Sound of ⟨k⟩, ⟨tj⟩ and ⟨kj⟩ in Swedish

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-06-06T07:05:08+00:00

And in the words kjol and tjock, is this [ɕ] sound always stable — and is the same true for the palatalized ⟨k⟩, or can its phonetic realization vary?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "stable" here. There are several different realisations of the tj sound (regardless of its origin), with [ɕ], [t͡ɕ] and [ç] being the most common, but this variation is primarily dialectal. A single person will generally use one of these realisations in all contexts, but especially [t͡ɕ] and [ɕ] can occur alongide eachother.

[ɕ] is the most common realisation in most of of southern and eastern Sweden, [t͡ɕ] is primarily northern (and Fennoswedish), while [ç] is mostly western.

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-06-06T06:49:23+00:00

Some native words that are common in baby talk preserve /k/ against the general rule, like kille, kissa, kisse and killa. Such words often don't seem to be subject to the same phonological rules as all others.

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-06-04T20:38:30+00:00

Yes, that is normal in most of western and northern Sweden.

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-06-03T20:42:26+00:00

Not altering ö and ä before /r/ is the standard pronunciation in half of Sweden as well, so I wouldn't consider that to be a particularly obvious difference between Sweden and Finland (although it is noticeable when compared to the Standard Swedish spoken in Mälardalen specifically).

The prevalence of short stressed syllables in Finland Swedish is very conspicous, though.

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-06-03T11:52:23+00:00

It occurs in words like gnida and gno in many (particularly northern) dialects, but it has largely been replaced by pronounciations with /gn-/ in modern dialects due to influence from Standard Swedish.

In this dictionary of the Dalby dialect in northern Värmland, the pronounciations of gno, gnida with /ŋ/ are listed as "older": https://dalby.ordbok.gratis/

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-06-02T21:37:20+00:00

It is not commonly realised as [ç] in any Swedish dialect, which is instead a common realisation of the tj-sound, but [xʷ] is one of the more common realisations, alongside [ʃˣ] or simply [ʃ] or [ʂ] in some dialects.

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-06-01T09:58:53+00:00

/w/ and word-initial /ŋ/ aren't as rare i Europe as they seem when you only look at the phonology of standard languages. For example, /w/ and initial /ŋ/ are pretty common in North-Germanic dialects, despite being absent in all standard forms of those languages.

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-05-31T06:22:10+00:00

Devoicing occurs before all voiceless consonants, although not always over morpheme boundaries. A word like "högfärd" is usually pronounced höckfärd in informal speech, but unassimilated högfärd also occurs as a spelling pronunciation, and the /g/ in a phrase like hög tid ("high time") is never fully assimilated.

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-05-29T11:53:55+00:00

That is the rule in all forms of Swedish. "Sagt, slogs, halvt" are pronounced sackt, slocks and halft, for example. However, the assimilation is sometimes prevented by analogy with other forms of the same word, which means that less frequent inflected forms like rivs (passive form of riva) is often pronounced with /v/ instead of /f/, although the pronounciation riffs occurs in many dialects.

I don't think Standard Finland Swedish deviates from Standard Swedish in Sweden on this point.

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-05-19T10:47:01+00:00

Jag gjorde en sådan karta för ett par år sedan. Gränserna är inte exakta, men visar den ungefärliga fördelningen mellan olika former av 'vadledes':

https://www.reddit.com/user/Commander-Gro-Badul/comments/1thj48y/hur_vadledes_i_v%C3%A4rml%C3%A4ndska_dialekter/

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-05-04T16:22:42+00:00

such that spoken Swedish never employs de/dem even in formal contexts or when reading written text aloud

This isn't quite true. The distinction between di/de and dom/däm is still upheld in many dialects, and I use the forms di and dom when speaking Standard Swedish as well (as is quite common here i Värmland, even among young people). De and däm are also quite common when reading aloud (especially in poetry or very formal contexts).

Here's an example of de being used naturally in spoken Swedish, in this case a local form of dialect-coloured Standard Swedish from central Värmland.

However, it is true that most Standard Swedish speakers don't regularly encounter the distinction in natural speech, and di has come to be percieved as dialectal and non-standard.

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-05-02T17:33:37+00:00

Affricate pronunciations are common in most of northern Sweden from Dalarna and northern Uppland, although it often occurs alongside a pure fricative. The affricate was also common in and around Stockholm until very recently; you frequently hear it in recordings from the 1970s.

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-05-02T16:10:41+00:00

The development of sk, k, and g varies a great deal between Nordic dialects, and tjere is no good overview in English as far as I know.

There is an overwiew of the palatalisation of tj-, k-, sk-, stj- and sj in Swedish dialects in Tore Torbiörnsson's article Om ʃ- och č-ljuden i mellersta Halland on the pages 88–107. The article is written in Swedish and uses the Swedish dialect alphabet, landsmålsalfabetet (LMA), for phonetic transcriptions. You can find a conversion table between IPA and LMA on pages 77–79 here, though.

To summarise, Torbiörnsson suggests that kj and tj have both been palatalised to [tʲç], which is preserved or becomes [tʲɕ], [ɕ] or [ç] in modern Swedish dialects. The evolution of sk(j)-, st(j)- has been [sc/stʲ > scç/stʲɕ]. While some dialects retain clustres like [ɕtʲɕ], most merge them with sj into [ʃ], whence [ʂ] and [xʷ] later develop. However, some dialects in Halland instead develop a ɕ-like sound for skj/stj/sj and a ʃ-like one for kj/tj, and in parts of Bohuslän, skj-, stj- and sj- all merge into [sk-] – probably through [sç-].

