Talk:Danish phonology

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Contents

[edit] Phonology?

Why does this page not have any information at all about danish phonology? This is only an attempt to equate the graphemes of danish with a (sometimes incorrect)pronunciation. It below the standard of an average tourist phrasebook. Magnuspharao 05:55, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

These were added to the Sounds-section at Danish language, but they didn't seem quite at home there. Also, I don't think the phonemic analysis is all that correct.

  • /'ilʔ/ <ild> "fire"
  • /'i:lə/ <ilde> "run"
  • /'et/ <et> "one"
  • /'me:nə/ <mene> "mean/signify"
  • /'ɛlə/ <ælde> "oldage"
  • /'kɛ:lə/ <kæle> "cuddle"
  • /'alə/ <alle> "everyone/all"
  • /'ha:lə/ <hale> "tail"
  • /'bɑkə/ <bakke> "hill"
  • /'ɑ:wə/ <arve> "inherit"
  • /'yðʌst/ <yderst> "outermost"
  • /'y:ðə/ <yde> "yield/contribute"
  • /'øst/ <øst> "east"
  • /'ø:sə/ <øse> "pour"
  • /'lœnʔ/ <løn> "wages/pay"
  • /'ʁœ:bə/ <røbe> "disclose,show"
  • /'lɶjʔ/ <løg> "onion"
  • /'dɶje/ <døje> "endure/suffer hardship"
  • /'huʔs/ <hus> "house"
  • /'hu:lə/ <hule> "cave"
  • /'foto/ <foto> "photograph"
  • /'ro:sə/ <rose> "rose"
  • /'rɔst/ <rust> "rust"
  • /'rɔ:bə/ <råbe> "shout"
  • /'kɒlʔ/ <kold> "cold"
  • /'sɒ:wə/ <sove> "sleep"
  • /'sɒwʌ/ <sover> "sleep (present tense)"
  • /'ro:sə/ <rose> "rose"

Peter Isotalo 16:44, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I added them, and while you may be right that they didn't belong there, I think there should be examples, exactly because it shows the phonemic analysis lying behind it. The phonemic analyses are based on Hans Basbøll, Jacques Durands article about Basbølls analysis of the Danish vowel system and Nina Grønnums book on Phonology. They are from my pronunciation which is close to rigsdansk. Would you care to tell me which parts you find incorrect? [[Magnuspharao]]
The glottal stop is not a phoneme in Danish. Also, if you want to include examples, you need to structure them properly (see Swedish phonology for example). And there needs to be more suitable minimal pairs. I can barely find any in this list that would seem obvious to someone who doesn't speak Danish (or a Mainland Scandinavian language). Preferably a set that illustrates more than two different phonemes, and if possible, nearly all. It's hard to find one, but you can usually come close. In Swedish, for example, there's /rVt/ that can be used to show the constrast between almost all but one of the 8 short vowel phonemes. Only */ryt/ is not an actual word.
And as for the article lacking phonology info, well... it's what where here to fix. I would do it, but I have trouble getting hold of Basbøll's The Phonology of Danish.
--Peter Isotalo 03:43, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
It is true that the transcription is sort of half phonemic half phonetic. Gloittal stop is the standard way of representing stød (the IPA variant adapted to danish is called Dania and uses it). Length is also not phonemic. While neither stød nor length are phonemes in danish they are prosodies that are used in distinguishing minimal pairs, and as so I think that it is natural to represent them in some way also in the phonemic transcription. [[Magnuspharao 06:12, 19 August 2005 (UTC)]]
Here are some minimal- and near minimal pairs that I've found in order to illustrate vowel qualities. If you like them you can put them in where they might be of use, if you don't then I will continue to work with it. Some of them are my own some of them are from Nina Grønnums "Fonetik og Fonologi" (akademisk forlag 1998)If you want me to I can record soundfiles of these examples, I just don't know which format to use or how to upload.
mile [mi:lə] - milde[milə]
mele [me:lə] - Mikkel [mekəl]
mæle [mɛ:lə] - melde[mɛlə]
male [mæ:lə] - malle [mælə]
arne [ɶ:ne] - bakke [bɶkə]
orne [ɒ:nə]/årle [ɒ:lə]
mule [mu:lə] - fulde [fulə]
mole [mo:lə] - mos [moʔs]
måle [mɔ:lə] - hulle [hɔlə]
smøle [smø:lə] - mølle [mølə]
syle [sy:lə] - myldre [mylRə]
si [siʔ]- sy [syʔ]
se [seʔ] - sø [søʔ]
sag [sæʔ]
zar [sɶʔ]
sug! [suʔ]
so [soʔ]
så (se pst.)[sɔʔ] - så (adv.)[sʌ]
These are hard to find good minimal pairs for because of their limited distribution:
døje [dɶjə]- løg [lɶjʔ] dølge [døljə]
kost (food)- [kʌst]kost "broom" [kɔst]
række[Rɐkə] - rakke [rɶkə]
skøn [skœnʔ] - skød [skøð]


