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The sound system of
Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...
resembles that of
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 ...
. There is considerable variation among the dialects, and all pronunciations are considered by official policy to be equally correct – there is no official spoken standard, although it can be said that ''Eastern Norwegian''
Bokmål Bokmål () (, ; ) is an official written standard for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is the preferred written standard of Norwegian for 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. Unlike, for instance, the Italian language, there ...
speech (not Norwegian Bokmål in general) has an unofficial spoken standard, called Urban East Norwegian or Standard East Norwegian ( no, standard østnorsk), loosely based on the speech of the literate classes of the
Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
area. This variant is the most common one taught to foreign students. Despite there being no official standard variety of Norwegian, Urban East Norwegian has traditionally been used in public venues such as theatre and TV, although today local dialects are used extensively in spoken and visual media. The background for this lack of agreement is that after the dissolution of
Denmark–Norway Denmark–Norway ( Danish and Norwegian: ) was an early modern multi-national and multi-lingual real unionFeldbæk 1998:11 consisting of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Kingdom of Norway (including the then Norwegian overseas possessions: the Faroe ...
in 1814, the upper classes would speak in what was perceived as the
Danish language Danish (; , ) is a North Germanic language spoken by about six million people, principally in and around Denmark. Communities of Danish speakers are also found in Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and the northern German region of Southern Schl ...
, which gradually fell out of favour with the rise of
Norwegian romantic nationalism Norwegian romantic nationalism ( no, Nasjonalromantikken) was a movement in Norway between 1840 and 1867 in art, literature, and popular culture that emphasized the aesthetics of Norwegian nature and the uniqueness of the Norwegian national ident ...
. In addition,
Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, secon ...
, not Oslo, was the larger and more influential city in Norway until the 19th century. See the article on the
Norwegian language conflict The Norwegian language conflict ( no, målstriden, da, sprogstriden) is an ongoing controversy in Norwegian culture and politics related to the written versions of Norwegian. From 1536/1537 until 1814, Danish was the standard written language o ...
for further information. Unless noted otherwise, this article describes the phonology of Urban East Norwegian. The spelling is always Bokmål.


Consonants

* are
laminal A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
, either alveolar or
denti-alveolar In linguistics, a denti-alveolar consonant or dento-alveolar consonant is a consonant that is articulated with a flat tongue against the alveolar ridge and the upper teeth, such as and in languages such as French, Italian and Spanish. That is, ...
. * are aspirated fully voiceless , whereas are unaspirated, either fully voiceless or partially voiced . After within the same syllable, only unaspirated voiceless stops occur. * is dentalized laminal alveolar or (uncommonly) non-retracted apical alveolar . * is pronounced with protruded lips . The degree of protrusion depends on the rounding of the following vowel. * is a (usually voiceless) fricative. The friction is normally glottal , but sometimes it is dorsal: palatal when near front vowels, velar near back vowels. It can be voiced between two voiced sounds. * are partially voiced or fully voiceless when they occur after (but not when precedes within the same syllable). The flap is also partially voiced or fully voiceless when it occurs postvocalically before . * The approximants may be realized as fricatives : ** is sometimes a fricative, especially before a pause and in emphatic pronunciation. ** There is not an agreement about the frequency of occurrence of the fricative allophone of : *** states that is sometimes a fricative. *** states that the fricative variant of occurs often, especially before and after close vowels and in energetic pronunciation. * is in the process of changing from laminal denti-alveolar to
apical Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to: *Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology) *Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features loc ...
alveolar , which leads to neutralization with the retroflex allophone . Laminal realization is still possible before vowels, after front and close vowels and after consonants that are not coronal, and is obligatory after . A velarized laminal occurs after mid back vowels , open back vowels , and sometimes also after the close back vowels . However, states that at least in Oslo, the laminal variant is not velarized, and the difference is only between an apical and a laminal realization. * is a voiced apical alveolar flap . It is occasionally trilled , e.g. in emphatic speech. * Retroflex allophones have been variously described as apical alveolar and apical
postalveolar Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but n ...
. * alternates with in many words (in a small set of words also with ), but there is a small number of words in which only occurs. * are
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 a ...
, whereas is
palatal The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
. * may be palatal , but is often
alveolo-palatal In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal artic ...
instead. It is unstable in many dialects, and younger speakers in Bergen, Stavanger and Oslo merge with into . * Glottal stop may be inserted before word-initial vowels. In very emphatic speech, it can also be inserted word-medially in stressed syllables beginning with a vowel. Most of the retroflex (and
postalveolar Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but n ...
) consonants are mutations of +any other alveolar/
dental consonant A dental consonant is a consonant articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , . In some languages, dentals are distinguished from other groups, such as alveolar consonants, in which the tongue contacts the gum ridge. Dental ...
; rn > , rt > , rl > , rs > , etc. across word boundaries (
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 ...
), in loanwords and in a group of primarily literary words may be pronounced , ''e.g.'', , but it may also be pronounced in some dialects. Most of the dialects in Eastern, Central and Northern Norway use the retroflex consonants. Most Southern and Western dialects do not have these retroflex sounds; in these areas a
guttural Guttural speech sounds are those with a primary place of articulation near the back of the oral cavity, especially where it's difficult to distinguish a sound's place of articulation and its phonation. In popular usage it is an imprecise term fo ...
realization of the phoneme is commonplace, and seems to be expanding. Depending on phonetic context
voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...
() or
voiced uvular fricative The voiced 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 , an inverted small uppercase letter , or in broad transcription if rhot ...
s () are used. (See map at right.) Other possible pronunciations include a uvular approximant or, more rarely, a
uvular trill The voiced uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a small capital letter ''R''. This consonant is one of several collectively ...
. There is, however, a small number of dialects that use both the uvular ''and'' the retroflex allophones. The
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 voice ...
, , colloquially known to Norwegians as ('thick l'), is a Central Scandinavian innovation that exists in Eastern Norwegian (including ''
Trøndersk __NOTOC__ Trøndersk (), also known as ''trøndermål'', ''trøndsk'' and ''trønder'', is a Norwegian dialect, or rather a group of several sub-dialects. As is the case with all Norwegian dialects, it has no standardised orthography, and its u ...
''), the southmost Northern dialects, and the most eastern Western Norwegian dialects. It is supposedly non-existent in most Western and Northern dialects. Today there is doubtlessly distinctive opposition between and in the dialects that do have , e.g. 'farm' and 'crazy' in many Eastern Norwegian dialects. Although traditionally an Eastern Norwegian dialect phenomenon, it was considered vulgar, and for a long time it was avoided. Nowadays it is considered standard in the Eastern and Central Norwegian dialects, but is still clearly avoided in high-prestige sociolects or standardized speech. This avoidance calls into question the status of as a phoneme in certain sociolects. According to
Nina Grønnum Nina Grønnum (; born March 1st, 1945 in Copenhagen) is a Danish retired phonetician and associate professor emeritus from the University of Copenhagen. She is best known for her work on the pronunciation of Danish and especially her many studies ...
, in Trøndersk is actually a postalveolar ''lateral'' flap .


