Diskussionstråd / Discussion and Minor Questions

[Grytolle]

Yes. Most of what Grytolle says is fine and all, but in practice some of those forms, especially the more convoluted ones like "hobbyer" and "brownier" that don't resemble anything native, are rarely if ever used and are replaced with the English plural. Sometimes this is extended to also include words that sound non-native but are not actually of English origin, like "video".

(There are few (if any?) native nouns ending in /ʊ/, let alone bisyllables with an acute accent, like "video". Adding to that, since /ʊr/ is the usual plural ending for nouns ending in /a/, "videor" can feel like it ought to be the plural of a non-existing word *"videa", although in that case it should have a grave accent like nouns with /ʊr/-plurals normally have. All in all, it's just perceived as confusing, and some people resort to the easy solution: borrow the English plural ending.)

As to my personal feeling about these words... "ponnyer" and "hobbyer" are perfectly natural for me, whereas *ponnies and "hobbies" sound weird to me because I've used those two words all my life with Swedish plurals (ponnysar and hobbysar sound ok too though, but ponnysar slightly more ridiculous)

"Videor" was also the first form I learnt, so I guess my brain has always discarded instances of "videos". I was really surprised to see that "musikvideor" and "musikvideos" google about equally. Other words on -o (less central to my vocabulary) are definitely more problematic.. "Mangosar" sounds better than "mangor" to me. "Mangos" on the other hand just feels incomplete.

[Johanna]

As to my personal feeling about these words... "ponnyer" and "hobbyer" are perfectly natural for me, whereas *ponnies and "hobbies" sound weird to me because I've used those two words all my life with Swedish plurals (ponnysar and hobbysar sound ok too though, but ponnysar slightly more ridiculous)

"Ponnysar" and "hobbysar" are more of diminutives for me, like "kissekattisar" or something

But yeah, I definitely agree with Grytolle that they sound a lot better with Swedish plurals, since that's what everyone around here uses. We usually skip the e though, so "ponnyr" and "hobbyr", although it's not that unusual to hear "ponnyer" either these days.

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

Hello. In Georgia (where I live) we don't have Swedish teachers. I want to learn Swedish very much and I can't find any useful site to learn Swedish myself. I hope somebody will help me. Thanks.

Searching learn swedish online free and related words, seems to give a few results, but I do not know whether they are useful sites.

/ʊr/ is the usual plural ending for nouns ending in /a/

Kai sy teknon. It might have been better if they had retained the earlier spelling with -er, as in zambo-zamboer a century ago. For the staunch Old Believers that do not know -or as plural, videor does not have any connection with -a. ("É vija - två vijer", but that is another word.)

When thinking about it, I might actually say [vɨ:ʝdeɛr].

[felix ahlner]

The only Swedish dialect I know of that uses ð is Elfdalian, though I'm sure other Dalecarlian dialects uses the characters as well.

It is used in some Elfdalian texts today, but it's a late invention, possibly as late as the 1980's or 90's. I'm not entirely sure. I think it was introduced in order for Elfdalian to look more Icelandic.

On e.g. Facebook, almost no one uses it, but write r or d instead, which is indeed the common pronunciation nowadays: "Oj ur foetjed åwå sträva til ed. Oellad åg timbrad, åg se al ingan bruk ed."

[Dingbats]

Kai sy teknon.

Oroa dig inte, jag försökte bara förklara hur "videos"-människorna resonerar. Jag skulle aldrig yppa ett /ˈflɪkʊr/.

[Halfdan]

The only Swedish dialect I know of that uses ð is Elfdalian, though I'm sure other Dalecarlian dialects uses the characters as well.

It is used in some Elfdalian texts today, but it's a late invention, possibly as late as the 1980's or 90's. I'm not entirely sure. I think it was introduced in order for Elfdalian to look more Icelandic.

On e.g. Facebook, almost no one uses it, but write r or d instead, which is indeed the common pronunciation nowadays: "Oj ur foetjed åwå sträva til ed. Oellad åg timbrad, åg se al ingan bruk ed."

Ah, I see. But <ð> (or d or r) makes sense because it represents a voiced dental fricative /ð/, right? I'm assuming that r and d have represented /ð/ in past orthographies, so many people are stuck in their ways/reluctant to switch.

[hashi]

So, to summarise. Either videor or videos could be used, but its down to the individual speaker? (Although the majority of you guys seem to prefer the former).

[Johanna]

So, to summarise. Either videor or videos could be used, but its down to the individual speaker? (Although the majority of you guys seem to prefer the former).

Kind of... "videor" is always fine, but "videos" sounds silly to a lot of people.