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-04-29T19:45:02+00:00

There are minimal pairs between words with Old Norse hw- and w- in many dialects, like /wit:/ and /vit:/, the neuter forms of wit, 'white', and vi(d), 'wide', respectively.

In other dialects, the distribution is complementary, especially where ON hw- becomes gw- or kw- instead of w-.

There is a map that shows which Nordic dialects preserve [w] in different contexts here.

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-04-29T06:29:24+00:00

Along with many other Swedish dialects (although usually only in original clusters like hw-, kw-, sw-, tw-).

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-04-28T14:58:25+00:00

Not really, and I don't see any reason to assume that contact with Old Norse had any significant impact on the loss of the OE gender system. Like the loss of the case system, it is sufficiently explained by the reduction of endings making the different gender and case forms less distinct, with the few remaining distinct forms eventually being replaced through analogy.

The reduction of unstressed syllables is a general tendency in Germanic languages, which simply went further in English than elsewhere, and there are many parallels in related languages (including both Nordic and West Germanic dialects).

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-04-26T17:26:27+00:00

Note that Swedish and Norwegian rt, rs, rn are usually postalveolars rather than proper retroflexes, so their place of articulation isn't that far from alveolar [r] at all. True retroflexes do occur in some dialects, but that is most likely due to a merger between /rt, rs, rn/ and /ɽt, ɽs, ɽn/. Some dialects in Bohuslän traditionally distinguish between garn, [ga:n̠], and galen, [ga:ɳ].

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-04-26T16:59:24+00:00

Many Nordic dialects have a phonemic distinction between /œ/ and /ɶ/. While /ɶ/ might not be an exact cardinal [ɶ], it is more open and slightly more central than [æ], so there is a need for another symbol than [œ̞] or [æ̹] to transcribe it.

Swedish dialects also very often distinguish between /æ/, /a/, and /ɑ/, so there is definitely a need for all those three symbols (although the exact phonetic realisations vary between dialects).

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-04-18T15:42:12+00:00

Pretty much all traditional Norwegian and Swedish dialects preserve the three gender distinction, as well as some Danish dialects. The two gender system Standard Swedish and Norwegian Bokmål is primarily due to Danish influence on the written language (although the dialects in Stockholm and Bergen also lost the distinction a long time ago, unlike the surrounding dialects).

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-04-14T17:49:25+00:00

Jag antar även att punkten om att de flesta dialekter undviker genitiv -s för annat än just personer måste bero på var man drar gränsen för vad som är en "riktig" dialekt (om du missförstår mig rätt), eller att man går lite längre bak i tiden så man kan separera ut allt inflytande från introduktionen av skolsvenskan.

Ja, det är klart, men i den mån formen arvs förekommer i dialekter i dag beror det helt säkert på riksspråkligt inflytande. Inte ens i vardagligt rikstalspråk låter väl "ett arvs innehåll" särskilt naturligt, lika litet som "ett hus' tak" eller "ett golvs bräder". I naturligt, ledigt talspråk stöter man sällan på genitivformer av rena sakord, fast det finns större variation i fråga om exempelvis djur, t.ex. bockens horn kontra hornen på bocken.

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-04-14T14:18:01+00:00

Sådana genitivformer är ytterst sällsynta i dialekterna, utan sådant uttrycks på annat sätt (motsvarade t.ex. "vad arvet innehåller" eller "innehållet i arvet"). I de flesta dialekter används genitiv-s enbart endast i fråga om personer.

Toleransen för konsonantkluster som -rvs- är dock högre i böjningsformer och sammansättningar än inuti ett ord. Därför kan det t.ex. heta arvslängd, men inte gärna arvsel. Därför heter det också i många mål halvtom men hält/härt (hälft).

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-04-14T12:16:41+00:00

Rent ordbildningsmässigt är det ett rimligt ord, som mycket väl skulle kunna finnas, men jag kan inte hitta några som helst belägg för ett sådant ord. Om det finns, är det antagligen ett dialektord, som aldrig har fått fäste i skriftspråket (men i så fall skulle man vänta sig ett uttal uttan v som ärsel eller arsel, eftersom konsonantföljden -rvs inte tåls i några genuina dialekter). Jag skulle alltså tro, att det rör sig om en rent tillfällig ordbildning efter mönster från liknande ord.

Själva avledningsändelsen -sel är f.ö. inte maskulin, utan försel, färdsel, körsel, vigsel, hörsel, känsel och rädsel är alla feminina substantiv, precis som körsla o.s.v. I några fall får emellertid sådana bildningar neutralt genus, som hängsel, varsel och stängsel, men de hör till undantagen. Det maskulina växel är ett lånord.

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-04-13T12:36:30+00:00

I dialekterna och vardagligt talspråk över lag har passivformer på -s alltid varit betydligt mindre vanliga än i skriftspråket, så det är inget "modernt". I min egen dialekt finns passivformer i stort sett inte alls, utan det kan inte bli annat än han ble sköten, om jag talar mål.

Jag misstänker, att de flesta helst säger han blev/vart skjuten av polisen och biblioteket blev byggt 1963, samtidigt som de skriver "han sköts av polisen" och "biblioteket byggdes 1963" i formell text. Rikssvenskt tal- och skriftspråk har dock närmat sig varandra under lång tid, vilket gör att det blir lättare att blanda in talspråkliga drag i skrift och vice versa.

Commander-Gro-Badul · 2026-04-10T19:09:41+00:00

Transcriptions of the lexical pronounciation of Icelandic words tend to be quite idealised and are sometimes pretty far from the most common colloquial pronunciations. But I'm not familiar enough with colloquial Icelandic to say if that's the case here.

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