Vowels

* Unless preceding another vowel within the same word, all unstressed vowels are short. * is much rarer than (when spelled ) and, to a lesser extent, (when spelled ). Among the three vowels, only has an unambiguous spelling (alongside the ambiguous ). When spelled with , the close back appears especially before and . Many words that have the mid (such as 'around' and 'up') in the south-eastern part of Norway have the close in other dialects: . * Kristoffersen states that is an unstressed allophone of . However, he also states that at least in his study, has the same formant values as , suggesting a phonemic merger of with some instances of unstressed (those that are centralized to ) to , though the vowels are hardly contrastive. For this reason, in this article it is treated as a separate phoneme that can only occur in unstressed non-initial syllables. * The phonemic status of in Urban East Norwegian is unclear since and pattern as
allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
s of and /eː/ before the flaps and . However, there are also words in which is realized as , despite the following flap, such as the present indicative 'see, sees'. * According to Kristoffersen, the diphthongs are non-phonemic. can be analyzed as sequences of and which is allophonically labialized to after rounded vowels. His analysis requires positing an additional phoneme (which corresponds to the central , not back ) to analyze in a similar way. According to him, is best analyzed as . ** The second element of is often realized as labiodental . ** Some speakers have an additional diphthong in their inventory which, like and , is restricted to loanwords. According to Kristoffersen's analysis, is then best analyzed as + , whereas the best phonemic representation of the marginal is . ** Another (very rare) diphthong is , which appears only in the word ('haste'). * The second element of the fronting diphthongs can be fricated . This means that 'me' and 'high' can be pronounced and , with two phonetic consonants and a monophthong. In emphatic speech an epenthetic schwa can follow the fricative (). However, close vowels in closely related Swedish have also been reported to end in a fricative (as in 'strainer'), but the fricative element is typically analyzed as a part of the vowel. Frication of word-final close monophthongs accompanied with devoicing of the fricative element has been reported to occur in Parisian French and Dutch, with varying degrees of frequency. Those are invariably analyzed as vowels, not least because they are monophthongal in other positions. * The native diphthongs and are monophthongized to and in some dialects. This monophthongization is reflected in spelling in the case of Swedish and Danish, where it is a part of the standard language. The following sections describe each monophthong in detail.