[Grytolle]

So, to summarise. Either videor or videos could be used, but its down to the individual speaker? (Although the majority of you guys seem to prefer the former).

Kind of... "videor" is always fine, but "videos" sounds silly to a lot of people.

Exactly! But it only holds for this case. You can't generalize and say that English plurals always sound silly whereas Swedish ones don't. I'd imagine "brownies" is a lot less likely to sound silly than "brownier" or "brownisar", for instance.

[TeneReef]

How is pronounced Dalarna in the Southern (uvular/French-like R) accent?

[Johanna]

How is pronounced Dalarna in the Southern (uvular/French-like R) accent?

There's no one southern accent, and even if you just look at the province of Scania there are a bunch, They may sound similar to outsiders, but they're still not the same.

But yeah, the general thing for Scania is that long a's turn into diphthongs and r's don't ever assimilate with the next sound. And there's southern Halland, most of Småland, all of Blekinge, all of Öland and at least parts of Ostrogothia... As I said, no one accent

The only thing they all have in common is that uvular r's never assimilate.

[Dingbats]

The only thing they all have in common is that uvular r's never assimilate.

They do drop entirely in some contexts in some dialects, but that's stretching the definition of assimilation of course.

[Johanna]

The only thing they all have in common is that uvular r's never assimilate.

They do drop entirely in some contexts in some dialects, but that's stretching the definition of assimilation of course.

Yeah, for me, assimilation is when you go /rn/ -> [ɳ], not /rn/ -> [n]. In the latter case, the r simply goes silent.

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

Roughly,

Central Standard Swedish: ['dɒ:ɽaɳa]

Southern Standard Swedish: ['dɒ:laʁna],

so the difference lies in the treatment of l and rn.

[Dingbats]

Roughly,

Central Standard Swedish: ['dɒ:ɽaɳa]

Southern Standard Swedish: ['dɒ:laʁna],

so the difference lies in the treatment of l and rn.

The thick L [ɽ] is not a feature of any Swedish variety generally perceived as "standard". Neutral television Swedish has [l].

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

I was referring to General Standard Swedish with various local pronunciations, not to rikssvenskan. Most people in Sweden today speak Standard Swedish, i.e. a language that is basically the same as written Swedish, and many of them use the thick l [ɽ].

Rikssvenskan ("National Swedish") has been referred to as "neutral" since it is a specific pronunciation without rural dialectal connection, derived from upper class speech of Stockholm and Uppsala in the 1700s that the government has forced upon people, and a few decades ago, radio personnel had to pass special courses in how to speak, where deviations were strongly discouraged and banned. A Swedish RP, you could say.

Proponents of this mode of speech tend to claim that Standard Swedish and rikssvenska are just different names for the same thing, which is a very distorted view of how things stand. There are many accents of Standard Swedish, and rikssvenskan is just one of them.

In this particular case, what was discussed was the standard language north and south of the R-r-isogloss as pertained to one specific place-name, and rikssvenskan did not really have any connection to that matter.

Current written Swedish is not the only standard written form either, and there is a strong case for regarding written Swedish as a kind of "Swedeg Byw", an artificial construction which in many cases deviates from historical developments.

[Dingbats]

I know that's your opinion on the issue, but I thought it might be of interest for a foreign learner to have it underlined that it's not perfectly in line with what actual people usually think of their language. Using "Standard Swedish" (or "rikssvenska") in a sense as opposed to genuine dialects is irrelevant in almost every situation, since genuine dialects just aren't an issue, as far as the overwhelming majority of Swedish speakers are concerned. Anyone using a thick L will be perceived as diverging from the standard.

[TeneReef]

A funny exYugoslavian accent on Swedish TV (at 8:25 min)
http://www.svtplay.se/video/1590644/8-11-21-45

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

A funny exYugoslavian accent on Swedish TV

"hözdag" "tizda" "onzda" I have never heard that before. What tribal background has she?

Anyone using a thick L will be perceived as diverging from the standard.

An amusing comment here: We have an upper-middle-age Wermlandic woman at work, and she wondered if I came from Stockholm, since my speech was so "perfekt rikssvenska". She did not really believe that I was from Örebro.

My speech is of course "very much Oarabrogian" with thick l and broken long vowels, so her point of view might be a little off, although when I lived in Stockholm, the Stockholmers usually did not consider my speech regional, while the countrymen instantly heard that I was Nercian or Oarabrogian, which sounds funny to non-Gnellbeltians.

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

Anyone using a thick L will be perceived as diverging from the standard.

The foreign learners might appreciate learning that the same dominant circles in Swedish society who regards [ɽ] as substandard also sees plural [-ʊr] as standard, except for the word kollega.