[[Magnuspharao 12:05, 19 August 2005 (UTC)]]
Unfortunately, one cannot use half-phonemic transcriptions. If it's it not in brackets, it has to be 100% phonemic or it's not useful. Also, Dania is not applicable to Wikipedia since it is only used for Danish and has a lot of symbols that are either unique or are similar to IPA but actually represents different sounds. IPA is really the only way to go since there is no other widely recognized standard for phonetic transcription. Representing stød as a glottal stop is also not useful since it's more complex than that, so I wouldn't recommend it. Recording pronunciation files is a good idea and the info on how to do it and what format to use (.ogg only) can be found here. Make sure you upload it to Commons to make it available to all other Wikipedias. Finding minimal pairs can't be that hard, though. Just take your time and consult proper literature (written with IPA) before recording. Here I can recommend Basbøll's The Phonology of Danish, since it is sure to be have been written with IPA and has a reputation of being very authoritive.
Peter Isotalo 15:36, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

There is no IPA symbol for stød. Basbøll and Grønnum use a superscript Glottal stop sign. I don't know how to make the superscript so a glottal stop sign will have to do. I just presented a bunch of minimal pairs taken from Grønnums book and no they weren't that hard to find. But it's not possible to find the lax vowels in the same positions as the tense vowels or all long vowels in the same positions as vowels with stød etc. because of distributional limitations. I am using "proper literature" and, by necessity, it most often uses Dania and not IPA because IPA is not suitable for some danish phonological features such as stød and placement of some vowels (heavy use of diacritica would be the result, and you'd have to invent a symbol for stød anyway). Thanks for the comments, I am new to wikipedia and need to learn how things are done here. But maybe you could be a little more open minded, when it comes to my ways of presenting data? Maybe I'm not just another hack who knows nothing about the subject I'm writing about.[[Magnuspharao 20:26, 19 August 2005 (UTC)]]

There are special Unicode characters for superscripted IPA, but I usually just use the wikicode <sup></sup>. To give an example, mål would be [mɔ:ʔl]. You don't need to use Dania here, since IPA covers it all, including stød. And this isn't just my opinion, but a generally accepted guideline of Wikipedia; all phonetic transcriptions are to be in IPA with no exceptions. If you don't believe me, just ask our fellow wikiphoneticians at Wikipedia:WikiProject Phonetics. I'm going to help to improve this article quite a bit during the coming month, because I just got a hold of The Phonoloy of Danish, but I'm going to make sure Danish language gets a proper summary first.
Peter Isotalo 19:28, 1 September 2005 (UTC)


  • /'i:lə/ <ilde> "run"

Should be <ile>. Ilde is an almost obsolete word for bad, and the d marks the i as short. /'ilə/, if I understand the notation. --Klausok 08:04, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plosives

(Copied from User talk:Enkyklios)

