Norwegian phonology

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The sound system of Norwegian is similar to Swedish. There is considerable variation among the dialects, but the variant generally taught to foreign students is Standard Østnorsk.

Contents 1 Consonants 2 Vowels 3 Accent 3.1 Tonal accents and morphology 3.2 Monosyllabic tonal accents 3.3 Loss of tonal accents 3.4 Pulmonic ingressive 4 References

[edit] Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Eastern Norwegian

	Bilabial/ Labiodental		Dental/ Alveolar		Retroflex/ Postalveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Plosives	p	b	t	d	ʈ	ɖ			k	g
Nasals	m		n		ɳ				ŋ
Fricatives	f		s		ʃ		ç				h
Liquids			ɾ, l		ɭ
Approximants	ʋ						j

Most of the retroflex (and postalveolar) consonants are mutations of [ɾ] or [l]+any other alveolar/dental consonant; rn /ɾn/ > [ɳ], rt /ɾt/ > [ʈ], rl /ɾl/ > [ɭ], rs /ɾs/ > [ʃ], etc. /ɾd/ across word boundaries (“sandhi”), in loanwords and in a group of primarily literary words may be pronounced [ɾd], e.g., verden [ˈʋæɾdn̩], but it may also be pronounced [ɖ] in some dialects. The most exotic of the retroflex consonants is the retroflex flap which is only found in a few languages worldwide. Most of the dialects in eastern and central Norway use the retroflex consonants. Most western and northern dialects do not have these retroflex sounds.

The retroflex flap, [ɽ], known to Norwegians as tjukk l ("thick l"), is not an independent phoneme, but an allophone of /l/. Traditionally it has not been used in Standard Østnorsk, and still many (especially the higher classes in Oslo) consider it vulgar and don't use it, but in several words it must now be considered standard.^[1] Many children and youths (especially in Oslo) don't master/use the palatal fricative.

In Southern and Western Norwegian more guttural realizations of the /r/-phoneme, known in Norwegian as skarring have become more commonplace in the last century. Depending on phonetic context voiceless ([χ]) or voiced uvular fricatives ([ʁ]) are used. The unvoiced stops are regularly aspirated.

Some loanwords and onomatopoeia are pronounced with external sounds, not used in proper Norwegian words: gin [dʒin], wow! [wau] and bzzzzz! [bz:::] (imitation of the sound of a bee).

[edit] Vowels

Vowel phonemes of Standard Østnorsk

Orthography	IPA	Description
a	/ɑ/	Open back unrounded
ai	/ɑɪ/
au	/æʉ/
e (short)	/ɛ/, /æ/	open mid front unrounded
e (long)	/e/, /æ/	close-mid front unrounded
e (weak)	/ə/	schwa (mid central unrounded)
ei	/æɪ/, /ɛɪ/
i (short)	/ɪ/	close front unrounded
i (long)	/i/	close front unrounded
o	/u, o, ɔ/	close back rounded
oi	/ɔʏ/
u	/ʉ/, /u/	close central rounded (close front extra rounded)
y (short)	/ʏ/	close front rounded (close front less rounded)
y (long)	/y/	close front rounded (close front less rounded)
æ	/æ/, /ɛ/	near open front unrounded
ø	/ø/	close-mid front rounded
øy	/øʏ/
å	/ɔ/	open-mid back rounded

There are many variations in vowel pronunciation in different dialects and idiolects of Norwegian, as in other Germanic languages. The above vowel chart is meant to be fairly representative of Standard Østnorsk.

Many don't consider the e (weak)/schwa to be a distinct vowel phoneme — but just an allophone of the e (short) in weak positions.

[edit] Accent

Norwegian is a pitch accent language with two distinct pitch patterns. They are used to differentiate two-syllable words with otherwise identical pronunciation. For example in many East Norwegian dialects, the word "bønder" (farmers) is pronounced using tone 1, while "bønner" (beans or prayers) uses tone 2. Though the difference in spelling occasionally allow the words to be distinguished in written language, in most cases the minimal pairs are written alike, since written Norwegian has no explicit accent marks. In most eastern low-tone 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 utterance-final fall that is so common in most languages is either very small or absent.

There are significant variations in pitch accent between dialects. Thus, 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 pitch accents (as well as the peculiar phrase accent in the low-tone dialects) give the Norwegian language a "singing" quality which makes it fairly easy to distinguish from other languages. Interestingly, accent 1 generally occurs in words that were monosyllabic in Old Norse, and accent 2 in words that were polysyllabic.

[edit] Tonal accents and morphology

In many dialects, the accents take on a central role in marking grammatical categories. Thus, the ending (T1)—en implies determinate form of a masculine monosyllabic noun (båten, bilen, (den store) skjelven), whereas (T2)-en denotes either determinate form of a masculine bisyllabic noun or an adjectivised noun/verb ((han var) skjelven, moden). Similarly, the ending (T1)—a denotes feminine singular determinate monosyllabic nouns (boka, rota) or neutrum plural determinate nouns (husa, lysa), whereas the ending (T2)—a denotes the preterite of weak verbs (rota, husa), feminine singular determinate bisyllabic nouns (bøtta, ruta, jenta).

[edit] Monosyllabic tonal accents

In some dialects of Norwegian, mainly those from Nordmøre and Trøndelag to Lofoten, there may also be tonal opposition in monosyllables, as in [ˈbiːl] (‘car’) vs. [ˌbiːl] (‘axe’). In a few dialects, mainly in and near Nordmøre, 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: [ˌhɑːniɲː] (‘the rooster’) vs. [ˌhɑˈːniɲː] (‘get him inside’); [ˈbryɲːa] (‘in the well’) vs. [ˈbryɲˈːa] (‘her well’); [ˈlænsmɑɲː] (‘sheriff’) vs. [ˈlænsˈmɑɲː] (‘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 [ˌvɔːg] (‘dare’) vs. [ˌvɔgː] (‘cradle’) have merged into [ˌvɔːg] in the dialect of Oppdal.

[edit] 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; and, also to various degrees, many dialects between Tromsø and the Russian border. Faroese and Icelandic, which have their main historical origin in Old Norse, 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.

[edit] Pulmonic ingressive

The word ja "yes" is sometimes pronounced with inhaled breath (pulmonic ingressive) in Norwegian — and this can be rather confusing for foreigners.

[edit] References

1. ^ Kristoffersen, Gjert (2000). The Phonology of Norwegian. Oxford University Press, 6-11. ISBN 9780198237655.