Swedish phonology


has a large vowel inventory, with nine vowels distinguished in quality and to some degree quantity, making 17 vowel phonemes in most dialects. Swedish pronunciation of most consonants is similar to that of other Germanic languages. Another notable feature is the pitch accent, which is unusual for European languages.
There are 18 consonant phonemes of which and show considerable variation depending on both social and dialectal context.

Standard pronunciation

There is no uniform nationwide spoken Standard Swedish. Instead there are several regional standard varieties, i.e. the most intelligible or prestigious forms of spoken Swedish, each within its area.
The differences in the phonology of the various forms of prestigious Central Swedish can be considerable, although as a rule less marked than between localized dialects, including differences in prosody, vowel quality and assimilation. The differences between the various regional dialects may be compared with those of General American, Australian English and British Received Pronunciation.
In Sweden, the Central Swedish varieties often go under the name of rikssvenska. Finlandssvenska is another notable variety, with a slightly different phonology.

Vowels

Swedish has nine vowels that, as in many other Germanic languages, exist in pairs of long and short versions. The length covaries with the quality of the vowels, as shown in the table below, with short variants being more centered and lax. The length is generally viewed as the primary distinction, with quality being secondary. No short vowels appear in open stressed syllables. The front vowels appear in rounded-unrounded pairs.
VowelExampleVowelExample
sil sill
hel hetta
häl hetta
mat matt
mål moll
bot bott
ful full
syl syll
nöt nött

Rounded vowels have two types of rounding:
Type of rounding is the primary way of distinguishing from, especially in Central Standard Swedish.
, , and are lowered to,, and, respectively, when preceding.
The low allophones are becoming unmarked in younger speakers of Stockholm Swedish, so that läsa and köpa are pronounced and instead of standard and. These speakers often also pronounce pre-rhotic and even lower, i.e. and. This is especially true for the long allophone. Also, the allophone is sometimes difficult to distinguish from the long.
In some pronunciations, traditionally characteristic of the varieties spoken around Gothenburg and in Östergötland, but today more common e.g. in Stockholm and especially in younger speakers, and merge, most commonly into . Words like fördömande and fördummande are then often pronounced similarly or identically, as.
In Central Standard Swedish, unstressed is slightly retracted, but is still a front vowel rather than central. However, the latter pronunciation is commonly found in Southern Swedish. Therefore, begå 'to commit' is pronounced in Central Standard Swedish and in Southern Swedish. Before, southerners may use a back vowel. In Central Standard Swedish, a true schwa is commonly found as a vocalic release of word-final lenis stops, as in e.g. bädd 'bed'.
In many central and eastern areas, the contrast between short and is lost, except before when the subtle vowel distinction between the words herre 'master' and märr 'mare' is kept. The loss of this contrast has the effect that hetta and hätta are pronounced the same.
In Central Standard Swedish, long is weakly rounded. The rounding is stronger in Gothenburg and weaker in most North Swedish dialects.
One of the varieties of is made with a constriction that is more forward than is usual. Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson describe this vowel as being pronounced "by slightly lowering the body of the tongue while simultaneously raising the blade of the tongue Acoustically this pronunciation is characterized by having a very high F3, and an F2 which is lower than that in." They suggest that this may be the usual Stockholm pronunciation of.
There is some variation in the interpretations of vowel length's phonemicity., for example, treats vowel quantity as its own separate phoneme so that long and short vowels are allophones of a single vowel phoneme.
Patterns of diphthongs of long vowels occur in three major dialect groups. In Central Standard Swedish, the high vowels,, and are realized as narrow closing diphthongs with fully close ending points:. According to Engstrand, the second element is so close as to become a palatal or bilabial fricative:. Elsewhere in the article, the broad transcription is used.
In Central Standard Swedish,, and are often realized as centering diphthongs, and.
In Southern Swedish dialects, particularly in Scania and Blekinge, the diphthongs are preceded by a rising of the tongue from a central position so that and are realized as and respectively. A third type of distinctive diphthongs occur in the dialects of Gotland. The pattern of diphthongs is more complex than those of southern and eastern Sweden;, and tend to rise while and fall;,, and are not diphthongized at all.

Consonants

The table below shows the Swedish consonant phonemes in spoken Standard Swedish.
are dental, but can be either dental or alveolar. If is alveolar, then is also alveolar. Dental realization of is the predominant one in Central Standard Swedish.

