Talk:Swedish language/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Hallo everybody. Please notice that the English example on the description of short "a" ('"u" in "put"') is clearly wrong, especially since the SAME example is used three lines after for the description of short "o"!

I guess that the English word "what" could be a closer example of a Swedish short "a", but I don't dare to correct the article myself as I don't actually speak swedish. Could someone more skilled than me please have look into it? Regards. Cingar 17:52 Jan 31, 2004 (UTC)

I can understand the reasoning behind disambiguating from "Swedish language" to "Swedish (language)", but I'm not sure that I would venture to undertake such a disambiguation by myself. I recognize a primary value in maintaining a systematic implementation of article names and any change also implies the same for every language articles, including disambiguation of their links. This is truly a gargantuan task. I'm not necessarily opposed to it as such, but any change that is not fully implemented would just lead to confusion. If it is to be implemented, I would like to see it that it is followed through completely. -- Mic 07:26 May 9, 2003 (UTC)

Process in progress. I'm sorry if I'm not as fast as you are. I've recently had some minor problems with the urge to do other changes at the same time (trying hard to resist! :-), and also with the urge to make use of the nice weather out-doors. :-)) -- Ruhrjung 07:54 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

Martin, regarding the written standard of South-Scandinavian Swedish (language), you changed [[Adjective]]s are typically [[Grammatical conjugation|conjugated]] according to (real) [[gender]] to ...[[sex]]. I think it's a rather tricky case. You don't write Det snälla/snälle barnet regardless of if you know the sex or not. You don't even see Det snälle gossebarnet, but Den snälle gossen vs. Den snälla flickan. My impression is that this is a distinction between sex and gender, but of course I might be wrong. A child called barn is probably thought of as gender-less (but never sex-less). Also the gossebarn is seemingly gender-less, but the gosse isn't. This is also what my native Swedish friends seem to believe, although it's of course of limited value what native laymen say regarding their mother tongue. It would be stupid to ask me about German grammar!

You seem to understand this differently. Do you follow any published authority?

best regards!
-- Ruhrjung 06:13 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I was just trying to fix links to gender, which is a disambiguation page - I assumed that "real gender" meant sex in this case, rather than gender role, gender identity, or grammatical gender. Sounds like I mucked it up - could you fix it to point to the correct page? Martin

My problem is that I'm a student of Swedish, not a native speaker. I consider this peculiarity being one (of several) areas which I don't really understand. It would be ridiculous if I tried to correct others' corrections. This is of course further complicated by me being not a native speaker of English, why I am somewhat insecure regarding the precise distinctions about "gender" and "sex" in English.
-- Ruhrjung 06:10, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Righto. We'll have to wait for someone else to get here then :) Martin 13:40, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

-- I think that Jämska is presumably the variety of Swedish spoken in Jämtland - the area around Östersund. I have never heard of Jemtia - but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist as a word. David Martland 13:46, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

-- Interestingly, this page http://www.ima.mdh.se/personal/lln/jamtamot/dokument/jubileumsskrift1985/js1985_nr07_jamska.html suggests that the correct form for the name of the language used in Jämtland is in fact jamska - so I stand corrected. I will try to work out how to do the correction back in the main text.

-- Concerning Jamska or Jämska or whatever (there is no standardized spelling, but the Jamts often seem to prefer "jamska", since the 'ä' is a Swedish letter). Jamska is not the Swedish spoken in Jämtland (to say the area around Östersund is a bit of a stretch, the area is of the same size as Switzerland), linguistically it's correctly classified as a West-Scandinavian language, whereas Swedish is on the Eastern branch. The only reason it is often called a Swedish dialect is a political one; Jämtland happens to belong to Sweden nowadays. "Iemtia" is a Latin spelling of the province name, and one form of it can be seen on the Carta Marina, a Swedish map from 1539 ("Iempihia"). It has never really been used though, and certainly not during the last three centuries.

