Talk:Norwegian phonology

message: Native Norwegian speaker here. On the David Jones recordings, ø is the cardinal vowel 11 /œ/, and I am unable to accurately reproduce cardinal vowel 10 /ø/, as well as finding it hard to distinguish it from /e/ and /y/ (it would pass as a dialectal variation of the letter e with no difficulty). Is this an error in Jones' pronounciation of the secondary vowels, or an error in this article, or a difference between Standard Østnorsk and what is spoken elsewhere? It'd draw a laugh around here (western norway) to hear "ø" rendered that way. (I double-checked with a female speaker from eastern norway, who also failed to recognize Jones' /ø/ as ø, but could easily recognize Jones' /œ/ as ø.) 88.90.141.213 22:32, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The cardinal vowels are vowels pushed to their limits, [i] would be explained by Jones himself as being produced by pushing your tongue as far forward and upward as possible without creating friction (Cardinal vowel). This means that none of us pronounces any of the cardinal vowels in normal conversational settings. The /i/ in / bi:l/ for instance is not cardinal vowel 1, since the cardinal vowels are intended rather as reference points than actual phonetic descriptions. So it wouldn't be strange if his cardinal vowel [ø] didn't match the norwegian realization of [ø]. More to the point however, /ø/ ia conventionally written as long [ø:] as in [sø:ɾ] "sør" and short [œ] as in [nœt] "nødt". (Kirsten Meyer Bjerkan og Kristian Emil Kristoffersen (2005: 186)) (I also took the liberty of moving your post to the body of the text!) All the best 146.247.219.45 (talk) 02:09, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cardinal vowels 

message: you write: Most of the retroflex (and postalveolar) consonants are mutations of [ɾ] ... rs /ɾs/ > [ʃ] - do you not mean [ʂ] instead of [ʃ] in this case? Admittedly, these sound very similar anyway. njaard (talk) 07:16, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  rs /ɾs/ > [ʃ] 

message: The accents were transcibed as primary and secondary stress, which may be convenient but is meaningless in the context of the article. I've sub'd tone marks which word quite nicely for most dialects. However, they make little sense when extended to dialects that extend tone to the second syllable. (But then, neither did the stress marks make any sense.) Can someone expand / clarify? kwami (talk) 02:45, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  accent 

message: Quoting from the article "The retroflex flap, [ɽ], known to Norwegians as tjukk l ("thick l"), is not an independent phoneme, but an allophone of /l/". 
I am a Norwegian who uses the Standard Østnorsk dialect, and I can make out minimal pairs from [ɽ] and /l/. Here are some examples:
mal (/ma:l/) = template </br>
mal (/ma:ɽ/)  = imperative form of "to paint"
skål (/skɔːl/) = cheers</br>
skål (/skɔːɽ/) = bowl
Note that not everybody who speaks Standard Østnorsk differenciate between /l/ and /ɽ/ by simply saying /l/ all the time.I may be wrong, but as there are minimal pairs of /l/ and /ɽ/, is /ɽ/ an allophone of /l/? Simny (talk) 07:59, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  [ɽ] allophone of /l/ 

message: According to this article, the sound at the beginning of Risør or Roald is an alveolar tap, because that's what it lists for the rhotic sound.  Is this correct for Standard Østnorsk?  I realize they say it differently in the southern and western areas of Norway.  It would be nice to see a source and or hear from a native speaker.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.104.45.20 (talk) 06:50, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Pronunciation of rhotic

message: Just wondering if anyone could clarify this for me. The article uses [bìːl] as an example of a word meaning axe in certain Norwegian dialects. I'm a native Norwegian speaker myself, but I can't remember ever encountering this usage. In fact, it sounds so odd I'm tempted to suggest there must be a mistake, maybe a misunderstanding of some sort. If I'm wrong, could someone please tell me where exactly [bìːl] would be understood as axe? Maitreya (talk) 14:08, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's a mistake. The form [bìːl] is probably the result of apocope of the unstressed vowel in bile, which is a special type of axe.--195.0.221.197 (talk) 22:55, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  [bìːl]? 

