Help talk:IPA/Swedish and Norwegian/Archive 1

Cleanup

Norwegian vowel transcriptions vary in the articles, and need to be cleaned up. They should be modified here if we decide not to use the same symbols for Swedish and Norwegian; we might want to change the examples for [æ] etc. kwami (talk) 23:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I once pointed out to kwami that using Swedish examples for both languages do not work too well. Since nobody else seems to help out, I have put together the following list of Norwegian words containing a particular sound and their nearest English equivalent. It is based on either the sound in the Swedish or English word currently used in the lists on the project page. I have dropped some words/sounds that I am uncertain about. Unfortunately I do not read or write IPA. Note that this is amateur work and biased towards eastern Norway. I have included translations of the Norwegian word if it differs from the existing Swedish words.

Thanks, Ters. I'll let someone who knows what they're doing incorporate this in the key; if there are no takers, go ahead yourself, or ask me again. kwami (talk) 07:50, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Norwegian	Nearest English equivalent	Notes
bok	book
kjole (dress)	possibly loch or as German Chemie
dåp	done
nord		Varies with region. d might be left out, or rd may turn into what I think is called a retroflex flap.
fot	foot
god	good
hode	hoot
jord	you
kone (wife)	cone
lov (law)	law
mot	mood
node	noon
lang	long
pol (pole, like the North pole)	pool
feire		Varies with region as a change is taking place
tok (took)	tour
våt	vote
mat	bra
matt		I assume there is no English equivalent
fersk	cash
ære	like cash, but longer
hel	like hell, but longer
hell	hell
hæl		I would say it is the same sound as in ære
sil	seal
sild	sill
mål	tall
moll	moll	Don't know about these tight lips
nøt (enjoyed)	like nut, but longer
nøtt (nut)	nut
øre		Sounds a lot like nøt to me
full	put	full is also a possible equivalent
bot		I assume there is no English equivalent
syl
tykk (thick)		The word syll surprisingly exists in Norwegian, but is an uncommon synonym for svill.
begå	begin

I can not tell the difference between the following. Sjok is also presented as an example twice.

sjokoloade (chocolate) skjerf (scarf) ski (ski)	shoe
fersk	marshal	Around here, the r is not pronounced as far as I can tell and could just as well have been written fæsjk. Other dialects or sociolects may pronounce it.

Ters (talk) 14:27, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Oooo, you've done a lot of work! Some comments:

Most of the words you list are "samnorsk", might as well make them all nynorsk-compatible:

• hotell or hoste (or hore??!) instead of hode
• nobel or nomade instead of node
• sel instead of hel
• nødig instead of nøt
• tysk instead of tykk
• øre is okay as one one hundredth of a crown - else økolog, økonomi, ør (fortumla)

I wonder if rd has to be there at all. It's just an R + a voiced or silent D, pretty much.

Isn't bot a lot like Engl. boot, just longer?

Some English speakers do pronounce the e in begin as (Engl.) ee or (norsk) i.

Fersk in Sogn (og Fjordane) is rulle-r + a clear sk.

I agree that sj-lyd is sj-lyd. Kids in school have to memorize the spellings, there's no hearing them.

I added to kj above. The ch in loch is unvoiced, and it's hard to turn that into an acceptable kjole.

I usually tell people that ø is like e in father or i in bird. Nøtt doesn't sound much like (Engl.) nut, IMO.

Why does one need an example word at all in the cases where the Norwegian pronunciation is essentially like the English one (b,d,f,g,h etc.)? - Hordaland (talk) 10:20, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Because our readers won't know which Norwegian phonemes are like English unless we tell them. Icelandic b, d, g is not like English, for example. kwami (talk) 10:21, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I do see that they have to be listed, but it seems to me it could be just a B to the left and a B to the right, instead of words. (But I know not much about the conventions...) Cheers, Hordaland (talk) 10:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Just to point out, a written g might be pronounced differently depending on the circumstances both in Norwegian and English. The bokmål word jeg is often (typically?) pronounced with a j-sound (in both ends), while the nynorsk equivalent eg is pronounced with a g-sound. This is however just a simplified example, as one does not technically speak neither bokmål nor nynorsk. Ters (talk) 11:16, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Right you are. There are two different Gs in garage. And is there any good reason for Geilo and Geiranger beginning with different sounds? - Hordaland (talk) 11:52, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I have been more curious about geni and genial. Two related words, that at least can start with different sounds. But I think this is a digression. Ters (talk) 12:50, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

