialects of Vemdalen and Arjeplog. Helgason notes that preaspiration is longer after short vowels, in lexically stressed syllables, as well as in pre-pausal position.
Fricatives
is dental in Central Standard Swedish, but
retracted alveolar in
Blekinge
Blekinge (, old da, Bleking) is one of the traditional Swedish provinces (), situated in the southern coast of the geographic region of Götaland, in southern Sweden. It borders Småland, Scania and the Baltic Sea. It is the country's second ...
,
Bohuslän
Bohuslän (; da, Bohuslen; no, Båhuslen) is a Swedish province in Götaland, on the northernmost part of the country's west coast. It is bordered by Dalsland to the northeast, Västergötland to the southeast, the Skagerrak arm of the North Sea ...
,
Halland
Halland () is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden (''landskap''), on the western coast of Götaland, southern Sweden. It borders Västergötland, Småland, Scania and the sea of Kattegat. Until 1645 and the Second Treaty of Brömsebro ...
and
Scania
Scania, also known by its native name of Skåne (, ), is the southernmost of the historical provinces of Sweden, provinces (''landskap'') of Sweden. Located in the south tip of the geographical region of Götaland, the province is roughly conte ...
.
The Swedish fricatives and are often considered to be the most difficult aspects of Swedish pronunciation for foreign students. The combination of occasionally similar and rather unusual sounds as well as the large variety of partly overlapping allophones of often presents difficulties for non-natives in telling the two apart. The existence of a third sibilant in the form of tends to confuse matters even more, and in some cases realizations that are labiodental can also be confused with . In Finland Swedish, is an
affricate
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. ...
: or .
The Swedish phoneme (the "sje-sound" or
voiceless postalveolar-velar fricative) and its alleged
coarticulation Coarticulation in its general sense refers to a situation in which a conceptually isolated speech sound is influenced by, and becomes more like, a preceding or following speech sound. There are two types of coarticulation: ''anticipatory coarticulat ...
is a difficult and complex issue debated amongst phoneticians. Though the acoustic properties of its allophones are fairly similar, the realizations can vary considerably according to geography, age, gender as well as social context and are notoriously difficult to describe and transcribe accurately. Most common are various ''sh''-like sounds, with occurring mainly in northern Sweden and in Finland. A
voiceless uvular fricative
The voiceless uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , the Greek chi. The sound is represented by (ex with underdot) in Ame ...
, , can sometimes be used in the varieties influenced by major immigrant languages like
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
and
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
. The different realizations can be divided roughly into the following categories:
*"Dark sounds" – , commonly used in the Southern Standard Swedish. Some of the varieties specific, but not exclusive, to areas with a larger immigrant population that commonly realizes the phoneme as a
voiceless uvular fricative
The voiceless uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , the Greek chi. The sound is represented by (ex with underdot) in Ame ...
.
*"Light sounds" – , used in the northern varieties and , and (or something in between) in Finland Swedish.
*Combination of "light" and "dark" – darker sounds are used as
morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology.
In English, morphemes are ...
initials preceding stressed vowels (''sjuk'' 'sick', ''station'' 'station'), while the lighter sounds are used before unstressed vowels and at the end of morphemes (''bagage'' 'baggage', ''dusch'' 'shower').
Sonorants
has distinct variations in Standard Swedish. For most speakers, the realization as an
alveolar trill
The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. ...
occurs only in contexts where emphatic stress is used. In Central Swedish, it is often pronounced as a
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
(transcribed as ) or
approximant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...
(transcribed as ), which is especially frequent in weakly articulated positions such as word-finally and somewhat less frequent in stressed syllable onsets, in particular after other consonants. It may also be an apico-alveolar tap. One of the most distinct features of the southern varieties is the uvular realization of , which may be a trill , a fricative or an approximant . In Finland, is usually an apical trill , and may be an approximant postvocalically.
In most varieties of Swedish that use an alveolar (in particular, the central and northern forms), the combination of with dental consonants () produces
retroflex consonant
A retroflex ( /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal ( /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the har ...
realizations (), a recursive
sandhi
Sandhi ( sa, सन्धि ' , "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of sound changes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on near ...
process called "retroflexion". Thus, ('map') is realized as , ('north') as , ('
Vänern
Vänern ( , also , ) is the largest lake in Sweden, the largest lake in the European Union and the third-largest lake of all Europe after Ladoga and Onega in Russia. It is located in the provinces of Västergötland, Dalsland, and Värmland in ...