message: The vowel phoneme table seems to miss the vowel in "kjær", isn' it [ɛː] or [æː] ?  Or does the paranthesizing of (æ) and (æː) come from a misunderstanding? There's a phonemic difference between ser [seːɾ] (see, present tense) and sær [sɛːɾ]/[sæːɾ] (strange, particular). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 09:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Vowel in kjær

message: The summary here sounds like it is presenting Norwegian as a dialect of Swedish. That, of course, isn't correct. Also, the sound systems may be similar, but there are vast differences as well - most Swedes would say that to them, Norwegian sounds like singing of sorts, compared to their own language. Naturally, this isn't a scientific opinion or fact, but the summary of this article might be misleading in implying the closeness of the two sound systems. 
Murdockh (talk) 12:38, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe not singing, but chuckling or something. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:18, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Hehe...chuckling? Have you ever heard Norwegian? :D Murdockh (talk) 18:41, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I see you're from Sweden... of course you've heard it. Like I said, it's not a scientific or accurate way of describing it - it's only how I've heard Swedes articulate it. My point still stands though - I think the summary should be revised. Murdockh (talk) 18:44, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: You know, I have relatives on my father's side, so I heard Norwegian many times. I just don't agree that Norwegian sounds more like singing than Swedish does. It sounds more cheerful, possibly, not more melodic. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:27, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swedish/Norwegian in summary 

message: 1. Lack of usage or not, Nynorsk phonology should be explicitly included, as a standard form. If there is no difference, it should be stated in the article. But I reckon since Nynorsk is somewhat a collection of West-dialects, there's such a thing as a standard.
2. The article doesn't make clear, whether the dialects which don't have the retroflex sounds use </br>
a) A combination of r+consonant </br>
b) no r, but the normal version of the consonantDakhart (talk) 20:59, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Things amiss 

message: What are the reasons for having /ʃ/ and /ʂ/ as different phonemes? As far as I can tell, they are the same sound, possibly with positional/allophonic differences. They don't contrast in any word, so I'm inclined to believe that the distinction here is influenced by etymology/spelling. My suggestion is to take away /ʃ/ altogether.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.8.52.123 (talk) 08:59, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  The phonemic status of /ʂ/ and /ʃ/ 

message: The articles Voiceless palatal affricate and Voiced palatal affricate describe these sounds as pronunciations of the clusters kkj and ggj (respectively) in Norwegian. Furthermore, the article Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate describes this sound as a pronunciation of kj in the word "kjøkken". The article presently makes no mention of affricates in Norwegian (except in its description of [d͡ʒ] as a foreign sound). This should probably be considered a fault in the article at present.
As a native speaker who uses affricate pronunciations, I find it highly confusing that the articles mentioned above mention [c͡ç] in the pronunciation of "ikkje", but [t͡ʃ] in "kjøken". I pronounce them exactly the same. That is, as [t͡ʃ], and I have never encountered anyone who makes any such distinction. It seems rather absurd to me. Furthermore, the pronunciation of "leggja" as [leɟ͡ja] seems rather suspicious to me. I have only ever heard it realized as [lɛd͡ʒa] (as I do myself) when an affricate is used in that position.
Just so it is said. There is no question that numerous Norwegian dialects (the articles on Wikipedia say western and central) have affricates in their phonemic inventory. It is just that Wikipedia is very confusing on this issue at present.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.244.241.51 (talk) 01:52, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Which dialect do you speak, exactly? No offense, but I'm struggling to determine whether you're using the wrong IPA symbols or if your pronunciations are just very unusual. Maitreya (talk) 11:48, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Palatal or postalveolar affricates? 

message: Could someone add the Norwegian language pronunciation for Tor Bergeron, Vilhelm Bjerknes and Carl Anton Bjerknes? Thank you!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.238.215.134 (talk) 09:16, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bjerknes and Bergeron 

message: First of all, this article is not at all consistent. The article starts by declaring that "This article describes the phonology of Standard Østnorsk" (itself a semi-fictional concept), but then goes on to discuss several different dialects and regional variations in addition to Standard Østnorsk. While I personally find it strange that an article on Norwegian phonology should be limited to a single dialect, I think the article should at least be consistent. Either the statement that the article describes the phonology of Standard østnorsk should be removed, or the article should be reduced so that it only deals with Standard østnorsk.
That aside, I think the article contains some confusing sentences at the moment:
"The retroflex flap, [ɽ], known to Norwegians as tjukk l ("thick l"), is not an independent phoneme, but an allophone of /ɭ/. Although traditionally an Eastern Norwegian dialect phenomenon, it was considered vulgar, and for a long time it was avoided. Nowadays it is considered standard."
In what way is it considered standard? As the article already mentions, there is no official standard for Norwegian pronunciation and to the best of my knowledge it is not the de facto standard (as in, most common) pronunciation in Standard østnorsk, either.
"Many speakers (especially in Bergen (where it is an established dialect phenomenon) and Oslo) use the voiceless palatal fricative, merging it with the voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/."
The voiceless palatal fricative exists in practically all Norwegian dialects. What the contributor is probably trying to say is that many speakers in Bergen and Oslo are unable to produce the sound and so use the voiceless postalveolar fricative instead (often considered a childish speech defect by speakers of other dialects). Given how this is presented in the article, however, a reader unfamiliar with Norwegian could be forgiven for assuming that only some speakers in Bergen and Oslo use the voiceless palatal fricative at all.
I will post this for discussion before changing anything myself, but I definitely feel the article needs to be cleaned up. Maitreya (talk) 12:48, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inconsistencies and General Confusion 