The article states that the definite article is a suffix. But my understanding is that they are attached if there is no adjective but a separate word, spelled slightly differently, if an adjective does intervene. — Hippietrail 01:31, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus (mouse)..." I was under the impression that 'mus' was of Latin origin - my dictionary agrees with me on this as well. - X-G, 12:48, 16 Jun 2004 UTC

Which dictonary are you refering to? Both NEO and SAOB states that 'mus' is an ancient swedish word and NEO also states that it has Germanic orgin (HIST.: sedan äldre fornsvensk tid; fornsv. mus; gemens. germ. ord, motsvarande lat. mus, grek. mys med samma bet.) --Martinl 20:35, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Translated: "common germanic word, akin to latin mus, greek mys, with the same meaning", I.e. that is a common IE root, which hasn't changed in very different ways in latin, germanic or greek.

Contents

Rinkebysvenska

What most people call "Rinkebysvenska", is just plain Swedish with a few borrowed Turkish words, usually spoken with an accent. I barely consider it a dialect and most certainly not a derived language. Does anyone disagree? -- Ml, 16 Oct 2004

No, I fully agree. Although there are quite a number of foreign words from different origins used in the youth vernaculars of suburbs such Rinkeby, Botkyrka and Rosengård that is certainly not enough to call any one of them a "derived language". Alarm 19:27, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I think we can all agree that the type of Swedish spoken by first generation immigrants isn't a proper dialect. However, making the same assumption for second or third generation immigrants makes no sense at all. There is no question that even children born and raised in Sweden speak a quite distinct and easily discernable style of Swedish which can't possibly be classified as a mere accent. Syntax (verb placement tends to differ), pronounciation (in particular the quite Arabic-influenced velar uvular fricatives) and vocabulary all differ to some degree or another, which is generally accepted as the criteria for a dialect. I know a lot of people who want to classify these mainly immigrant-spoken varieties as sociolects, but I'm not so sure about that myself. One of the main reasons is that I've heard what looked to me as ethnic Swedes use this style of speech with friends that looked to be decended from immigrants. The fact that you hear different dialects coming out of different part of the country also point to the fact that Rinkeby-Swedish and Rosengård-Swedish should be considered offspring of the respective regional dialects. Sociolect or dialect? I'm not sure, but we're definetly not talking about just accented Swedish. - karmosin 01:46, 3 Feb 2005
The question of whether these forms of speech are dialects or not is certainly debatable, and there are arguments both for and against. One argument against looking at them as dialects that I think has to be considered is the fact that they don't seem to have a stable vocabulary. To me it seems more like each speaker uses a personal array of slang and borrowed foreign words and there are no standard Swedish words that couldn't be used interchangeably with these. Compare this with Scanian, where you could definitely argue that it "would be incorrect" to use the Swedish pojke (instead of paug),
For clarification, the previous postings were a response to the fact that Rinkebysvenska was originally listed as a derived language, and not a dialect. Regardless of the discussion of it being a dialect or not, I think we can agree that was incorrect. It was later moved - see this diff. / Alarm 12:09, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be a good idea to add references, attributions and/or quotations to the section that now is called "Immigrant varieties"? /Tuomas 12:55, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Attention Estonian nationalists!

There is an ongoing debate over at the Swedish wiki about whether there are enough Swedish speakers in Estonia to merit an inclusion in the language template. I've slapped the Swedish language article with a POV-warning and asked for a reliable source on the number of current speakers. The Ethnologue puts the figure at a whopping 29, none whatsoever in the Ukraine and there are plenty of Swedish articles about the Estonian Swedophones that clearly indicate that the number was way below a few thousand as early as WW II.

Either come up with links to some groundbreaking studies or stop reinserting info that has no merit. I'm too familiar with the concept of Swedish-Estonian nationalism to let this slide. --karmosin 00:49, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Allophone

Ruhrjung, I didn't quite understand your objection. The two sounds are in effect allophones, even if all dialects and regional variations except the northern and Finland-Swedish make that distinction in speech. Why doesn't it make any sense? Peter Isotalo 09:47, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