And while I have you here :-), why 2 symbols in the same cell in the table (ɕ, ç), (ɧ, ʃ), (r, ɾ), (ʃ, ɧ), (v, ʋ)? I can't make head nor tail of what's meant there, and whether or not they are presented like that because Swedish and Norwegian are (attempted) combined here. Are such articles meant only for people very well-versed in the conventions? - Hordaland (talk) 11:10, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Not only that, but in many dialects of Sweden and Norway, there's also the phoneme /ɽ/. Should we include it or not? --Daniel Blanchette 20:35, 16 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by DanCBJMS (talk • contribs)

If this should sufficiently differentiate between regular English phonemes of RP and AE, then the voiced and unvoiced voiceless retroflex plosives /t/ and /d/ should be marked as being articulated dentally, whereas they are post alveolar in RP/AE.193.213.19.176 (talk) 21:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we need to cover minor phonetic differences, that's for the respective phonology pages. I'm pretty sure the retroflex consonants are not pronounced dentally anywhere. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 00:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

example for æ

I don't think "mask" is a good English example for [æ] and [æ:], because many English speakers pronounce this word with [ɑː] - perhaps "mash" would be a better choice. Lfh (talk) 13:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Fixes and separate articles

There is no velar fricative in everyday Swedish. There is a slight tendency to pronounce [k, g] as the corresponding fricatives in rapid, running speech, but this is also a very slight tendency. Describing /g/ as anything else than [g] is quite misleading, especially for those who speak languages that actuall have velar fricatives as proper phonemes.

I'd just like to add that I find the combination of Swedish and Norwegian confusing and unnecessary. Two pages is in the long run easier to manage and will be considerably less ambiguous.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:49, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Agree: "I find the combination of Swedish and Norwegian confusing and unnecessary" as well as demeaning for Norwegian, which seems to be the little brother here!

About fricatives, I know very little about IPA and such, but I should think that the kj sound as in kyrkje, ikkje, kino, and Kjell must count as a fricative? The "Fyllingsdal dialect" -effect may eventually make kj to be like sj, but it hasn't happened yet. - Hordaland (talk) 22:08, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I also agree about splitting. It will make it easier for someone who knows just one language to contribute without having to deal with the other language. Ters (talk) 05:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Then let's split into two articles, one for each country.

Separate pages for the two countries makes sense, and there seems to be consensus here for that.

In spite of my considerable lack of knowledge about IPA and such, I thought I'd give it a try in a sandbox. It's harder than I thought!!

It's one thing trying to find English equivalents, quite another knowing the difference between ˈà and ˈâ, øː and œː, ɕ and ç, and how does ɧ sound?

If you want to fix things on that sandbox page, feel free! Hordaland (talk) 19:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't want to discourage splitting the article, but if the lists end up very similar, does it make sense to simply use two columns? Swedish and norwegian are very often the same. I come from a Swedish-Norwegian family, so although that may explain why I want to keep this together, I have a second thing to say; I had the luck of growing up in Skåne which means however we split this article, I still won't find home in any of them, since the dialect fundamentally disagrees with standard norwegian or swedish. I just want to say that there is no fundamental truth in how divide in this subject.

About the norwegian Sandbox: the swedish Karlstad [ˈkʰɑːɭ.sta] is that not the same as skål, "tykt ell" in Norwegian or more standard is the Retroflex lateral approximant example farlig? I have already edited Vänern away, and I would suggest using less place names in the list, they harder to imagine the correct pronunciation of (I mean transfer your personal pronunciation to a more standardized). -- Sverdrup (talk) 20:20, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Dialects make it difficult to come up with good examples of words containing a particular sound. Whether the sound ɭ appears in skål or farlig very much depends on the dialect. Having two languages in one list makes it even harder, and, as I wrote above, means that editors need knowledge of both languages, in addition to English, to edit it without risking introducing errors for one language while fixing up the other. Ters (talk) 05:53, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm neutral as to whether we split this guide or not, but if the issue is dialectal variance in phonetics, then keep in mind that WP:IPA for Spanish and WP:IPA for English use a sort of pan-dialectal representation that can be translated to dialects (e.g. [θ] is the sound that is [θ] in Castilian Spanish and [s] in Latin America, etc). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:51, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Or we could...