In my own langauge, Danish, the old opposition between voiceless and voiced stops has been given up in favour of an opposition between aspirates [b̥ʰ, d̥ʰ, g̊ʰ] and non-unaspirates [b̥, d̥, g̊] (voice being irrelevant and absent in the normal pronunciation). The stops in question do not have the muscular tension characteristic of the fortis, but at the same time they lack the voice normally associated with the lenis. In Ancient Greek, however, where we have a system of three articulations, voiceless, aspirated and voiced stops, the notation [b̥ʰ, d̥ʰ, g̊ʰ] is probably misleading since it would be natural to articulate the three rows with the greatest possible distance. Enkyklios 07:47, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to raise with you the question on whether it is appropriate to use [b̥ʰ, d̥ʰ, g̊ʰ] and [b̥, d̥, g̊] rather than [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] and [p, t, k] in the article on Danish phonology. As you say, in normal pronounciation these sounds are all voiceless and the distinction between the rows is the presence or absence of aspiration. It strikes me that a Martian linguist would therefore use the unvoiced symbol as a base. This situation is actually similar in Icelandic, where for some reason it has been quite fashonable to use [b̥, d̥, g̊] for the sounds which are usually represented word-initially with b, d and g but are in fact pronounced voiceless. Currently, e.g. in the new authorative book on the subject of Icelandic language, the IPA symbols [p, t, k] are used in their stead. Stefán Ingi 13:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I am not unsympathetic with your point of view. Yet, I am no phonetician, and I feel that the phoneticians must have had an idea when they started to use these letters in their analysis of Icelandic and Danish in the first place. I suppose that a French linguist (my version of your Martian linguist) would hear a slight difference between our [b̥, d̥, g̊] and his own [p, t, k], and that difference has nothing to do with voice but with the muscular tense. Similarly, if I can trust my own ears, French /p,t,k/ are not 100% identical to Danish /b,d,g/. At any rate, even if one acknowledges that the phoneticians have not made up the whole voiceless lenis-phenomenon, it is perhaps reasonable not to notate this fine nuance in a regular IPA translation of Icelandic and Danish. After all, the possible nuances which one could express with special diacritica are legio, and the average reader will soon lose himself in the arcane jungle of phonetic transcription. Enkyklios 14:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with this summary. The question is now how to proceed. Since I am also not a phonetician perhaps it would be best to get more input. I'll copy this to Talk:Danish phonology and try and get some people interested. Thanks, Stefán Ingi 14:46, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
In southeastern German (my mother tongue) b, d, g are voiceless and p, t, k are not aspirated. The fortis-lenis distinction – higher air pressure and often longer duration for the fortes – is alone phonemic. I wouldn't know how to transcribe them other than [b̥, d̥, g̊] vs [p, t, k].
Voiceless lenes are actually quite common worldwide (southwestern German, Mandarin, Navajo...), even though they tend not to occur in the same languages as plain fortes.
David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 13:04 CET-summertime | 2006/3/31

[edit] A minor detail

"[a], the regular allophone of /ɛ/ after /r/ is [ɑ] before labials and alveolars in the language of most younger speakers; before labials, it is often realised as a dipthong [ɑɪ̯]; the difference between strække "stretch" and strejke "strike", the only minimal pair, is practically non-existent."

/k/ isn't a labial, it's a velar. Shouldn't it be "before velars"? Mistyped, perhaps? --85.187.44.131 18:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sound sample

It would be very nice if a good danish speaker would create a sound file with the read text sample :)

I will try to make one I am jusst not sure how to make .ogg files.

[edit] Text sample

Why have you chosen a trext sample in antique orthography? The example should reflect how danish is currently written not how it was written before the spelling reform of 1958.Maunus 06:54, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Symbol

I can't find any explanation for the symbol n̩. Can anyone explain to me the pronunciation of it?

It represents a syllabic n, like the "on" of button.Cameron Nedland 22:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stræde and gade

I have taken out this bit:

E.g. the vowels of stræde "alley" and gade "gade", which are pronounced identical in Modern Standard Danish, are transliterated æ: and ɑ: respectively since they are allophones of different phonemes.