Symbols

* The vowels are invariably transcribed with . * are most often transcribed with , but may be transcribed with an obsolete by older sources. In addition, uses both and for . This article transcribes those vowels with . * is most often transcribed with , yet this article uses , following . * The open back are most often transcribed with , but transcribes them with . This article uses the former set. * The short close vowels are transcribed with either or . The short is occasionally transcribed with or a non-IPA symbol instead, whereas is transcribed with an obsolete symbol in some older sources. This article uses . * The short mid front vowels are transcribed with either or . This article uses .


Phonetic realisation

* are unrounded, whereas are rounded: ** The close have been variously described as protruded and compressed as well as compressed and protruded . The backness of has also been variously described as central and near-front . Therefore, may be differentiated from by backness and the type of rounding or even only by the type of rounding. ** The close back are compressed . ** The mid are protruded . * The height and backness of Norwegian vowels is as follows: ** have been variously described as near-close and close . In addition, and are more peripheral than the canonical values of IPA ( and , respectively). ** are phonetically close . ** is mid front . ** are close-mid . is front, yet has been variously described as front and central . ** has been variously described as open-mid front and mid central . ** has been variously described as near-open back and close-mid back . ** has been variously described as mid back and close-mid back . ** have been variously described as near-open front and open central . ** are open back . * are frequently realized as centering diphthongs . can also be realized as , yet are always monophthongal. However, according to , the diphthongal variants of are opening , not centering.


Accent

Norwegian is a stress-accent language, but has elements of
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 ...
, with two distinct pitch patterns. They are used to differentiate polysyllabic words with otherwise identical pronunciation. Although difference in spelling occasionally allows the words to be distinguished in the written language (such as ), in most cases the minimal pairs are written alike. For example, in most Norwegian dialects, the word ('pronounce') is pronounced using tone 1 (), while ('pronunciation') uses tone 2 (). There are significant variations in the realization of the pitch accent between dialects. In most of Eastern Norway, including the capital Oslo, the so-called low pitch dialects are spoken. In these dialects, accent 1 uses a low flat pitch in the first syllable, while accent 2 uses a high, sharply falling pitch in the first syllable and a low pitch in the beginning of the second syllable. In both accents, these pitch movements are followed by a rise of intonational nature (phrase accent), the size (and presence) of which signals emphasis/focus and which corresponds in function to the normal accent in languages that lack lexical tone, such as English. That rise culminates in the final syllable of an accentual phrase, while the fall to utterance-final low pitch that is so common in most languages is either very small or absent. On the other hand, in most of western and northern Norway (the so-called high-pitch dialects) accent 1 is falling, while accent 2 is rising in the first syllable and falling in the second syllable or somewhere around the syllable boundary. The two tones can be transcribed on the first vowel as for accent 1 and for accent 2; the modern reading of the IPA tone diacritics (low and falling ) corresponds to the pronunciation of eastern Norway, whereas an older tradition of using diacritics to represent the shape of the pitch trace (falling and rising-falling ) corresponds to the pronunciation of western Norway. Accent 1 generally occurs in words that were monosyllabic in
Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...
, and accent 2 in words that were polysyllabic.


Tonal accents and morphology

In many dialects, the accents take on a significant role in marking grammatical categories. Thus, the ending ''(T1)—en'' implies determinate form of a masculine monosyllabic noun ( 'boat', , 'car'), whereas ''(T2)-en'' denotes either determinate form of a masculine bisyllabic noun or an adjectivised noun/verb ( 'mature'). Similarly, the ending ''(T1)—a'' denotes feminine singular determinate monosyllabic nouns ( 'book', 'root') or neuter plural determinate nouns ( 'houses', 'lights'), whereas the ending ''(T2)—a'' denotes the
preterite The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple ...
of weak verbs ( 'made a mess', 'housed'), and feminine singular determinate bisyllabic nouns ( 'bucket', 'square'). In Eastern Norwegian the tone difference may also be applied to groups of words, with different meaning as a result. for example, means 'grow anew' when pronounced with tone 1 , but 'grow over' when pronounced with tone 2 . In other parts of Norway, this difference is achieved instead by the shift of stress ( vs. ).


In compound words

In a compound word, the pitch accent is lost on one of the elements of the compound (the one with weaker or
secondary stress Secondary stress (or obsolete: secondary accent) is the weaker of two degrees of stress in the pronunciation of a word, the stronger degree of stress being called ''primary''. The International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for secondary stress is ...
), but the erstwhile tonic syllable retains the full length (long vowel or geminate consonant) of a stressed syllable.