We could do as is done at WP:IPA for Dutch and Afrikaans and have two IPA columns, one for Swedish and one for Norwegian. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 04:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The way I see it, two different example columns would be more useful/helpful. And while Afrikaans is derived from Dutch, Norwegian is not derived from Swedish. It is more of an Icelandic/Danish hybrid, which makes me wonder how Icelandic and Faroese fits into all of this. Ters (talk) 05:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Am I correct in remembering that the example column is misleading right now because it seems like they're examples that work for both languages when they're not? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 06:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

All examples are (as far as I can see) Swedish and may sound different or not even exist in Norwegian. Ters (talk) 06:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

[Outdent] There are 2 written Norwegian languages. One Swedish. One Danish. And oodles and oodles of spoken dialects in each of these countries. These are all to some degree mutually intelligible. I don't see any reason to combine Norwegian & Swedish in one article! But if that's the consensus, then Danish should also be included. Else it is absurd to combine the two as it has been attempted here.

Icelandic and Færoese are not mutually intelligible with the above-named languages. And, to be very clear, no one should even think of Samisk (the "Lapplanders'" language) or Finnish in this connection. They are not Germanic languages. - Hordaland (talk) 02:08, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Danish has a different phonology from Norwegian and Swedish. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 04:08, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't disagree with that, but would claim that Sw and Norw should better have each its own article. Hordaland (talk) 10:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree, alot of these examples do not reflect the phonemes that Norwegian to a certain degree still retains, while having been reduced in both Danish and Swedish. An example of this is EN (Eastern Norwegian) pronunciation of skj, kj, tj, sj, sh etc, where skj has sibilance, kj does not, tj has a /t/-sound, although post alveolar, not dental. Eg, in Danish, kjede, skjede, kede etc. are homophonic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.213.19.176 (talk) 19:10, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

In swedish, most of these are /ɧ/, atleast to my limited knowledge of Swedish. 193.213.19.176 (talk) 19:12, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I've started splitting up the two languages into two columns for clarity. I've also started going through to find example words that are the same in both languages (it's not too hard with wiktionary). For those more familiar with Norwegian and/or Swedish, be on the lookout for errors that I might make. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:01, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Sadly I think this entire WIP is redundant. There is already an article on Norwegian phonology, and the only examples used in this article is from EN, making it a minority. It's not that a minority in Norway speaks EN, but the majority do not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.75.49.246 (talk) 02:28, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The purpose of this page is different from that of Norwegian phonology or Swedish phonology, namely to give readers a quick and easy understanding of IPA transcriptions of Norwegian and Swedish. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 02:51, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Then it should include Danish, as to make it an introduction to Scandinavian IPA transcription.193.75.49.246 (talk) 15:51, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Danish has a different phonology. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:49, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know how far you have gotten with the splitting, but there are still some problems with the examples, mostly for vowels. Still feels like a list for Swedish, with Norwegian hastily added. I have also noticed that the tj-sound is missing. Ters (talk) 20:40, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK, the consonants are completely and correctly split. The examples are words that exist in both languages homographically. According to this source (page 23), the sound of ‹tj› is the same as the sound of ‹kj›. If there's a significant enough presence of a dialect that makes a distinction between tj and kj, it's worth considering having a separate row for it, but there should be some evidence of this before we put it in.