After the text
The pronunciation of vowels, and of some consonant sounds (particularly sibilants), demonstrates marked differences in spoken high-prestige varieties.
Ruhrjung had added
This includes in many dialects, including that of the capital area, the voiceless dorso-palatal and velar fricative [ɧ], (pronounced somewhere between "sh" in English she and "ch" in German doch), that in most of these dialects must be distinguished from the voiceless retroflex fricative [ʂ] (pronounced somewhere between "sh" in English she and "ch" in German ich). In other important dialects, the same opposition is rather differently produced.
You changed
that in most of these dialects must be distinguished from the voiceless retroflex fricative [ʂ]
to
that in most of these dialects must be distinguished from the allophonic voiceless retroflex fricative [ʂ]
(my emphasis).
So, why must allophones be distinguished? Aren't they rather much unconciously produced and perceived; and when one is produced for the other, usually no harm is done.
If [ɧ] and [ʂ] are allophones of the same phoneme in most of these dialects, then there is no reason to write about it at all, an it could be removed, couldn't it?
However, in my book [ɧ] and [ʂ] are allophones of different phonems, the sje-phoneme and the assimilation of /r/+/s/.
/Tuomas 12:09, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Well, that makes sense. I guess I got somewhat confused by your earlier statement of minimal pair excercises with [ɧ] and [ʂ]. Peter Isotalo 14:39, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Standard Swedish variations or dialects?

I think we need to start clearly defining the difference between Swedish dialects and the regional variations of Standard Swedish. The term rikssvenska should be defined in a separate article, and we should avoid confusing popular notions of what the word actually means with the linguistic definitions, which are hardly as vague as are implied in this article. It should certainly be noted that there are misunderstandings of the term among the general public, but it should only follow after a thorough explanation of the linguistic definitions.

The sources I've checked seem to be quite clear and unanimous on the matter. A Swedish dialect is defined quite seperatly from the regional variations.

Here are some citations, my translations from Swedish with my comments enclosed in brackets:

from NE's article rikssvenska:

rikssvenska, the Swedish national language ["riksspråket"]. It has mainly developed from the upper class language of the Mälar Valley region. It can no longer be attributed to any certain regions. The word is used commonly among both laymen and scholars.

from NE's article riksspråk (roughly "national language):

riksspråk, a form of language that is common to one state [actually Swedish rike, which would roughly translate to "realm"] which is constrasted to dialects. Usually refering to both spoken and written languages. (...) Today the term standard language is the most common in the scientific litterature.

Both these articles in turn link to the article "standardspråk" (standard language) and a further defining of "riksspråk" mainly as a term for standard languages in general as well as refering to Standard Swedish.

Engstrand, Olle, "Fonetikens grunder", 2004, pg. 120:

All languages have more or less significant regional variations in pronunciation. In Swedish there are differences in the spoken varieties of the standard language ("Scanian", "Gutnish" or "Dalmål") as well as variations specific to certain cities ["stadsmål"] like "Stockholmska" or "Göteborska". By "dialect" Swedish dialectologists are refering to those bygdemål or landsmål that have a straight lineage that can be traced back to Old Norse, a history shared with all other Scandinavian dialects - these form a continuum while the distinct "National languages" like Swedish, Danish and Norweigan are relativly recent constructions.

Since the linguists seem to be quite clear that "rikssvenska" is more or less the same as "Standard Swedish" and that this term is by no means as rigid and chauvinistic as a lot of our articles here seem to hint at, I think we should start the article Standard Swedish where we can explain these matters properly. Peter Isotalo 14:44, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

May I remind you, Peter, that this seems to be a repetition of our recent discussion in :sv:Diskussion:Svenska#Sveamål. It would be nice if the confusions from that discussion could be avoided this time.
--Johan Magnus 08:44, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Absolutely. That's why I'm citing Engstrad this time. Peter Isotalo 10:20, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

Former capitalisation of common nouns?

I've either read or heard that several Germanic languages besides German used to capitalise all common nouns. In Danish this practice was abolished in a spelling reform in the late 1940s. Can anybody tell me if this was ever practiced in Swedish and if so when was it abolished? — Hippietrail 06:09, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I would guess that it was no later than the 19th century. Before that I'm not sure Swedish orthography was all that standardized. I'm pretty sure I've seen it in older texts from the the 18th century or before. Most likely influenced by German. Peter Isotalo 10:27, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)
I do agree with Peter, and it might be added that influence from Low (and High) German has been considerable, which is why it rather is an interesting question why capitalisztion of common nouns disappeared!
--Johan Magnus 12:31, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Minor rewrite

I simply removed the Trivia-section in my latest edit. The category doesn't fit with the standard recommended by the Languages Project and a lot of the facts were either non-encyclopedic or very speculative.

