Help talk:IPA/Swedish/Archive 1

About the recent split

The pronunciation guide for Norwegian and Swedish used to be in a joint table. Since this was getting overly complicated and unworkable in the long run, the two were split by me. Previous discussion can be found at Help talk:IPA for Swedish and Norwegian.

Peter ^Isotalo 20:39, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Creutz

Can someone take a look at Creutz family and Lorentz Creutz? I'm not sure if those are transcribed accurately. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 04:06, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Sure that's correct. It's like the German pronunciation as far I know.

Peter ^Isotalo 16:35, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Should we put [ɔi] as a marginal vowel in the key? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 21:16, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I might have just assumed a German pronunciation, actually. When I looked up "Creutz" in late 19th century editions of Nordisk Familjebok,[1] it seems the traditional pronunciation is [krøits]. It's hard to tell what the common pronunciation is today because it's such a rare name. But I know that Suzanne Reuter pronounces her last name as [røiter].

Definitely not worthy noting in an IPA help table in my view. I'd say that [w] in loanwords like webb ("WWW; website") is far more common, but I wouldn't really include that either.

Peter ^Isotalo 04:07, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I would think that, as guides designed to help readers understand language-specific transcriptions, we might want to include something to help them with these rare sounds. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 05:24, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I see your point. I'll make a separate table for that, though, because it would be a bit misleading to mix in rules that apply to only a few specific examples.

Peter ^Isotalo 14:16, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Is the vowel in Creutz a diphthong, or is it just a sequence of two vowels? If the latter, then there's little point in listing it separately. Alakzi (talk) 23:33, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Like a diphthong. It's just like the German "eu"-sequence in words like heute but with [œ] instead of [ɔ]. Hence English "void" as an approximation. Whether you wish to write it out like [œʏ̯] or [œɪ] is entirely academic, though. It's very rare.

Peter ^Isotalo 23:53, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

It's been transcribed using <ø> here. Alakzi (talk) 03:02, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. It's not based on a source that uses IPA, though. So it's an assumption.

Peter ^Isotalo 18:55, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

English examples

It's about time to take the issue of which English examples are the best to the talk page. Here's my take:

• Swedish [a] is a central vowel, so it is definitely not like the vowel of English hat, which is [æ] or even [ɪə] for most speakers. The vowel of hut is much closer phonetically and accoustically, though the vowel of father is also pretty close.
• I like comparing English /juː/ to [ʉː yː ʏ], not just because it's at least something but because a number of dialects centralize the /uː/ element.

We may also want to look at what other help pages do for other ideas. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 05:32, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

It depends. I would think English English speakers are more likely to associate it with /æ/. The southern father vowel is too far back, and in the north it's usually only distinguished by length. The hut vowel is not phonologically stable in most dialects. In northern English dialects, it doesn't even exist. Alakzi (talk) 13:42, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not going to edit war against two native speakers if you believe examples like "cute" are appropriate, but I'm just saying that an onset-vowel combo seems like a stretch to me. Why not just use "boot" or something?

If you're going to use two different words to illustrate the long and short variants, use examples that actually differ in pronunciation.

Peter ^Isotalo 14:11, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

No English equivalent

For the sound ʉ - I was under the impression that's how most of us Australians pronounce the oo in food? Just curious. Peter Greenwell (talk) 22:25, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

It was removed[2] with the motivation that specific dialects shouldn't be used as examples.

Peter ^Isotalo 03:36, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Elonged consonants?

Does Swedish have elonged consonants? I was wondering regarding an example on this page: [ˈanːˈdɛn]. I also read the phrase "interdependent vowel and consonant length" in the Swedish language, but I can't find anything more about it. Can someone please shed some light on this subject? Aikclaes (talk) 12:26, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Check out Swedish phonology and direct your questions there. That page will hve some of what you're looking for, I think. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:54, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, but that page doesn't cover my question. It does, however, cover the word anden, but there the word's not written with an [nː]. Aikclaes (talk) 17:11, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

The section of the article that answers your question is Swedish phonology § Phonotactics. — Eru·tuon 20:57, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks but I can't find any info there on if elongated consonsants are supposed to be written like this [n:] here on Wikipedia. Aikclaes (talk) 14:56, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

It depends on the language. For Swedish, we represent it that way. For Italian, we represent it with a doubled consonant (e.g. [nn]). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:48, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Is there any source on Wikipedia that it is represented that way for Swedish? Aikclaes (talk) 08:03, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Swedish phonology is your best bet for finding sources on the transcription of Swedish. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:21, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Like I said, there's nothing there about this. Aikclaes (talk) 18:05, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

There's a footnote Schaeffler (2005:8), citing Elert (1964) after the second-to-last paragraph in Swedish phonology § Phonotactics, the paragraph that describes transcription variants. Find the footnote, and click on the links in it to find the sources. — Eru·tuon 18:24, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Unstressed e

Unstressed e is said to be pronounced with a schwa sound, [ə], with the example "begå". Isn't this schwa pronunciation typical only for Western dialects? I'd say unstressed e is pronounced with the sound [ɛ]. Aikclaes (talk) 12:41, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Yep, AFAICR that's how Riad (2014) describes it. Peter238 (talk) 23:28, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Zlatan

Hello. Two weeks ago @Lundgren8: reverted my IPA fix on Zlatan Ibrahimović. The thing is, Swedish doesn't have the /aː/ phoneme, only /ɑː/ and /a/. Do Swedes consistently pronounce the non-native /aː/ in Zlatan, or is that just a wrong transcription? If it's the former, we need to add /aː/ to our list of non-native phonemes. Peter238 (talk) 14:42, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

It is true that /aː/ is not a phoneme in Swedish. In my personal experience, [aː] is used in certain foreign words like Zlatan, Bratislava or Krakow (might alternate with [ɑː]). I have never heard Zlatan pronounced with [ɑː], only [aː]. There are no minimal pairs however, so they wouldn’t be separate phonemes. I think [aː] is just an allophone of /ɑː/ in certain (foreign) words. --Lundgren8 (t · c) 22:48, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Ok, added. Peter238 (talk) 23:09, 21 October 2015 (UTC)