') as , and ('fresh') as . The combination of and , does not uniformly cause retroflexion, so that it may also be pronounced with two separate consonants , and even, occasionally in a few words and expressions, as a mere . Thus ''sorl'' ('murmur') may be pronounced , but also .
In
Gothenburg
Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...
and neighbouring areas (such as
Mölndal
Mölndal () is the seat and administrative centre of Mölndal Municipality, located just south of Gothenburg on the west-coast of Sweden. About 40,000 of the municipality's 60,000 inhabitants live in Mölndal proper.
Geography
Mölndal is located ...
and
Kungälv
Kungälv () (old no, Konghelle) is a city and the seat of Kungälv Municipality in Västra Götaland County, Sweden. It had 22,768 inhabitants in 2010. In 2021, the main Kungälv - Ytterby - Kareby conurbation had a combined population approachin ...
) the retroflex consonants are substituted by alveolar ones, with their effects still remaining. For example: is not , is , not . However, , unlike what many other Swedes believe, is not but , i.e. is , not .
As the adjacent table shows, this process is not limited by word boundaries, though there is still some sensitivity to the type of boundary between the and the dental in that retroflexion is less likely with boundaries higher up in the prosodic hierarchy. In the southern varieties, which use a uvular , retroflex realizations do not occur. For example, ('map') is realized as (note that Tone 2 in Malmö sounds like Tone 1 in Stockholm), etc. An spelled usually will not trigger retroflexion so that ''spärrnät'' ('anti-sub net') is pronounced . The process of retroflexion is not limited to just one dental, and e.g. ''först'' is pronounced . Retroflexion also does not usually occur in Finland.
Variations of are not as common, though some phonetic variation exists, such as a
retroflex flap
The voiced retroflex flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r`.
Features
Features of the voiced ...
that exists as an allophone in proximity to a labial or velar consonant (e.g. ''glad'' ('glad')) or after most long vowels.
In casual speech, the nasals tend to assimilate to the place of articulation of a following obstruent so that, for example, ''han kom'' ('he came') is pronounced .
and are pronounced with weak friction and function phonotactically with the sonorants.
Stress and pitch
As in English, there are many Swedish word pairs that are differentiated by stress:
*''formel'' — 'formula'
*''formell'' — 'formal'
Stressed syllables differentiate two
tones, often described as
pitch accent
A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ( ...
s, or ''tonal word accents'' by Scandinavian linguists. They are called
acute
Acute may refer to:
Science and technology
* Acute angle
** Acute triangle
** Acute, a leaf shape in the glossary of leaf morphology
* Acute (medicine), a disease that it is of short duration and of recent onset.
** Acute toxicity, the adverse eff ...
and
grave
A grave is a location where a dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as grave ...
accent, tone/accent 1 and tone/accent 2, or Single Tone and Double Tone. The actual realizations of these two tones varies from dialect to dialect. In the central Swedish dialect of
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
, accent 1 is an LHL contour and accent 2 is an HLHL contour (with the second peak in the second syllable). Generally, the grave accent is characterized by a later timing of the intonational pitch rise as compared with the acute accent; the so-called two-peaked dialects (such as Central and Western Swedish) also have another, earlier pitch peak in the grave accent, hence the term "two-peaked".
The phonemicity of this tonal system is demonstrated in the nearly 300 pairs of two-syllable words differentiated only by their use of either grave or acute accent. Outside of these pairs, the main tendency for tone is that the acute accent appears in monosyllables (since the grave accent cannot appear in monosyllabic words) while the grave accent appears in polysyllabic words. Polysyllabic forms resulting from
declension
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ar ...
or
derivation
Derivation may refer to:
Language
* Morphological derivation, a word-formation process
* Parse tree or concrete syntax tree, representing a string's syntax in formal grammars
Law
* Derivative work, in copyright law
* Derivation proceeding, a proc ...
also tend to have a grave accent except when it is the definite article that is added. This tonal distinction has been present in Scandinavian dialects at least since Old Norse though a greater number of polysyllables now have an acute accent. These are mostly words that were monosyllabic in Old Norse, but have subsequently become disyllabic, as have many loanwords. For example, Old Norse ''kømr'' ('comes') has become ''kommer'' in Swedish (with an acute accent).