A lot of the rewrite is based on the discussions at Talk:Standard Swedish and Talk:Swedish phonology. If anything something important got lost, just give a holler and we'll sort it out. Peter Isotalo 10:27, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

A few questions about your rewrite, Johan:
  • Wouldn't at least a table of the phonemes be a good idea? Moving the sje-example also doesn't seem to have much of a point since there already is an example at Swedish phonology. As far as I know it is recommended that a minimum of sound samples be placed in language articles.
    • Why? You have yourself created a specific phonology-article. I would however be prepared to move back the phonology content again. --Johan Magnus 12:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • The removal of the passage that explains the "u"-vowel to be unique for Swedish and Norweigan was explained with this edit summary: "removing nationalist proudness". Could you explain how it is nationalist to claim that a sound is unique for a particular language? Is the fact actually contested (by any sources)? Will speakers of other languages feel less proud of their own language because they're missing that particular vowel? Is the "u" a particularly prestigious vowel among phoneticians? Labeling comments about unique features as nationalism (on the sole basis that I happen to be a native speaker) just doesn't seem like a valid objection.
    • Without going into too much details, there is no need to appear too much bragging about alleged uniqueness. It looks pretty childish to me. And the allegation is obviously hard to prove. You are however misinterpreting me when you (this time) believe it has anything with you personally to do. Not at all. I would have the same opinion regardless of who had written it, although I may have tempered my edit somewhat differently if it was a student of Swedish who had made the proposal. --Johan Magnus 12:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • The melodic accent is as far as I know not too unusual a feature in the UPSID languages. I guess that it's probably not too common among the top 100 languages, but that doesn't seem to be a good way of judging if a feature is unusual or not.
    • Yes it is. English speakers and other students of Swedish as a foreign language are likely to be more acquainted with the more common languages than with the less common. --Johan Magnus 12:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • I wrote the history section specfically for the introduction. Introductions are as far as I know intended to be fairly comprehensive, if still general enough to be brief. The actually history section has a lot more room for information than just that brief summary.
    • As you see, I disagree with your judgement. I think the history-information is relevant in a history section, when there now exists one. That's where a reader would look for it. In my opinion (and that's what it is: your and my opinions!) Your history-content took far too much of the space of the introduction. --Johan Magnus 12:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • In general, we have a lot more room in this article. I don't think we need to limit ourselves all that much here considering that most sections are still very brief.
    • Also on this point I disagree with you. In fact, I think User:Graculus had a good manifesto — although I came to disagree very much with one of his attempts to implement it. --Johan Magnus 12:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've noticed I didn't explain everything that I changed on the talk page, but then again, I didn't see it as particularly controversial. I'll do a full summary of my edits on the talk pages from now on. Do you thin you could do the same? Peter Isotalo 18:48, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)
I am sure that would clogg the talk page and make it harder to follow discussions. --Johan Magnus 12:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Melodic accent"

I added some information and rephrased a lot of the Sounds-section. The term "prosody" is probably better to use, and there seemed to be a confusion in the old version about vocal stress in general. All forms of Swedish have melodic accent, it's just not the same in all varieties. Finland-Swedish, however, does not differentiate between accents 1 and 2 as do all (I think) varieties in Sweden.

I don't think we want too many subsections either, and in since we should be fairly brief about stress, it's better to stick to just "Stress". Peter Isotalo 15:42, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