At this point, the actual vowels are as accurate as I'm aware of. I haven't changed examples yet, and considering that the languages' spelling systems differ with the vowels, we may wish to deviate from having one example to represent both languages. I've edited the table with the example for øː reflecting something that we might want to do to address this. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 23:56, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The examples may be homographic, but their meaning might be different (nøtt means nut in Norwegian and sounds quite similar) or the word might be so rare that even native speakers have never heard of them (syll, for Norwegian at least). Sjok does not exist in Norwegian at all. As for tj, it is possibly the same as kj i Swedish, but can be different in Norwegian. For me, tj is somewhat like church. Of course, there are variations, and I think Norwegian may be in the process of losing it. My own pronounciation differs between tjene (tj-sound) and tjore (kj-sound). Ters (talk) 05:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

You realize the source for <tj> and <kj> being the same is for Norwegian, right? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:32, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Oops, did not check out that link. Not sure how to use that source, but I see nothing about tj in the small extracts presented to me. It looks a bit old and danocentric (if that is a word). I just said that I missed the sound in the list, because I have heard it and sometimes used it. It might be a dying sound, still lingering in some dialects. The kj-sound might be next. Ters (talk) 21:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I didn't realize the source was so old! here is a newer source (from 2006). Check out page 16, which also considers <kj> and <tj> to reflect the same pronunciation. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:09, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I would argue that the majority of Norwegians have a distinct variation of <tj> and <kj>, whereas dialects with retroflexes (e.g EN) are prone to assimilation and reduction. Also, guttural /r/ is most often articulated as uvular /r/, other articulations have in the past been viewed as speech impediments. I will try to get a reference to this when it's not 4 a.m. 193.213.19.176 (talk) 03:01, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that tj and kj are not the same! Tjeneste cannot be pronounced with a kj. Kjøleskap cannot be pronounced with a tj. - Hordaland (talk) 11:25, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, some do pronounce tjeneste with something closer to kj than a proper tj, but there are also many who substitute sj for kj. As long as tj (and kj) are still in use, the sound(s) should be included here. Ters (talk) 16:40, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

We need sources for this information. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:38, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I know, but all i find on the Internet about this are forum post and chat logs, mostly about how everything might end up as sj. Lots of circumstantial evidence, but nothing else. It feel like having to find a source for the fact that the sky is blue, when all I can do is point up, but I guess that is an important quality control mechanism that works most of the time. Ters (talk) 04:53, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

The sources I've seen indicate a pronunciation that differs from your own. Not saying you're wrong about your own speech, but it may be the case that your particular conservative variety isn't very common. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 05:30, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I am not specifically talking about how I speak. That is not a good example of anything. I just wish the unregistered participant could come back with a clear answer. That user seemed to have more knowledge about this than us other tj proponents. Ters (talk) 15:38, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

As a speaker of Eastern Norwegian, I pronounce tj as sj, so that "tjære" and "kjære" are homophonic. I am pretty sure the same goes for Northern Norwegian and Swedish too, so that equivalently "tjära" and "kära" are homophonic. Now, let me see if I understand what the tj sound is: the tj sound is what you get if you take the kj-sound and add the difference between tʃ (church) and ʃ (shy). That is, tj = ç + (tʃ - ʃ). I have heard people from Sykkylven use the tj sound in words like "kjøre", "kjøtt", and especially "kjekt", which they say all the time ("det e so tjekt"). I support having the two sister languages in the same article, because the differences between us are not in any way outstanding compared to internal dialectic differences. In fact, it helps demystifying the sad orthographic conventions that make us look artificially different. Peace.--129.241.30.119 (talk) 14:49, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

On the different phonology of Danish: Eastern Norwegian phonology differs about as much from Swedish as Southern Norwegian does from Danish. For clarity, this article should be IPA for Eastern Norwegian and Western Swedish, as e.g. uvular /r/ and palatal consonants are left out. I'm assuming good faith, but it is not fitting to bundle these languages together. <tj> and <kj> are realized differently, lest "kjære" and "tjære" be homophonic. This can be corrected by including the fortis (post)-alveolar affricate /tʃ/. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.213.19.176 (talk) 10:59, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Looking at WP:IPA for Danish, I can see that the conventions already used for Danish (which differs a little from the table listed at Danish phonology) are close enough to the ones used here that it would be pretty easy and intuitive to combine all three.