Stops

Initial fortis stops are aspirated in stressed position, but unaspirated when preceded by within the same morpheme. Hence ko is, but sko becomes. Compare English vs . In Finland Swedish, aspiration does not occur and initial lenis stops are usually voiced throughout. Word-medial lenis stops are sometimes voiceless in Finland, a likely influence from Finnish.
Preaspiration of medial and final fortis stops, including the devoicing of preceding sonorants is common, though its length and normativity varies from dialect to dialect, being optional in Central Standard Swedish but obligatory in, for example, the Swedish dialects of Gräsö, Vemdalen and Arjeplog. In Gräsö, preaspiration is blocked in certain environments, while it is a general feature of fortis medial consonants in Central Standard Swedish. When not preaspirated, medial and final fortis stops are simply unaspirated. In clusters of fortis stops, the second "presonorant" stop is unaspirated and the former patterns with other medial final stops.
The phonetic attributes of preaspiration also vary. In the Swedish of Stockholm, preaspiration is often realized as a fricative subject to the character of surrounding vowels or consonants so that it may be labial, velar, or dental; it may also surface as extra length of the preceding vowel. In the province of Härjedalen, though, it resembles or. The duration of preaspiration is highest in the dialects of Vemdalen and Arjeplog. Helgason notes that preaspiration is longer after short vowels, in lexically stressed syllables, as well as in pre-pausal position.

Fricatives

is dental in Central Standard Swedish, but retracted alveolar in Blekinge, Bohuslän, Halland and Scania.
The Swedish fricatives and are often considered to be the most difficult aspects of Swedish pronunciation for foreign students. The combination of occasionally similar and rather unusual sounds as well as the large variety of partly overlapping allophones of often presents difficulties for non-natives in telling the two apart. The existence of a third sibilant in the form of tends to confuse matters even more, and in some cases realizations that are labiodental can also be confused with. In Finland Swedish, is an affricate: or.
The Swedish phoneme and its alleged coarticulation is a difficult and complex issue debated amongst phoneticians. Though the acoustic properties of its allophones are fairly similar, the realizations can vary considerably according to geography, social status, age, gender as well as social context and are notoriously difficult to describe and transcribe accurately. Most common are various sh-like sounds, with occurring mainly in northern Sweden and in Finland. A voiceless uvular fricative,, can sometimes be used in the varieties influenced by major immigrant languages like Arabic and Kurdish. The different realizations can be divided roughly into the following categories:
has distinct variations in Standard Swedish. The realization as an alveolar trill occurs among most speakers only in contexts where emphatic stress is used. In Central Swedish, it is often pronounced as a fricative or approximant, which is especially frequent in weakly articulated positions such as word-finally and somewhat less frequent in stressed syllable onsets, in particular after other consonants. It may also be an apico-alveolar tap. One of the most distinct features of the southern varieties is the uvular realization of, which may be a trill, a fricative or an approximant. In Finland, is usually an apical trill, and may be an approximant postvocalically.
inputoutputgloss
Inflectionfört'brought'
Inflectionförs'is brought'
Derivationförtal'slander'
Derivationförsorg'taking care'
Compoundsförtur'priority'
Compoundsförsal'antechamber'
Across wordsför tunn'too thin'
Across wordsför sen'too late'

In most varieties of Swedish that use an alveolar , the combination of with dental consonants produces retroflex consonant realizations, a recursive sandhi process called "retroflexion". Thus, is realized as, as, as, and as. The combination of and, does not uniformly cause retroflexion, so that it may also be pronounced with two separate consonants, and even, occasionally in a few words and expressions, as a mere. Thus sorl may be pronounced, but also.
In Gothenburg and neighbouring areas the retroflex consonants are substituted by alveolar ones, with their effects still remaining. For example: is not, is, not. However,, unlike what many other Swedes believe, is not but, i.e. is, not.
As the adjacent table shows, this process is not limited by word boundaries, though there is still some sensitivity to the type of boundary between the and the dental in that retroflexion is less likely with boundaries higher up in the prosodic hierarchy. In the southern varieties, which use a uvular, retroflex realizations do not occur. For example, is realized as, etc. A double sequence usually will not trigger retroflexion so that spärrnät is pronounced. The process of retroflexion is not limited to just one dental, and e.g. först is pronounced. Retroflexion also does not usually occur in Finland.
Variations of are not as common, though some phonetic variation exists, such as a retroflex flap that exists as an allophone in proximity to a labial or velar consonant or after most long vowels.
In casual speech, the nasals tend to assimilate to the place of articulation of a following obstruent so that, for example, han kom is pronounced.
and are pronounced with weak friction and function phonotactically with the sonorants.

