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• 1 2021-09-01T20:31:19+00:00 Chapter 11: The Sounds of Norwegian, by Lam Tran 80 plain 2021-12-15T22:40:16+00:00

  1. Introduction

  Norway is a country that is located in Northern Europe. It shares the Scandinavian Peninsula with Sweden and Finland.
  
  Norwegian, along with Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Faroese, belongs to a branch of North Germanic language. Among North Germanic languages, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are close to a point that they are mutually intelligible in some local and regional varieties. Although the number of people who speak Norwegian is about 5.2 million, knowing Norwegian technically allows a person to speak to around 20 million people due to the cultural and linguistic interchange with nearby countries.
  
  Norwegian could also be splitting into 4 main divisions: Northern Norwegian' (nordnorsk), 'Central Norwegian' (trøndersk), 'Western Norwegian' (vestlandsk), and 'Eastern Norwegian' (østnorsk).
  
  
  
  Norwegian is a special language in Europe with respect to its spoken and written forms. Norwegian has two official literary varieties: Nynorsk (“new Norwegian”) and Bokmål (“book language”). The emergence of these two varieties was during Norway’s separation from Denmark in 1814.

  About 95 percent of the population spoke Norwegian, but in the early 19th century there was no written standard. Two attempts were made: Ivar Aasen developed Landsmål (“national tongue”) based on rural dialects, and Knud Kudsen altered written Danish to work for Norwegian and called it Riksmål. Both of these went through reforms during the 20th century, and today Landsmål is Nynorsk (“New Norwegian”) and Riksmål is Bokmål (“written tongue”).

  Bokmål is vastly more popular in the 21st century, with only 13 percent of the population using Nynorsk. Still, both are used, and some people use other variations of these two. One other popular written form is Høgnorsk (“High Norwegian”), which is a purist form of Nynorsk that doesn’t accept any of the language reforms of the 20th century. 
  
  Other Information
  ISO 639-3 Code: NNO (Norwegian, Bokmål)
  NOB (Norwegian, Nynorsk)
  Glottocode: 
  norw1259 (Norwegian, Bokmål) 
  norw1262 (Norwegian, Nynorsk) 

  2. The Consonants

  This chart represents different consonant phonemes existing in Norwegian.
  
  Phonetic Realization
  There are 23 consonant phonemes in Norwegian listed below:
  /p/: unvoiced bilabial plosive consonant
  /b/: voiced bilabial plosive consonant
  /t/: unvoiced alveolar plosive consonant
  /d/: voiced alveolar plosive consonant
  /ʈ/: unvoiced retroflex plosive consonant
  /ɖ/: voiced retroflex plosive consonant
  /k/: unvoiced velar plosive consonant
  /g/: voiced velar plosive consonant
  /m/: voiced bilabial nasal consonant
  /n/: voiced alveolar nasal consonant
  /ɳ/: voiced retroflex nasal consonant
  /ŋ/: voiced velar nasal consonant
  /ɾ/: voiced alveolar tap consonant
  /ɽ/: voiced retroflex tap consonant
  /f/: unvoiced labiodental fricative consonant
  /s/: unvoiced alveolar fricative consonant
  /ʂ/: unvoiced retroflex fricative consonant
  /ç/: unvoiced palatal fricative consonant
  /h/: unvoiced glottal fricative consonant
  /ʋ/: voiced labiodental approximant consonant
  /j/: voiced palatal approximant consonant
  /l/: voiced alveolar lateral approximant consonant
  /ɭ/: voiced retroflex lateral approximant consonant
  
  Below are some examples of the consonant sounds in Norwegian from UCLA Phonetics Archive.
  
  Following is a minimal set to differentiate 3 consonant phonemes /h/, /m/, /f/.
  /h/ - /hɑːtʰ/ - 'hate'
  
  /m/ - /mɑːtʰ/ - 'food'
  /f/ - /fɑːtʰ/ - 'tray'
  
  Here is another minimal pair to differentiate between the two consonants /ʃ/ and /tʃ/
  /ʃ/ - /ʃɛk/ - 'check'
  /tʃ/ - /tʃɛk/ - 'bold' or 'brave'

  3. The Vowels

  Below are two charts consisting of vowel phonemes in Norwegian. There are nine vowel phonemes in Norwegian which may occur as long or short vowels. 
  