We want to incorporate as many dialects as is feasable. For Norwegian and Swedish, [r] is used to represent both apical and uvular articulations. It shouldn't be a problem to include this separation of <tj> and <kj>, we just need to see a source that backs up this claim for some dialect(s) and, an additional statement what the phonetic particularities of this extra sound are would also be nice. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 15:53, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Important criticism for this article is that it somehow tries to standardize a form of Norwegian through written forms, yet most dialects are severly divergent from both written standards. The luxury of having a spoken language close to what is written is anglocentric. This article has been tried justified from the point that it should be a comprehensible introduction to Norwegian/Swedish phonemes, yet it fails miserably because the phonemes are accessible to only those who have the proper forehand knowledge, and in no circumstance the layman. To attempt to deduce phonemes from such diverse dialects as diphthong-based, uvular-/r/, palatalized, segmentation-based and dialects with lenization of fortis plosives in frontal positions is pointless. I can attempt to find sources, yet it seems to fall under the same caveats as the former arguments. The paternal author of this article refuses to acknowledge any information that does not fall under his/her own verificational bias. The self-evidently character of this information is disregarded as the author is a non-native speaker of either languages.HelgeTaksdal (talk) 02:52, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

This isn't an article. It's a pronunciation key so it not only should be accessible to those with no knowledge of Swedish and Norwegian, but it's designed for such users. I don't think you need to accuse me of WP:OWNing this or any part of Wikipedia, nor do you need to accuse me of untoward bias. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 03:15, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

How about just getting it clear how this page is supposed to be used. That might be part of the confusion here. Since the IPA symbols come first in the table, it seems to me that one has an IPA symbol and wants to know how to pronounce it in Swedish and Norwegian based on example words in English. It can also serve as some sort of index of IPA symbols used in the two languages. Is this correct? Ters (talk) 10:45, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that sounds about right. Swedish and Norwegian words with IPA transcriptions in Wikipedia articles link here so that if editors are confused about the symbols used, they can get a good idea of how to pronounce such words. This is also the place where we can more-or-less standardize how editors should transcribe these words at Wikipedia so we can be consistent. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 16:53, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

ɧ and ʃ

Consonants. Why not put ɧ and ʃ on two separate lines, as for the other sounds? - Hordaland (talk) 11:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Because they correspond with each other in the two varieties included. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:35, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Yet the former is velar and the latter post-alveolar, which in my opinion warrants a clearer distinction. 193.213.19.176 (talk) 11:03, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

We use different IPA characters for them. That seems pretty distinct to me. If we put them on separate rows like most of the other sounds, then it would give the false impression that [ɧ] occurs in Norwegian and/or [ʃ] in Swedish. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 15:29, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Yet [ʃ] occurs in Swedish. I am .176 finally logged in, and this article is futile, I'm sad to say. Claiming that the phoneme ʉ equals the "o" in dinosaur shows a complete disregard for scandinavian pronunciation as a whole. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HelgeTaksdal (talk • contribs)

When [ʃ] occurs in Swedish, is it diaphonic with [ɧ] (that is, does it occur in words like sjok?). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 03:17, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes it does. It's either typical of northern Swedish dialects and in Finland. It's also a sociolectal variant that is considered either a) educated, old-fashioned and even slightly posh or b) somewhat feminine (and it's also very common among feminine gay men).

Peter ^Isotalo 17:25, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

ʂ vs. ʃ

As Norwegian sj-sound

According to the sound clips of the respective articles, ʂ is a proper Norwegian sj-sound, while ʃ is a (weird) midpoint between ʂ and ç (kj-sound) that is undefined in Norwegian.--129.241.30.119 (talk) 17:29, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

As rs-sound

As correctly noted in the changelog, the rs-sound is identical to the Norwegian sj-sound in dialects that have it. Therefore, it is paradoxical that the ʃ is the Norwegian sj-sound when ʂ is the rs-sound.--129.241.30.119 (talk) 17:29, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

So either ʃ or ʂ is a mislabel in Norwegian. Assuming that the Swedes are correct about ʂ being the rs-sound, and the rs-sound is the same in Swedsih and Norwegian, which I know it is, then ʃ must be the mislabel.--129.241.30.119 (talk) 17:19, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