Stress and pitch

As in English, there are many Swedish word pairs that are differentiated by stress:
Stressed syllables differentiate two tones, often described as pitch accents, or tonal word accents by Scandinavian linguists. They are called acute and grave accent, tone/accent 1 and tone/accent 2, or Single Tone and Double Tone. The actual realizations of these two tones varies from dialect to dialect. In the central Swedish dialect of Stockholm, accent 1 is an LHL contour and accent 2 is an HLHL contour. Generally, the grave accent is characterized by a later timing of the intonational pitch rise as compared with the acute accent; the so-called two-peaked dialects also have another, earlier pitch peak in the grave accent, hence the term "two-peaked".
The phonemicity of this tonal system is demonstrated in the nearly 300 pairs of two-syllable words differentiated only by their use of either grave or acute accent. Outside of these pairs, the main tendency for tone is that the acute accent appears in monosyllables while the grave accent appears in polysyllabic words. Polysyllabic forms resulting from declension or derivation also tend to have a grave accent except when it is the definite article that is added. This tonal distinction has been present in Scandinavian dialects at least since Old Norse though a greater number of polysyllables now have an acute accent. These are mostly words that were monosyllabic in Old Norse, but have subsequently become disyllabic, as have many loanwords. For example, Old Norse kømr has become kommer in Swedish.
The distinction can be shown with the minimal pair anden 'the duck' and anden 'the spirit'.
In Central Swedish, this is a high, slightly falling tone followed by a low tone; that is, a single drop from high to low pitch spread over two syllables.
In Central Swedish, a mid falling tone followed by a high falling tone; that is, a double falling tone.
The exact realization of the tones also depends on the syllable's position in an utterance. For instance, at the beginning of an utterance, the acute accent may have a rising rather than slightly falling pitch on the first syllable. Also, these are word tones that are spread across the syllables of the word. In trisyllabic words with the grave accent, the second fall in pitch is distributed across the second and third syllables:
The position of the tone is dependent upon stress: The first stressed syllable has a high or falling tone, as does the following syllable in grave-accented words.
In most Finland-Swedish varieties, however, the distinction between grave and acute accent is missing.
A reasonably complete list of uncontroversial so-called minimal pairs can be seen below. The two words in each pair are distinguished solely by having different tone. In those cases where both words are nouns it would have been possible to list the genitive forms of the words as well, thereby creating another word pair, but this has been avoided. A few word pairs where one of the words is a plural form with the suffix -or have been included. This is due to the fact that many Swedish-speakers in all parts of Sweden pronounce the suffix -or the same way as -er.
Acute accent Grave accent Translation acuteTranslation grave
akterakterstern acts
almenallmänthe elmpublic, general
A:naanathe A'ssuspect
andenandenthe duckthe spirit
backenbackenthe reverse gear, the cratethe slope
balenbalenthe ball the nest
ballenballenthe bulb the dick
B:nabenathe B'sparting
binderbindorbindssanitary towels
bitenbitenthe piecebitten
bokenbokenthe bookoverripe, spoilt
bonabonathe nestspolish
bonasbonasthe nests' be polished
borstenborstenthe bristlesthe brush, the broom
brassenbrassenthe brace the Brazilian
brevenbrevvänthe letterspen pal
bristerbristerbreaks flaws
brunnenbrunnenthe wellburnt
brynenbrynenthe edges whetstones
brynetbrynetthe edge the whetstone
burenburenthe cagecarried
busenbusenthe pranksthe hooligan
dragendragenthe trolling spoonsdrawn, tipsy
dragetdragetthe draught, the trolling spoondrawn
drivetdrivetthe speed, the energydrifted, driven
E:naenathe E'sunite, unify
Enarenarmale namejunipers
fallenfallenthe fallsfallen
falletfalletthe fallfallen
fästerfesterfastensparties
fiskenfiskenthe fishacts of fishing
F:enFNthe F'sThe UN
fonenfånenthe phone the idiot
