PRONUNCIATION // Uttale

[Aleco]

Hey guys!

I wanted to open one more of these threads. This time it's a thread where you can ask questions regarding phonology and pronunciation of Norwegian. I've been contemplating this for a while (in danger of moving this whole subforum into these stickies), but figured it would be okay.

Shoot with any questions you may have

[Raufoss]

Hey guys!

I wanted to open one more of these threads. This time it's a thread where you can ask questions regarding phonology and pronunciation of Norwegian.

Dette er en flott idé Aleco!

[TeneReef]

I find the retroflex s difficult to pronounce (as in Norsk). Other retroflex consonants after r are not that difficult (I'm familiar with them from Tamil and Malayalam).

Is this song in Bokmål? Or in an Oslo accent?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoZomkqG-bE

I would love to learn to speak like her.

[Aleco]

Really? Just move your tongue a little further back, and you should be fine

YouTube is extremely slow on my laptop, but if she pronounces things anything like her song Bli hos meg, it is pure Osloan Bokmål, yes

I could watch the first couple of second... this is a rip-off of a Swedish song, and some things sound very Swedish ...

[TeneReef]

Norwegian ø sounds like [ɐ] to me, and not like [ø]/[œ].

http://www.forvo.com/word/dr%C3%B8m_s%C3%B8tt/#no

See here, the Norwegian guy is pronouncing schmø with [ɐ ] while immigrants are using [ø]/[œ]:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH0aB-c1uPI

[EinarJ]

Is this song in Bokmål? Or in an Oslo accent?

That question makes little sense, apart from the choice of words used in the song, as Bokmål/Nynorsk have no set pronounciation standard, the one's that tend to be used for examples are usually oslo-region-dialects. (Standard østlandsk)

Norwegian ø sounds like [ɐ] to me, and not like German ö.

I don't hear any real difference in that clip, and I don't really know IPA. Usually I tend to tell people to use the same sound that you will find in certain variants of english in the words burn, turn, churn, learn.

[TeneReef]

This is what I've heard [ɐ] (or between [ɜ] and [ɐ]).
I don't know why in books they tell us it's like German schön.
drøm sounds American English drum with a different rhotic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_c ... nded_vowel

[Diogenes]

To me, the German ö sounds much more rounded than the Norwegian ø.

drøm sounds American English drum with a different rhotic

Although I would not say this is true. The vowel in drum is unrounded, while drøm is rounded and a little more to the front.

[Aleco]

Well, in that clip, Schjerven thought it was "sjmæ," and not "sjmø" - he read it wrong

[TeneReef]

To me, the German ö sounds much more rounded than the Norwegian ø.

drøm sounds American English drum with a different rhotic

Although I would not say this is true. The vowel in drum is unrounded, while drøm is rounded and a little more to the front.

I only hear drøm as unrounded in Oslo accent.

This is what the author of ''The Phonology of Norwegian '' (Gjert Kristoffersen) says after the acoustic analysis of Norwegian vowels has been made:

That [œ] and [ə] have identical values is somewhat unexpected...[ ]...
Tromsø ~ homse ‘homosexual (coll.)’. This pair would not normally be considered as rhyming, but this may be due to convention and spelling.

The author himself is surprised when the results of acoustic analysis came.


I guess /œ/ [ɜ] in Norwegian is just like /ʌ/ [ɜ] in American English.
or /ʌ/ [ɐ] in British English...The phonetic pronunciation has moved away from the phonologic pronunciation.

[Aleco]

The final -ø in such names have always been identical to unstressed e when I talk.

Tromsø - /ˈtʰɾʊmsə/
skjørt - /ʃœʈʰ/
skjøt - /ʃøːtʰ/

[TeneReef]

skjøt
http://es.forvo.com/word/skj%C3%B8t/

I hear it as [ʃəːt]
(Pretty unrounded, unlike French je, and unlike French sœur)


Per Olav Øien
http://es.forvo.com/word/per_olav_%C3%B8ien/
Here, I can hear [œj]

[Aleco]

His pronunciation is definitely not /@/, but /9/, which is not how I would say it. I don't know why he pronounces it the way he does, though, but maybe that's how they do it where he lives. We don't learn about phonology at school, other than kj vs sj, rulle-r vs skarre-r, palatalization, and retroflex r. Therefore, subtle differences occur even when people speakr "standard østnorsk".

EDIT:
E.g. the woman's pronunciation of Solveig, hinsidige and farse is different from mine.

[Diogenes]

I guess /œ/ [ɜ] in Norwegian is just like /ʌ/ [ɜ] in American English.
or /ʌ/ [ɐ] in British English...The phonetic pronunciation has moved away from the phonologic pronunciation.

This pronunciation of ø as unrounded is merely a dialectical thing though, right? As in, it's still rounded in many places, just not today's Oslo dialect.

[Aleco]

Not sure. I haven't noticed any difference from where I'm from and Oslo, or maybe I am used to hearing a lot of different /ø/ sounds. It doesn't sound weird, I just know I wouldn't do it.

[TeneReef]

I found a video with ø (søt):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFnwiNV18MA

What is her accent?

[Aleco]

Her accent sounds like the accent from around Oslo. And her /ø/ sounded like and [ø] to me... Except when she pronounces the letter independently.

She stresses "liker" weirdly though xP

[Diogenes]

There does seem to be a big difference between long and short ø. For example, comparing the pronunciation of "søt" in the above video with the "drøm søtt" example given previously.

In any case, pronunciation varies so astonishingly across Norway that it's hard to make any blanket statements about a particular sound at all.

[language learner]

How is r pronounced after a vowel and not before d t n l s? How is er pronounced at the end of a word?

[Aleco]

ar - /ɑɾ/, /ɑːɾ/
er - /æɾ/, /æːɾ/, /eːɾ/, /əɾ/ (esp. at the end of a polysyllabic word)
ir - /ɪɾ/, /iːɾ/
or - /oɾ/, /uːɾ/
ur - /uɾ/, /uːɾ/
yr - /yʷːɾ/, /ʏʷɾ/
ær - /æːɾ/
ør - /øːɾ/, /œɾ/
år - /ɔːɾ/

(in Oslo)