The melodic accent is one of the features of Swedish that is most distinctive and best known abroad. The exact wordings and layout of the article can of course be discussed, and inaccuracies ought of course to be eliminated, but it does not at all seem advisable to "stick to just 'stress'".
What's your source for "all (I think) varieties in Sweden"?
It would also be nice to include an apostrophication or a link to an authorative quote on Finland-Swedish. Can you propose any?
--Johan Magnus 12:03, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
If you want any changes to the previous statements to be supported by quotes, then you might want to think about quoting sources yourself. Melodic accent seems to be totally void of any source references at all, for example. Especially when it's about issues that are really not the least bit controversial.
After all, it's you who proposes changes to texts and wordings that have stood the test of time. And it's you who often have appeared quite eager to request scholarly quotations from others. Hence I think you have more reason to present support for your proposed changes than do others have for conservativeness. I am sure you will understand this basic principle some day, in case you don't do this already now.
With regard to Finland-Swedish, specifically, you may be interested in Non-native pronunciations of English#Finnish, given that you agree that some of the basic difference between Finland-Swedish and rikssvenska can be explained linguistically by a Finnish substratum.
You may also consider the difference between providing a link as a means to convince other wikipedians of your point (on the talk page), and to provide a attribution of a point of view to an authority (in the actual article). For the former, googling is useful, for the latter: not so much.
--Johan Magnus 14:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
But here goes:
  • Melodic accent seems like a somewhat nonstandard phonetic term that could mean anything that has to do with either stress or acccent.
  • All varieties of Swedish can stress syllables in a number of ways to achieve a number of differences in meaning, but not all use accents 1 and 2 to seperate homonyms, see Garlén (1988) pg. 138-139, Elert (2000) pg. 130-33. and Engstrand (2004) pg. 186-192.
    • I agree with your wording here, and I hope we agree that grave and acute accent in Swedish do not express "stress". --Johan Magnus 14:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • The Swedish term used by both Garlén and Engstrand is ordaccent ("word accent") where words are seperated only by the use of either accents 1 or 2. I'm not 100% what this corresponds to in English, but just "melodic accent" is too vague.
--Johan Magnus 14:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • For some examples of how accents 1 and 2 can be realized, see Engstrand pg. 213-217.
  • For a concise summary on the different prosodic elements in Swedish see Bolander (2001) pg. 61 (or the chapter on prosody in the new edition).
Let me know if you need summarized quotes of these sources.
Peter Isotalo 13:10, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
Summary:
Reference to melodic accent is a good thing, "stick to just 'stress'" is illadviced.
I don't think we disagree much with regard to the situation in Swedish. The issue is how to express this in English. (Or if at all.) However, as I've already hinted at, it's far too brave to allege that all varieties in Sweden should differ from Finland-Swedish like this. It doesn't seem likely to me, and decreases the credibility of the text. I guess none of the sources you refer to has the guts to be that bold.
Nor does it seem like a good solution to be too specific about the situation in Finland-Swedish - unless we have a good source to rely on.
May I also make the clear reservation that I am pretty unsure of which of Elert's works I've read? ...and I do for the moment not recall to have read any work by any Bolander at all - but that may be due to faulty memory.
--Johan Magnus 14:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Swedish language(s)

The article says the following about some of the Swedish dialects:

"Gutnish, Jamska, Scanian (Skånska) and Dalecarlian (Dalmål) can in their own right be considered as separate languages. Practically all speakers of these languages are bilingual in Swedish, and the consideration here is principally the dialect of Swedish spoken by these individuals. None of them are recognized as separate languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. See also: Minority languages in Sweden"

Jamska and Dalecarlian are proper dialects of Swedish and might reasonably be considered seperate languages, though I don't know what linguists have to say about it. Even Gutnish seems reasonable. The claim about Scanian seems to be extremely speculative, though. The article Scanian language is far too influenced by regionalist sentiment (use of the term Terra Scania, for example).

I don't really see any value in defining all true dialects of Swedish as seperate langauges, since neither linguists or even the speakers themselves use this definition. The term "dialect" is flexible enough to use in this context and it is far easier than trodding straight into the stagnant rhetorical swamp that is the language/dialect discourse. Going by the linguistic terminology (not our own interpretations of said terminology) seems the only compromise that wouldn't be confusing for outsiders.

See Talk:Scanian language for a more specific discussion of Scanian as a seperate language. Peter Isotalo 16:04, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

Most certainly do linguists say different things depending on their general attitudes towards the (alleged) differences between dialects and languages.
--Johan Magnus 12:04, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
That's very hard to tell, though, since you never actually quote them. Who besides SIL, who's reliability is rightfully questioned, is claiming that these are seperate langauges? And I want the actual words of actual linguists on this one, mind you. Not just intepretations of very non-specific debates on the difficulty of establishing a boundary between a dialect and a language. Peter Isotalo 12:21, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
That's not my thing to prove. I do not claim that there is a difference between languages and dialects.
 :-)
--Johan Magnus 12:39, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

removed hard-to-prove claims

The following was removed:

The Swedish [ʉ̟ː] has no known equivalent except in Norwegian and the fricative [ɧ] is not known to exist in any other langauge.