fångenfångenthe armfulsthe prisoner
fångetfångetthe armfulcaught
fällenfällenthe rugplaces where trees have been felled
fällerfällorfells, cuts downtraps
festenfästenthe party, the feastplaces where something has been attached
förenförenthe bow conditions of the ground for travelling
förutföruttowards the bow before, earlier
giftergiftermarriespoisons
giftetgiftetthe poisonthe marriage
J:naginathe J'stackle, take a shortcut
givengiventhe deal given
ljusengjusenthe candlesthe osprey
gripengripenthe griffingrabbed, gripped
gångengångenthe walkwaygone
hedenhedenthe heathheathen
hinnerhinnorhas the time to do somethingcoatings
huggenhuggenthe cuts chopped
hållenhållenthe directionsheld
hållethålletthe directionheld
H:nahånathe H'smock, taunt
högrehögrehigherthe man to the right
idenidenthe idebears' dens for hibernation
I:naInathe I'sfemale name
införinförahead of, in front ofintroduces, introduce
ljudenjudenthe soundsthe Jew
karatenkaratenthe caratthe karate
kattenkattenthe cata profanity
knallenknallenthe bangthe small hill, the pedlar
knutenknutenthe knottied
kubbenkubbenthe bowler hatthe chopping block
kullenkullenthe litter the hill
kårenkårenthe corpsthe breeze
lavenlaventhe lichenthe headframe
lederlederleads joints
lumpenlumpenthe military servicecontemptible, lousy
malenmalenthe mothground, milled
mjölkenmjölkenthe milkthe fish seed
modetmodetthe couragethe fashion
moppenmoppenthe mopthe moped
namnennamnenthe namesthe namesake
normennorrmänthe normNorwegians
nubbennubbenthe tackthe shot
nypernyporpinches Grips made with the thumb against one or more of the other fingers
Odenodenname of a Norse Gododes
oretorättthe miteinjustice
packenpackenthe rabble the bale
pajaspajasclownbe destroyed
panterpanterpantherdeposits
perserpärserPersiansordeals
PolenpålenPolandthe pole
pollenpållenpollenthe horsey
radarradarradarpresent tense of 'rada', as in 'rada upp'
rasterrastergridbreaks
regelregelrulelatch
reserresortravels journeys, trips
rivetrivetthe melee, the fightingtorn
rollerrollercylinder that rotates and is used for paintingroles
ruterrutordiamonds squares, panes
ruttenruttenthe routerotten
rågenrågenthe ryethe overmeasure
rånarånathe nymphsrob
räckenräckenthe horizontal bars railings
räcketräcketthe horizontal bar the railing
rännerrännorrunschutes
sabbatsabbatsabbathdestroyed, sabotaged
cedersedercedarcustoms
C:nasenathe C'slate, sinew
cidersidorciderpages
siktensiktenthe viewsights
skallenskallenthe barks the skull
skedenskedenthe spoonstages
skiftetskiftetthe shiftthe change
skiftenskiftenthe shiftschanges
skjutenskjutenthe ejaculationsshot
skjutetskjutetthe speed, the ejaculationshot
skottenskottenthe shotsthe Scotsman
skurenskurenthe showercut
skyttenskyttenthe gunneracts of shooting
slagenslagenthe battles, the hitsbeaten
slagetslagetthe battle, the hitbeaten
slitetslitetthe toilworn
slutenslutenthe endsclosed
slutetslutetthe endclosed
släktensläktenthe familygenera
snutensnutenthe coppast participle of 'snyta'
zoonasonathe zoosexpiate
spadenspadenthe stocks the spade
spanaspanathe spaswatch, observe, search
sprickersprickorbursts, cracks cracks
stegenstegenthe stepsthe ladder
striderstriderfights fights, battles
stråkenstråkenthe moving patches/bands the bow
stubbenstubbenthe stubblethe tree stump
ställenställenthe racksplaces
ställetställetthe rackthe place
sugensugenthe sucking devicesucked, in the mood for something
sugetsugetthe urgesucked, in the mood for something
sädensädenthe seed, the grainthings intended for sowing
cellensällenthe cellthe brute
tagentagenthe gripstaken
tagettagetthe griptaken
tankentankenthe tankthe thought
tonertonertonertones
traventraventhe trotthe pile, the stack
tomtentomtenthe plot Santa Claus, the gnome
tummentummenthe inchthe thumb
teckentäckensignbed covers
uddenuddenthe point, the cuspthe headland
uppföruppföruphillpresent tense or imperative of 'uppföra'
utförutfördownhillpresent tense or imperative of 'utföra'
vakenvakenthe hole in the iceawake
valenvalenthe whalestiff, numb
vantenvantenthe shrouds the mitten
vasenvasenthe vasethe bundle of brushwood
vikenvikenthe bayfolded
vinervinermakes a whistling sound wines
vredenvredenthe knobsthe rage, the wrath
värden/världenvärdenthe host/the worldvalues
Oskaråskarmale namepresent tense of 'åska'
örenörenthe gravelpennies
öretöretthe gravelthe penny