It is just plain wrong. The vowels of stræde and gade are quite different. They are the sounds used as names for the letters æ and a. To my untrained ears they sounds exactly like the vowels in English get and hat respectively (except for length). the previous unsigned comment was written by User:Klausok

I am a native speaker and I pronounce them exactly the same. And so does everybody I know. I am afraid your untrained ears are wrong. Only elderly speakers and speaker of nonstandard varieties distinguish the pronunciation of those two. Maunus 11:52, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I am a native speaker, 47 years of age, grew up in North Zealand and now live and work in greater Copenhagen. I know nobody who pronounce them the same. Are you saying that glade and glæde sound the same to you? Or vade and væde?--Klausok 14:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

No, glade and glæde and vade and vade do not sound the same. The vowel in stræde however is influenced by the /r/ in front of it causing a lowering of the vowel to coincide with trhe pronunciation of the vowel in gade, vad, lade and glade. For speakers of modern standard danish stræde rhymes with those words and not with glæde, vædde, æde and smæde. This is exactly what the passage you removed says: even though most danes pronounce them the same they are in fact allophones of each a different phoneme, but the r-colouring of the æ:in stræde causes it to be pronounced the same as the fronted ɑ: in gade. Also I don't know which sociolect/dialect you speak but some kinds of north zealandic do still distinguish the two. so it may be a question of your pronunciation varying from standard danish (the queen also distinguishes stræde and gade)Maunus 14:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Being a native speaker, I can confirm that the vowels of stræde and gade are virtually identical in my own speech and in the speech of most of my contemporaries (I'm 35): [ˈg̊æːð̩] and [ˈsd̥ʁæːð̩]. I am not able to detect any significant difference in my tongue position when pronouncing the central vowels of the two words. Similarly, drille and falde rhyme in contemporary Danish: [ˈd̥ʁæll̩] and [ˈfæll̩].
It is, of course, not the case with glade and glæde. The first one has the same vowel as stræde and gade, i.e. a vowel closer to English bad than to English bed. On the other hand, glæde has a vowel, which is even more closed than the vowel of English bed. Especially in the modern variety of Copenhagen, [ɛ(ː)] tends to merge with [ɛ(ː)]. Enkyklios 11:39, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I am very surprised at this. I would say that "drille" rhymes with "fælde", not "falde"--Klausok 07:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC).
Then you are most certainly speaking a socio- and or dialect that is different from what is called "modern standard danish" - retaining the original vowel qualities in examples like these is common in a few speech varieties, for example many by older speakers or speakers form conservative language groups. To me rhyming those words sounds like the dialect of Karen Blixen or the Queen. If you want I can provide examples of the forms with merged vowels stated as being the dominant form if you want to check yourself you can look in Ida Grønnums book "Fonetik og Fonologi" theres a chapter on vowels in modern standard danish, and she also mentions the variation among differen age groups. ·Maunus· tlahtōlli 11:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Current Developments"