What to do about duplicate entries

For Norwegian, ʂ may be listed both as sj-sound and rs-sound. Omitting it as rs-sound just because it already is listed as sj-sound can be misleading because it creates an artificial difference between Norwegian and Swedish for the rs-sound. Compared to this problem, a duplicate entry is harmless.--129.241.30.119 (talk) 18:09, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Consonant clusters in West-Norwegian

The article states "In dialects with a guttural R, such as Southern Swedish and many Southern and Western Norwegian dialects these are [ʀd ʀl ʀn ʀs ʀt]." This is misleading. For the dialects in Western Norway with the guttural R, which are found in Hordaland and Rogaland (excepting Bergen), the clusters rn and rl are very commonly rendered as /dn/ and /dl/ in speech. This is perhaps a minor point, but I think clarity is important. I can dig up some sources for this if needed, though most of it would necessarily be written in Norwegian, which I suppose might be problematic? JVea (talk) 12:19, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

If you feel it's necessary, you can quote and translate relevant parts in the talk page (though that probably best goes at Norwegian phonology). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 16:49, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I did find a document written in English which describes this feature of West-Norwegian here: www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/staff/kerswill/pkpubs/Kerswill1994BOOK.pdf Starting at page 44, a description of phonetic features of the dialects in question, as well as their geographic extent, is found. If this isn't good enough as a source, I could possibly translate a few lines from Norsk Grammatik (1864), which although old is still relevant in this context. Furthermore, the nynorsk wikipedia has an article on this subject as well at http://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differensiasjon which is sourced to Martin Skjekkeland. I don't own a copy of his book, but I'm quite certain it says exactly the same as the article I've linked and Norsk Grammatik (1864) on the subject of West-Norwegian consonantisms. As for the article on Norwegian phonology, I don't think this information is relevant there, as it is made very clear right from the start that that article describes an informal standardization of East-Norwegian speech. - JVea (talk) 13:01, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, then perhaps Norwegian dialects would be a good place. How do we (or should we) incorporate this information here?

The reason I brought it up is because the article mentions the pronunciations /ʀn/ and /ʀl/ for Southern Swedish, Southern Norwegian and Western Norwegian. As I've shown, this is not strictly correct when it comes to Western Norwegian. As for other peculiarities of West Norwegian dialects, I do not think they are of any interest to this article. An alternative to mentioning the pronounciations /dn/ and /dl/ for written rn and rl in West Norwegian dialects would perhaps be to remove the reference to Western Norwegian altogether? - JVea (talk) 12:11, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

That makes sense to me, given the information you've provided. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 16:46, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

kjol ('skirt')

In Norwegian kjole means dress. The word for skirt doesn't resemble this and there is no such word as kjol. Can someone who knows Swedish please find a word common to the 2 languages to put in here. Thank you, Hordaland (talk) 20:17, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I have never heard the word spoken in Swedish, but kjortel (kirtle) might work. Swedish Wikipedia even states that it is the origin of the word kjol, and therefore probably also kjole in Norwegian. If names can be used, I am quite certain that Kjell is the same in both languages. Ters (talk) 21:30, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Or Kina!? Hordaland (talk) 22:06, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Kjortel is a word I've heard in my native Swedish. But it's not very common nowadays and mostly used in folkloristic/historical/rural circumstances.--Paracel63 (talk) 19:35, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation request

Hi! Could someone help with the correct Swedish pronunciation with IPA of the names Robert (Robin) Sanno Fåhræus and Johan Torsten Lindqvist? It would make a lot of help for the article: Fåhræus–Lindquist effect and later in the biographical articles of the two scientists. Pls answer on the page Wikipedia talk:Swedish Wikipedians' notice board Thanks, Timur lenk (talk) 21:42, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Since that article is about an English term, the pronunciation should be in English, not Swedish. — kwami (talk) 21:49, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