The distinction can be shown with the minimal pair ''anden'' 'the mallard' (tone 1) and ''anden'' 'the spirit' (tone 2).
*Acute accent: (realized = ) 'the mallard' (from ''and'' 'mallard')
In Central Swedish, this is a high, slightly falling tone followed by a low tone; that is, a single drop from high to low pitch spread over two syllables.
*Grave accent: (realized = ) 'the spirit' (from ''ande'' 'spirit')
In Central Swedish, a mid falling tone followed by a high falling tone; that is, a double falling tone.
The exact realization of the tones also depends on the syllable's position in an utterance. For instance, at the beginning of an utterance, the acute accent may have a rising rather than slightly falling pitch on the first syllable. Also, these are
word tone
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emph ...
s that are spread across the syllables of the word. In trisyllabic words with the grave accent, the second fall in pitch is distributed across the second and third syllables:
*Grave-accent trisyllable: ''flickorna'' (realized = ) 'the girls'
The position of the tone is dependent upon stress: The first stressed syllable has a high or falling tone, as does the following syllable(s) in grave-accented words.
In most
Finland-Swedish
Finland Swedish or Fenno-Swedish ( sv, finlandssvenska; fi, suomenruotsi) is a general term for the variety of the Swedish language and a closely related group of Swedish dialects spoken in Finland by the Swedish-speaking population, commonly a ...
varieties, however, the distinction between grave and acute accent is missing.
A reasonably complete list of uncontroversial so-called
minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate th ...
s can be seen below. The two words in each pair are distinguished solely by having different tone (acute vs. grave). In those cases where both words are nouns it would have been possible to list the genitive forms of the words as well, thereby creating another word pair, but this has been avoided. A few word pairs where one of the words is a plural form with the suffix -or have been included. This is due to the fact that many Swedish-speakers in all parts of Sweden pronounce the suffix -or the same way as -er.
Note that ''karaten/karaten'' is the only pair with more than two syllables (although we would get a second one if we used the definite forms of the pair ''perser/pärser'', i.e. ''perserna/pärserna''). The word pair ''länder'' (=countries, plural of ''land'') and ''länder'' (=loins, plural of ''länd'') could have been included, but this one is controversial. For those speakers who have grave accent in the plural of ''länd'', the definite plural forms will also constitute a three-syllable minimal pair: ''länderna'' (acute accent, =the countries) vs. ''länderna'' (grave accent, =the loins). Although examples with more than two syllables are very few in Standard Swedish, it is possible to find other three-syllable pairs in regional dialects, such as
Värmländska
Värmländska refers to the indigenous speech varieties of the traditional Swedish province of Värmland. It is one of the dialects that form the group Götamål, as opposed to Sveamål, South Swedish dialects, Norrland dialects, Gutnish and Finlan ...
: ''hunnera'' (acute, =the Huns) vs. ''hunnera'' (grave, =the dogs), ''ändera/ännera'' (acute, =the mallards) vs. ''ändera/ännera'' (grave, =the ends), etc.
Prosody in Swedish often varies substantially between different dialects including the spoken varieties of
Standard Swedish
Standard Swedish () denotes Swedish as a spoken and written standard language. While Swedish as a written language is uniform and standardized, the spoken standard may vary considerably from region to region. Several prestige dialects have develo ...
. As in most languages, stress can be applied to emphasize certain words in a sentence. To some degree prosody may indicate
question
A question is an utterance which serves as a request for information. Questions are sometimes distinguished from interrogatives, which are the grammar, grammatical forms typically used to express them. Rhetorical questions, for instance, are inte ...
s, although less so than in English.