Let me preface this saying I know nothing about Danish, but the following struck me as odd: In the "Current Developments" section it lists a possible sounds change in progress of a merger between /ø/ and /ö/. The second of these is not mentioned as an already existing phoneme in the table of vowels above, but just below this it says "One often hears [ø] for /ö/" implying that it is an active phoneme. I can only assume that the vowels refer to the same thing, and that /ö/ describes a fronted mid-high rounded vowel, aka /ø/. Is this a case of orthography (again, I know nothing about Danish orthography) being presented as phonology? --Coyne025 13:54, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I do not know phonologist's jargon or IPA, so I can not give a technical explanation. And I of course do not know what the writer was thinking of. But I do know a bit about the history of Danish spelling that may be relevant.
There was a major spelling reform in Denmark in 1948. In the 100 years or so leading up to that, various people and groups made proposals, and some of these spelling systems were extensively used. One of the most popular alternative spellings was quite close to what was eventually made official. One part of this system that did not make it into the offical spelling, as thus is no longer used, was the addition of the letter Ö.
The letter Ø has several sounds in Danish. The sound that is the name of the letter, the Ø-sound, is the vowel of the the Frensh words for two and blue. I don't think it is used in English at all. For example, the verb dø, die, has this sound, as does its present form, dør, dies.
Another sound, let us call it the Ö-sound, is the vowel of Enlish shirt or hurt. This is also written ø, for example in the noun dør, door.
So does "den næste dør" mean the next one dies, or does it mean the next door? There is no doubt when the phrase is spoken, but when written you need context. Spelling dies "dør" and door "dör" would have solved this, but this is no longer done, and was never the standard the spelling.
My guess is that this "Ö-sound" is what the writer meant. I have no idea what it is called in technical jargon or what its IPA-symbol might be.
However, Ö has also been used for other things. Storm P always used Ö, never Ø, in the hand drawn text on his comic strips. Until recently it was common practice to use Ö on maps. It was tought that an O wich happen to span a line on the map might be confused with an Ø and vice versa.

--Klausok 07:06, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with spelling. The phoneme being written with the letter <ø> is in fact IPA [œ] (an open mid front rounded vowel) so what it is saying is that /œ/ and /ø/ (close mid front rounded vowel) is merging for some speakers. The /œ/ phoneme is a marginal phoneme only contrasting before certain consonants (n, m, j). I don't know why they have chosen to write IPA [œ] as <ö> in the vowel tabel instead of using the IPA transcription - but if you look in the long table on the right you will see that the pronunciation of <ö> is described as [œ]. Another thing is that I am not sure the statement is true - i certainly cannot recall having heard any of those words with [ø] instead of [œ]·Maunus· ·ƛ· 12:42, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Do you mean that The phoneme being written with the letter <ö> is in fact IPA [œ]? BTW I have not heard them merge either.

--Klausok 16:51, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is what the tables say. I still don't know why they use that letter though.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 21:00, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Loss of the voiced velar fricative

On the talk page for that sound, I discuss the environments where some Danish speakers still use it. Shouldn't the orthography section also mention that g may be pronounced [ɣ] in those contexts (as long as we keep the "older speakers" side-note)? I'd add that myself, but the notation in the orthography table is a bit confusing! --Ingeborg S. Nordén 15:16, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Glottal stop?

The article (as well as the various transcriptions around Wikipedia) use a superscript <ʔ> (<ˀ>) to denote what looks like a form of elision or glottal replacement. But I'm not really sure. Is that supposed to be a full glottal stop and if so what's wrong with using <ʔ>? Either way, the article, I think, should explain this a little bit. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 01:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
it's the stød-·Maunus· ·ƛ· 09:16, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Ahh, my bad. Thank you. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 18:33, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] /tˢ/?

I'm confused, shouldn't /tˢ/ represent the Voiceless alveolar affricate, not the Voiceless alveolar stop?Cameron Nedland 21:41, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I think there's some sort of acoustical relationship between an aspirated dental/alveolar plosive and a slightly affricated one. So if I were making a phonemic representation of Danish I would gloss over this affrication as it parallels the aspiration of the labial and velar stops. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 21:52, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay, just a little confused.Cameron Nedland 20:35, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Good observation but it doesn't give any direct clue if /tˢ/ is Voiceless alveolar affricate or a Voiceless alveolar stop. I ask you to be more direct please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.80.11.190 (talk) 19:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
tˢ is not an affricate. Affricates are written t͡s with an arch. tˢ is a voiceless alveolar stop with a slight friction. It should only be transcribed as tˢ in a close transcription but as a plain "t" in a broad transcription. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 19:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Well that makes three people who have been confused about this. We should edit the article to clarify this. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 21:12, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] /r/ vs /ʁ/

Every /r/ in this article needs to be replaced with /ʁ/. The Danish "r" is a Voiced uvular fricative. Emil Kastberg (talk) 22:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)