message: The idea of phonemic retroflex sounds seems entirely arbitrary. As far as I can tell, they exist only when /n, t, d, s, l/ are preceded by /r/, even across word boundaries. The exact same process of retroflexion appears in Swedish phonology, but no one ever considers them separate phonemes.
The article doesn't seem to have any appropriate explanation for why the manifestation of sandhi should be given phonemic status.
Peter Isotalo 09:15, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know, but it's not that simple. At the very least, I think the L should be kept, because it's retroflex (or postalveolar?) in all positions except following A, O and short O. Also, that's not true for retrpflex S either. S appears on its own without any Rs nearby. (It also interacts in the spread of retroflexes, if that means anything.) The only ones that need an R are T, D and N.
Wait, the postalveolar S is also listed? Then forget about the S, I can't even hear the difference. The Norwegian Wikipedia removed the ʃ altogether.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.212.153.191 (talk) 20:02, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

text: By the way, why does the palatal fricative need a source but nothing else?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.212.153.191 (talk) 19:58, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Retroflex "phonemes" 

message: I'd like to know how to pronounce aa in the name Ødegaard. Here it is stated that Norwegian has /oː/ and /ɔ/ sounds, and on the article of å they state that å (= aa ?) can represent either /ɔ/ or /ɔː/. However, on the article about Johan Nygaardsvold, the pronunciation of the name is given as [ˈnyːɡoːrsvɔl] (with long /o/), while the pronunciation of Jostein Gaarder is given as [ˈɡɔːrdər] (with long /ɔ/). So how can we know when aa in different words should be pronounced as /ɔ/, /ɔː/ or /oː/? Does the pronunciation of aa have anything to do with the word stress?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.54.192.143 (talk) 12:24, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: In Norwegian, "aa" is just an archaic orthographic variant of "å", retained primarily in names. As far as I can tell, /ɔː/ and /oː/ (and /ɔ/ and /o/) are allophones in Norwegian, and transcriptions (and pronunciations!) may vary. This article uses /ɔː/ while the IPA guide for Norwegian uses /oː/, but they represent the same phoneme in Norwegian: "long å". The typical value of this vowel doesn't exactly match either the /ɔ/ or /o/ clips on Wikipedia, so the choice is somewhat arbitrary: I'd personally lean towards /ɔː/. The precise realization no doubt depends on phonetic context, but I think the only meaning-bearing differences are pitch and length, which as you say are determined in part by the stress pattern. To transcribe "Ødegaard", I would propose ['øːdəgoːr] (following the guide). It's distinguished from the phrase "øde gård" ("deserted farm") by its pitch pattern (tone 1, if I'm not much mistaken): getting that right is more important than the exact quality of the å. Snarkibartfast (talk) 08:58, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  Actually, this article uses . Peter238 (talk) 00:33, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation of ''aa'' 

message: It seems like g and d in the recording of The North Wind and the Sun are not pronounced in some cases: og , seg , nordavinden  gående , gjelde  (should probably actually be  though). At the moment, I don't see anything about this in the Consonant section. It's a confusing thing to an English speaker like me because I would pronounce g and d in those phonetic environments, so it's worth explaining. — Eru·tuon 00:24, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you're right, they're not pronounced, but I'm not sure about the rules that are behind deleting them, apart from the fact that the initial <gj> is realized as  (this should probably be seen as palatalization of the former  written with a useless <j>, rather than dropping the ). Peter238 (talk) 00:49, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

text: /nd/ is generally pronounced like a double n: the preceding vowel is short. compare /sende/, /vende/, and all /-ende/ endings. As for /g/, /og/ is always pronounced . /seg/ is pronounced , but when spoken quickly it can be reduced to , which is what we see here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Espensj (talk • contribs) 17:49, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion of ''g'' and ''d'' 

message: The transcription of "gående" in "Da kom det en mann gående med en varm frakk på seg" appears to have a mistake. It should be /²goːənə/ and /²goˑənə/. Right? Similarly, "mannen", "frakken", "rømte", and a few other words don't have a tone mark. It seems inconsistent to me.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Espensj (talk • contribs) 17:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: It is consistent with the source. Peter238 (talk) 17:58, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mistake in transcription? 