  
  
  
  Below is a table indicating different phonetic properties of the above vowels in Norwegian.
  
  
  Following is a minimal set to differentiate 5 different vowel phonemes: /o/, /æ/, /ø/, /ʉ/, /y/
  ba /bo/ - 'open fire'
  
  
  be /bæ/ - 'a call'
  
  bo /bø/ - 'farm'
  bu /bʉ/ - 'shack'
  by /by/ - 'city'
  

  4. Allophonic Alternations

  4.1. Palatalization of alveolar consonants

  This map below illustrates the palatalization of dental/ alveolar consonants in Norway. The dark orange color shows the regions where palatalization occurs in both stressed and unstressed syllables, while the yellow regions describe palatalization in stressed syllables only. The areas covered by the white color are the ones without palatalization.
  In northern and north-eastern parts of Norway, long /n/ and /l/ are palatalized. For example, /mɑn/ - 'man' could be pronounced as /mɑɲ/ and /vil/ - 'wild' could be pronounced as /viʎ/ in these parts of Norway. Moreover, in large parts of this area, long /d/ and /t/ are also palatalized: /klɑd/ - 'draft' are realized as /klɑɟ/, and /kvit/ - 'evening' are said
   

  4.2. Reduction of /e/ → /ə/

  In Norwegian, [ə] is not phonemic. Instead, it acts as an allophone of /e/. The process of /e/ becoming /ə/ usually happens in unstressed syllables. In this example below, the word-final /e/ is unstressed, and thus its reduction to /ə/ is licensed.
  
  skrue ‘screw’ (n.) /"skrue/ → ["skuə] (reduction of /e/)

  5. Syllables and Syllable Structure

  The syllable structure of Norwegian is fairly unrestrictive, and allows for a wide range of allowed configurations of consonant clusters in both onsets and codas. Both complex onsets and complex codas are allowed, but onsets and codas are not always present. Specifically, the constraints allow for a syllable structure as bare as a lone V in the nucleus, or one as rich as a vowel (V) padded by clusters of as many as three consonants (CCC) in both onset and coda. Below are the syllable structures along with their examples.

  5.1. V

  i /i/ - 'in'

  5.2. CV

  ry /ry:/ - 'renown'
  ru /rʉː/ - 'rough'
  ro /ro:/ - 'quiet'

  5.3. VC

  is /i:s/ - 'ice'
  isj /iʃ/ - 'phooey, urg'

  5.4. CCV

  fru /fɾu/ - 'Mrs'

  5.5.VCC

  elg /elg/ - 'moose'

  5.6. CCCV

  skrue /skrʉ/ - 'screw'

  5.7. VCCC

  angst /aŋst/ - 'anxiety'

  5.8. CVC

  dis /di:s/ - 'mist'

  5.9. CCVC

  fjell /fjɛl/ - 'mountain'

  5.10. CCCVC

  språk /spɾɔk/ - 'language'

  5.11. CVCC

  gard /gɔːrd/ - 'farm'

  5.12. CVCCC

  vekst /vekst/ - 'growth'

  5.13. CCVCC

  frykt /fɾɪkʰt̪/ - 'fear'

  5.14. CCCVCC

  No example is found.

  5.15. CCVCCC

  blomst /blomst/ - 'flower'

  5.16. CCCVCCC

  No example is found.

  6. Focus on Pitch of the language 

  Norwegian is a pitch accent language with two distinct pitch patterns. They are used to differentiate two-syllable words with otherwise identical  pronunciation. In most of Eastern Norwegian 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. 
  Below are the differences in the two words: heller - /helːər/ - inclines and heller - /helːər/ - rather
  
  
  
  
   

  7. Bibliography

  Andersen, D. (August 2020). A Phonetic Analysis of Norwegian.
  Gruyter, W. d. (2005). The Nordic Languages - An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages. Berlin: GmbH & Co. KG.
  Haugen, E., & Markey, T. L. (1972). The Scandinavian Languages: Fifty Years of Linguistic Research (1918–1968). Mouton.
  Kristoffersen, G. (2007). The Phonology of Norwegian. Oxford University Press.
  Standwell, G. J. (1995). Norwegian Phonology. pp. 339-377.