Monosyllabic tonal accents

In some dialects of Norwegian, mainly those from
Nordmøre Nordmøre (English: North- Møre) is a traditional district in the Norwegian county of Møre og Romsdal. The area comprises the northern third of the county including the municipalities of Kristiansund, Averøy, Tingvoll, Surnadal, Aure, Halsa ...
and
Trøndelag Trøndelag (; sma, Trööndelage) is a county in the central part of Norway. It was created in 1687, then named Trondhjem County ( no, Trondhjems Amt); in 1804 the county was split into Nord-Trøndelag and Sør-Trøndelag by the King of Denma ...
to
Lofoten Lofoten () is an archipelago and a traditional district in the county of Nordland, Norway. Lofoten has distinctive scenery with dramatic mountains and peaks, open sea and sheltered bays, beaches and untouched lands. There are two towns, Svolv� ...
, there may also be tonal opposition in monosyllables, as in ('car') ''vs.'' ('axe'). In a few dialects, mainly in and near
Nordmøre Nordmøre (English: North- Møre) is a traditional district in the Norwegian county of Møre og Romsdal. The area comprises the northern third of the county including the municipalities of Kristiansund, Averøy, Tingvoll, Surnadal, Aure, Halsa ...
, the monosyllabic tonal opposition is also represented in final syllables with secondary stress, as well as double tone designated to single syllables of primary stress in polysyllabic words. In practice, this means that one gets minimal pairs like: ('the rooster') ''vs.'' ('get him inside'); ('in the well') ''vs.'' ('her well'); ('sheriff') ''vs.'' ('the sheriff'). Amongst the various views on how to interpret this situation, the most promising one may be that the words displaying these complex tones have an extra mora. This mora may have little or no effect on duration and dynamic stress, but is represented as a tonal dip. Other dialects with tonal opposition in monosyllabic words have done away with vowel length opposition. Thus, the words ('dare') ''vs.'' ('cradle') have merged into in the dialect of Oppdal.


Loss of tonal accents

Some forms of Norwegian have lost the tonal accent opposition. This includes mainly parts of the area around (but not including) Bergen; the Brønnøysund area; to some extent, the dialect of
Bodø Bodø (; smj, Bådåddjo, sv, Bodö) is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Salten. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Bodø (which is also the capital of Nordland coun ...
; and, also to various degrees, many dialects between
Tromsø Tromsø (, , ; se, Romsa ; fkv, Tromssa; sv, Tromsö) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tromsø. Tromsø lies in Northern Norway. The municipality is the ...
and the
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
n border. Faroese and Icelandic, which have their main historical origin in
Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...
, also show no tonal opposition. It is, however, not clear whether these languages lost the tonal accent or whether the tonal accent was not yet there when these languages started their separate development. Standard Danish, Rigsdansk, replaces tonal accents with the
stød Stød (, also occasionally spelled stod in English) is a suprasegmental unit of Danish phonology (represented in non-standard IPA as ), which in its most common form is a kind of creaky voice (laryngealization), but it may also be realized as a ...
, whilst some southern, insular dialects of Danish preserve the tonal accent to different degrees. The
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 ...
dialects also lack a tonal accent; no such phenomenon exists in Finnish.


Pulmonic ingressive

The words ('yes') and ('no') are sometimes pronounced with inhaled breath ( pulmonic ingressive) in Norwegian. The same phenomenon occurs across the other Scandinavian languages, and can also be found in German, French, Finnish and Japanese, to name a few.


Sample

The sample text is a reading of the first sentence of The North Wind and the Sun by a 47-year-old professor from
Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
's Nordstrand borough.


Phonetic transcription

Source of the phonetic transcription:


Orthographic version


See also

*
Norwegian dialects Norwegian dialects (''dialekter'') are commonly divided into four main groups, 'Northern Norwegian' (), 'Central Norwegian' ('' trøndersk''), 'Western Norwegian' (''vestlandsk''), and 'Eastern Norwegian' (). Sometimes 'Midland Norwegian' () and ...
*
Danish dialects The Danish language has a number of regional and local dialect varieties. These can be divided into the traditional dialects, which differ from modern Standard Danish in both phonology and grammar, and the Danish accents, which are local varieties ...
*
Danish phonology The phonology of Danish is similar to that of the other closely related Scandinavian languages, Swedish and Norwegian, but it also has distinct features setting it apart. For example, Danish has a suprasegmental feature known as stød which ...
*
Swedish phonology Swedish has a large vowel 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. Ano ...


Notes


References

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* * * *Haugen, Einer (1967)
"On the Rules of Norwegian Tonality"
''Language'' Vol. 43, No. 1 (Mar., 1967), pp. 185–202. * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Norwegian Phonology Norwegian language Germanic phonologies