Note that karaten/karaten is the only pair with more than two syllables. The word pair länder and länder could have been included, but this one is controversial. For those speakers who have grave accent in the plural of länd, the definite plural forms will also constitute a three-syllable minimal pair: länderna vs. länderna. Although examples with more than two syllables are very few in Standard Swedish, it is possible to find other three-syllable pairs in regional dialects, such as Värmländska: hunnera vs. hunnera, ändera/ännera vs. ändera/ännera, etc.
Prosody in Swedish often varies substantially between different dialects including the spoken varieties of Standard Swedish. As in most languages, stress can be applied to emphasize certain words in a sentence. To some degree prosody may indicate questions, although less so than in English.

Phonotactics

At a minimum, a stressed syllable must consist of either a long vowel or a short vowel and a long consonant. Like many other Germanic languages, Swedish has a tendency for closed syllables with a relatively large number of consonant clusters in initial as well as final position. Though not as complex as that of most Slavic languages, examples of up to 7 consecutive consonants can occur when adding Swedish inflections to some foreign loanwords or names, and especially when combined with the tendency of Swedish to make long compound nouns. The syllable structure of Swedish can therefore be described with the following formula:
This means that a Swedish one-syllable morpheme can have up to three consonants preceding the vowel that forms the nucleus of the syllable, and three consonants following it. Examples: skrämts or sprängts . All but one of the consonant phonemes,, can occur at the beginning of a morpheme, though there are only 6 possible three-consonant combinations, all of which begin with, and a total of 31 initial two-consonant combinations. All consonants except for and can occur finally, and the total number of possible final two-consonant clusters is 62.
In some cases this can result in near-unpronounceable combinations, such as in västkustskt, consisting of västkust with the adjective suffix -sk and the neuter suffix -t.
Central Standard Swedish and most other Swedish dialects feature a rare "complementary quantity" feature wherein a phonologically short consonant follows a long vowel and a long consonant follows a short vowel; this is true only for stressed syllables and all segments are short in unstressed syllables. This arose from the historical shift away from a system with a four-way contrast inherited from Proto-Germanic to a three-way one, and finally the present two-way one; certain Swedish dialects have not undergone these shifts and exhibit one of the other two phonotactic systems instead. In literature on Swedish phonology, there are a number of ways to transcribe complementary relationship, including:
With the conventional assumption that medial long consonants are ambisyllabic, all stressed syllables are thus "heavy". In unstressed syllables, the distinction is lost between and or between . With each successive post-stress syllable, the number of contrasting vowels decreases gradually with distance from the point of stress; at three syllables from stress, only and occur.

Sample

The sample text is a reading of The North Wind and the Sun. The transcriptions are based on the section on Swedish found in The Handbook on the International Phonetic Association. The broad transcription is phonemic while the narrow is phonetic.

Broad transcription

Narrow transcription

Orthographic version

Nordanvinden och solen tvistade en gång om vem av dem som var starkast. Just då kom en vandrare vägen fram insvept i en varm kappa. De kom då överens om att den som först kunde få vandraren att ta av sig kappan, han skulle anses vara starkare än den andra. Då blåste nordanvinden så hårt han nånsin kunde, men ju hårdare han blåste desto tätare svepte vandraren kappan om sig, och till slut gav nordanvinden upp försöket. Då lät solen sina strålar skina helt varmt och genast tog vandraren av sig kappan och så var nordanvinden tvungen att erkänna att solen var den starkaste av de två.