Phonotactics
At a minimum, a stressed syllable must consist of either a long vowel or a short vowel and a long consonant. Like many other Germanic languages, Swedish has a tendency for
closed syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
s with a relatively large number of consonant clusters in initial as well as final position. Though not as complex as that of most
Slavic language
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto ...
s, examples of up to 7 consecutive consonants can occur when adding Swedish inflections to some foreign loanwords or names, and especially when combined with the tendency of Swedish to make long
compound
Compound may refer to:
Architecture and built environments
* Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall
** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struct ...
nouns. The syllable structure of Swedish can therefore be described with the following formula:
:(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)
This means that a Swedish one-syllable
morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology.
In English, morphemes are ...
can have up to three consonants preceding the vowel that forms the nucleus of the syllable, and three consonants following it. Examples: ''skrämts'' (verb 'scare'
past participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
,
passive voice
A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing t ...
) or ''sprängts'' (verb 'explode'
past participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
,
passive voice
A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing t ...
). All but one of the consonant phonemes, , can occur at the beginning of a morpheme, though there are only 6 possible three-consonant combinations, all of which begin with , and a total of 31 initial two-consonant combinations. All consonants except for and can occur finally, and the total number of possible final two-consonant clusters is 62.
In some cases this can result in very complex combinations, such as in ''västkustskt'' , consisting of ''västkust'' ('west coast') with the adjective
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
''-sk'' and the neuter suffix ''-t''.
Central Standard Swedish and most other Swedish dialects feature a rare "complementary quantity" feature wherein a phonologically short consonant follows a long vowel and a long consonant follows a short vowel; this is true only for stressed syllables and all segments are short in unstressed syllables.
This arose from the historical shift away from a system with a four-way contrast (that is, , , and were all possible) inherited from
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...
to a three-way one (, and ), and finally the present two-way one; certain Swedish dialects have not undergone these shifts and exhibit one of the other two phonotactic systems instead. In literature on Swedish phonology, there are a number of ways to transcribe complementary relationship, including:
* A length mark for either the vowel () or the consonant ()
[E.g. and .]
* Gemination of the consonant ( vs. )
* Diphthongization of the vowel ( vs. )
* The position of the stress marker ( vs. )
With the conventional assumption that medial long consonants are ambisyllabic (that is, ''penna'' ('pen'), is syllabified as ), all stressed syllables are thus "
heavy
Heavy may refer to:
Measures
* Heavy (aeronautics), a term used by pilots and air traffic controllers to refer to aircraft capable of 300,000 lbs or more takeoff weight
* Heavy, a characterization of objects with substantial weight
* Heavy, ...
".
In unstressed syllables, the distinction is lost between and or between . With each successive post-stress syllable, the number of contrasting vowels decreases gradually with distance from the point of stress; at three syllables from stress, only and occur.
Sample
The sample text is a reading of
The North Wind and the Sun
The North Wind and the Sun is one of Aesop's Fables (Perry Index 46). It is type 298 (Wind and Sun) in the Aarne–Thompson folktale classification. The moral it teaches about the superiority of persuasion over force has made the story widely know ...
. The transcriptions are based on the section on Swedish found in ''The Handbook on the International Phonetic Association'', in which a man in his forties from Stockholm is recorded reading out the traditional fable in a manner typical of Central Standard Swedish as spoken in his area. The broad transcription is phonemic while the narrow is phonetic.
Broad transcription
Narrow transcription
Orthographic version
Nordanvinden och solen tvistade en gång om vem av dem som var starkast. Just då kom en vandrare vägen fram, insvept i en varm kappa. De kom då överens om att den som först kunde få vandraren att ta av sig kappan, han skulle anses vara starkare än den andra. Då blåste nordanvinden så hårt han någonsin kunde, men ju hårdare han blåste, desto tätare svepte vandraren kappan om sig, och till sist gav nordanvinden upp försöket. Då lät solen sina strålar skina helt varmt och genast tog vandraren av sig kappan, och så var nordanvinden tvungen att erkänna att solen var den starkaste av de två.
Notes
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External links
Introduction to Swedish – A guide to pronunciation(
Stockholm School of Economics
The Stockholm School of Economics (SSE; sv, Handelshögskolan i Stockholm, HHS) is a private business school located in city district Vasastaden in the central part of Stockholm, Sweden. SSE offers BSc, MSc and MBA programs, along with ...
)
{{Language phonologies
Swedish language
Germanic phonologies