7.2.5 The Swedish language
Description
This article is from the Nordic countries FAQ, by Antti Lahelma and Johan Olofsson, with numerous contributions by others.
7.2.5 The Swedish language
Swedish is a Germanic language, very closely related to Danish and Norwegian
(most Swedes can understand Danish and Norwegian), and somewhat less close
to Icelandic, German, Dutch and English. There are many words borrowed from
German, French (18th Century) and English (later). Except for in Sweden,
Swedish is spoken by a native minority in Finland, and a nowadays very small
minority at the Estonian coast and islands.
Peculiar with the Swedish language is that there exist not only one, but at
least four hight status dialects (and sociolects): One southern, connected
with Scania and the University in Lund, one western spoken by affluent
people in and around Gothenburg/Göteborg, one eastern valid in Finland (for
instance on stage in Helsinki/Helsingfors), and finally the sociolect spoken
by higher officials, actors and others in the capital, which serves as high
status standard for the rest of Sweden, connected with the University in
Uppsala. Besides there exist at least a dozen of still distinguishable
dialects, or dialect groups, but after the breakthrough for radio and TV
these dialects have been heavily influented by the equalizing effect of the
broadcasting media. (A recent unsolved dispute in the newsgroup was whether
the Scanian dialects rightfully is to classify as East-Danish together with
the dialect on Bornholm, or with the dialects of Götaland i.e. in Göteborg,
Småland and Östergötland.)
For non-Nordics who attempt to learn the Swedish language, the pronunciation
might seem rather difficult, since Swedish (at least the "standard" variety
of it spoken in Sweden) has several unusual vowels and consonants, e.g.
retroflexed dentals and the "sj"-sound in sjuk "sick" which are not found in
other European languages. Distinct word tones also characterize certain
elements of its vocabulary, for which reason acquisition of a good Swedish
pronunciation requires a considerable amount of commitment and work. The
serious student of Swedish also has to learn to deal with regional varieties
such as Scanian and Finland-Swedish, both of which differ sharply in
pronunciation from the Stockholm-area oriented standard "broadcast" Swedish.
Erland Sommarskog <sommar@algonet.se> replies:
To be fair, dialects of Swedish are not worse than say of Italian.
- Or for that matter, English.
You don't need to bother about the "sj" in "sjuk". While as noted above,
this is a strange creature, it is also subject to huge variation, and if you
get in conversation with some Swedes you might find that every one is
pronouncing the sound differently - even that the same person is chosing
different realiasations on different occassions. Phonemically you would
write them all /S/, you can use the sound for "sh" in "shoe" without being
particularly wrong. You will then have to learn to distinguish this alevoar
fricative from the palatal fricative in "tjuv" - then again, there are
Swedes who don't.
From my experience the retroflexes does not cause much problems either. Odd
as they are, foreigners seem to pick them up quite easily. And, again, it is
possible to avoid them. They arise when 'r' is followed by 's', 'n', 'd',
't' and 'l', but several dialects pronounce them separately. And while in
Sweden this is dialects have an uvular or velar 'r', I know people who speak
with a front 'r' and yet do not use retroflexes without having any
Finland-Swedish ancestry at all. How this has come about I don't know, but
I'm suspecting these individuals to have abandoned their original dialect
for an over-correct standard Swedish.
There are nevertheless some difficult sound in Swedish. 'u' as in "kul" is a
rounded semi-high front vowel which has few equals. To a foreigner it might
seem close to 'y' which is a rounded high front vowel, but I can assure you
to a Swede they are most definitely not.
Then again, I once spoke with a British gentleman who said "Sturegatan". His
'u' was perfect, but the first 'a' in "gatan" revealed him directly. To wit,
the 'a' is the same as in "father" but with slightly different colour.
Anyway, Swedish pronouciation is probably difficult because it is so
irregular. Not so bad as English, but bad enough. One thing we are
particularly fond of are homographs, that is words with the same spelling
but different pronounciation: "vän", "kort", "hov", "vits", "hänger".
Continue to:
My Books