message: The Nynorsk and French versions of this article includes a palato-alveolar ESH as a phoneme. But the English-language article does not. What's up? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Traversetravis (talk • contribs) 02:19, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Palato-alveolar [ʃ] 

message: From the article: "Most Southern and Western dialects do not have these retroflex sounds, because in these areas a guttural realization of the /r/ phoneme is commonplace, and seems to be expanding." Is guttural R really the reason that retroflex consonants have not spread to the southern and western areas? This seems unlikely, since guttural R in western dialects has spread fast in the 20th century (for example, in the areas around Bergen, most of the elderly people use a trilled [r], and in Sogn and Fjordane the trill is still the norm), and none of these areas have ever used retroflexes. Of course, the realization of the rhotic may still be a cause for why the western dialects do not use retroflexes (trill vs. tap/flap?), but putting guttural R as the reason seems anachronistic. If anyone has sources on this, please correct me, but I have found nothing that explains why retroflex consonants are not found in all of Norway. Highheath (talk) 15:36, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guttural R and lack of retroflexes 

message: Is it really correct that Norwegian uses /æ/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-open_front_unrounded_vowel
and not /a/ as found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_front_unrounded_vowel
As a native English (RP) speaker that is learning Norwegian I almost always hear the second vowel in the speech of Norwegians when they speak words that in Norwegian orthography are written with an æ. Is this a consequence of my (misleading) English ears, or is this article in error? 
Also, when I hear German learners of Norwegian (which around me there are many) speak Norwegian, then unlike the Norwegians they often do seem to use /æ/ or /ɛ/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_front_unrounded_vowel which to my English ears are basically indistinguishable.
84.215.97.119 (talk) 01:42, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not familiar with RP, but my understanding is that the RP 'cat' vowel is moving from [æ] to [a]. Of course, it also depends on which dialect of Norwegian. If you check Popperwell The Pronunciation of Norwegian, p. 16, the locations of long /æː/ (as in lær 'leather') and /ɑː/ (as in far 'father') are plotted very close to English /æ/ and /ɑː/. Since Popperwell is from U Cambridge, I assume that by "English" he means RP, though perhaps a conservative variety of RP. — kwami (talk) 21:02, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

text: Per Kristoffersen (2000) (Urban East) Norwegian  is open central, whereas  is open back. Vanvik (1979) reports a similar pronunciation in Trondheim, except for the fact that  is open front in that dialect. So you are right, AFAICS. Or, perhaps,  is closer to open front in Oslo. You can't really tell from the formant chart, IMO. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 09:06, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

text: IP, what about the current recording of ? It was vandalized 4 years ago and replaced by a recording that sounds like cardinal . Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 11:39, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  is somewhere between  and , but not as central as . It's probably like RP , more or less. Sol505000 (talk) 07:46, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is it really correct that Norwegian (Standard East Norwegian) uses the vowel /æ/ and not /a/ ? 

message: The current article states:
"The close  have been variously described as protruded  and compressed  as well as compressed  and protruded ."
I have no access to the source; it does not seem to be fully public. But could this sentence by any chance include a typo? I.e. could the intended text be:
The close  have been variously described as protruded  and compressed  as well as protruded  and compressed . ?
Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_back_rounded_vowel, where superscript w is used for protrusion. Also the diacritic horizontal double arrow suggests lip spreading, i.w. compression.Redav (talk) 11:28, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Typo w.r.t. protruded and compressed? 

message: At least the links from ɛ and ɔ lead to the mid front rounded vowel and the open back (rounded/unrounded) vowel instead of open-mid front rounded vowel and open-mid rounded vowel, respectively SaavayuAdrin (talk) 15:14, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: linking to  is appropriate given the vowel chart.  linking to  is indeed weird; it should probably link to , and  to .  Thoughts? Nardog (talk) 16:59, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  is the value given by Vanvik (1979) as well as Kvifte & Gude-Husken (2005). We better link to , IMO, as that's what our vowel chart shows. It's more contrastive with , which is incorrectly described as central by Vanvik (or maybe its description as central is correct, and the vowel is more front than . Dunno, really). Sol505000 (talk) 06:18, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. What about ? Nardog (talk) 07:57, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: (Sorry, the first ping didn't work). I can't recall all of the descriptions but they're all over the place. Only Kristoffersen semi-sorta-assumes the merger with the schwa (on a *phonetic* level, unless I'm missing something), other authors don't and describe the vowel as front (open-mid or somewhat closer). Maybe we should switch over to  for the short vowels after all? I'd use  for the mid "front" rounded vowels as they're phonemically central (per Kristoffersen), but that'd be an overkill, AFAICS. Sol505000 (talk) 00:24, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  IPA character links to wrong page 

message: It's rather uninformative to group velars /k/ and /g/ and the palatals /ç/ and /j/ in the same column because both pairs are 'dorsal'. This may work for somebody's abstract phonological analysis, but it's rather counterproductive when it comes to actually informing people about the way the language is pronounced. Kristoffersen (2000: 22), who was no stranger to abstract phonological modelling, nevertheless had the good sense to give two separate columns for the velars and the palatals in his initial phonetic exposition. 62.73.69.121 (talk) 00:57, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Dorsal'