An English term, created from the name of two Swedish guys. Naturally any foreign word can have one or more English reading, but I think it is usual to use something closer to the original pronunciation in such cases: like Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease where the J is pronounced [j] instead of [dʒ], or Mohorovičić discontinuity, and many others. In this particular case, letter å is rather pronounced [oː] instead of [ɑ], and the letter æ is rather [ɛː] than [iː]. However, I am not a native Swedish, I have only little idea of the correct pronunciation, so a native speaker could help a lot. Timur lenk (talk) 13:08, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK, the term has an established English pronunciation, and it's not that close to the Swedish. If you try to give it a Swedish pronunciation, people who know the term might not recognize it, or might think you're not familiar with it and correct you. — kwami (talk) 19:20, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Stockholm pronunciation

I think the pronunciation in Stockholm page ([ˈstɔkː.ˈɔlm]) is wrong. It should be [ˈstɔk.ˈhɔlm] plus the tones. The discussion continues here.--Carnby (talk) 22:34, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

ɧ - loch

I'm wondering if using the word "loch" here is appropriate as this probably would need another pronunciation key in turn. Many English speakers I know pronounce this as "lock". The best explanation for ɧ I've seen is "Johann Sebastian Bach", alternatively the proper pronunciation of the Jewish holiday "Hanuka", but this is often mispronounced also. Most English speakers come pretty close to the ɧ saying "Bach" however. --75.35.234.174 (talk) 18:45, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree that loch is a bad approximation. Although some individual Swedes do pronounce the sound like a "German ach" it's generally considered childish or unorthodox, and the k sound that many English-speakers substitute for it is entirely out of place. A /ʃ/ sound, on the other hand, is the standard pronunciation in northern Sweden and otherwise recognised as "a variant of the same sound". It also seems vastly more similar acoustically than /χ/ to most pronunciations of /ɧ/. So I have left only shoe for the time being. --Keinstein (talk) 20:22, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Norwegian ʃ and some pronunciation requests

Why is it that the article about Norwegian phonology uses ʃ, but it doesn't exist in this template? If you go to Omniglot, it also lists it. Doesn't it also appear here? Could someone check the transcription for Yngve Slyngstad?

It would also be appreciated if someone could add the pronunciation of the names of the people involved in the Bergen School of Meteorology: Tor Bergeron, Vilhelm Bjerknes and Jacob Bjerknes.

Pronunciation files

I recorded a full set of pronunciation files for Swedish phonemes several years ago. Most of them are linked from Swedish phonology. Why aren't they used here? I'm sure there are a few Norwegian recordings as well.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:09, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

ø versus œ (ö) in Swedish

Currently the article says that ø has no usage in English, while œ is pronounced as the vowel in "burn". As a native speaker of Swedish (Gothenburg dialect) I don't think this makes much sense. The two vowels are quite similar, and I usually don't make any distinction between them. There are also large differences between Swedish dialects that makes it harder to define exactly how they're supposed to be pronounced. I propose that the two different symbols are kept, but both are explained with the English words "girl" or "burn". 95.80.46.25 (talk) 17:32, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

That's likely because the dialects of Western Sweden have a lowered /ø:/ even outside the context of preceding /r/. This is a tendency among other dialects, including Central Swedish, but mostly with a younger generation of speakers. The dialects around Gothenburg are certainly one of the more prominent in Sweden, but they're still not as dominant as Central Swedish as spoken in and around Stockholm. In Stockholm and in most other dialects, unlowered /ø:/ is still somewhat of a standard.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:30, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

ʁ (in [nʏːnɔʁsk])

Looking at the Nynorsk article, I came here to look up ʁ and couldn't find it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:11, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm thinking it's about time we separate Swedish and Norwegian. The complexities of regional variations are going to wreck the tables sooner or later. I'm surprised we've had them stuck together as long as we have.

Peter ^Isotalo 12:57, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Peter, I do so agree! --Hordaland (talk) 19:37, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

It is done.

Peter ^Isotalo 20:42, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

There are some Swedish entries on the Norwegian page. It seems that in most cases where there was a split IPA column, the Swedish part was preserved, not the Norwegian part. Ters (talk) 05:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Be bold!

Peter ^Isotalo 07:03, 8 January 2015 (UTC)