The first symbol is rather cryptic, and North-British speakers may disagree with the claim if the symbol means what I believe it does.

The idea that ɧ doesn't exist in other languages is also questionable and really impossible to prove. What can be truthfully argued, is that the symbol is not used for other languages, which is explained by it being a relatively new and obscure addition to the IPA-chart. However, the symbol is used in the literature for several different sounds, many of which for sure exist not only in other languages, but even in nearby languages.

To sum it up: this kind of absolute statments are substandard.

/J.O.

An additional explanation for the exclusive use of ɧ is maybe its IPA-definition as a sound with combined articulation:
[ ʃ + x ].
/Tuomas 11:08, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
ɧ is used for several different sounds when it is indicated to be phoneme with many different realizations just like /r/, /t/, /k/, etc. Look this up in any phonology. They all use the same terminology and they all follow the recommendations of the IPA. I can assure you that the dicussion at voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative is not especially helpful in this matter. The whole thing got stuck on a simple confusion of phoneme/phone and then got dragged into the whole Standard Swedish/Swedish phonology-conflict where all logical discussion broke down long ago. The sound I recorded is what the symbol is supposed to represent (with some variations) and you can confirm this with any book on Swedish phonetics.
Also, you can't reasonably ask for a statement along the lines of "...is not known to exist in any other langauge" to be proved. If you want to question it, you have to prove that it does exist in some other language. Otherwise the sentence is perfectly facutal and NPOV. Peter Isotalo 16:05, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)
It's per definition hard to wikipedia:verify. I propose that you consider wordings along the lines of "Olle Engstrand, a Swedish author on phonetics, writes < !-- in Olle Engstrand, Fonetikens grunder, 2004, page XX -- > that...".
See Talk:Swedish phonology for plenty of sources on the matter.
Peter Isotalo 07:45, May 12, 2005 (UTC)
I would also like to take this opportunity to once again (User talk:Karmosin#Thanks for the Swedish "sj" pronunciation!) propose that the sound you recorded does more sound like a southern pronunciation than what I've learned as the prestigious capital region pronunciation (from audio tapes in the Swedish course I followed in Sweden, but also often demonstrated by the language teacher who introduced herself as a native of the Gothenburg area), that had more of sibilant hissings to it.
--Ruhrjung 17:34, May 2, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry for not answering this earlier. I didn't really notice it until now, what with all the bruhaha about Swedish phonology.
My pronunciation of the "sje" is by far the most common in and around Stockholm, which is confirmed by Elert in Allmän och svensk fonetik. Engstrand and Garlén both describe the sound with almost the same symbols as Elert, though they don't have actual maps to specify usage. I can't back it up with specific sources, but I'd say it's by far the most common on TV and radio these days as well.
I can't be certain of what this more prestigeous pronunciation you heard on tape was, but I'm very sure it was the retroflex /rs/-assimilation [ʂ], which is probably a lot easier for foreign students of Swedish to pronounce than the quite unique [ɧ]. Any native Swede that uses [ɧ] would probably produce a [ʂ] if asked to speak very formally. Otherwise the use of it is limited to the northern varieties, to some older (especially upper class) speakers and to effeminte gay men. I think Johan Magnus mentioned the latter phenomena much earlier in our discussion as a Swedish equivalent of an American English gay lisp.
Peter Isotalo 07:45, May 12, 2005 (UTC)
I had this discussion in mind while listening to Swedish news on radio, and I now understand you mean! Though I'm still fairly sure that most lower-to-middle class Central Swedes are fairly close to my pronunciation (or at the least most people my age), I noticed that on radio the pronunciation is, just like you said, more sibilantic than mine. This is in fact the pronunciation my mother has, which I had thought was due to the fact that she's an academic and not originally from Stockholm, but it probably has more to do with age than anything else.
Here is what it sounds like when pronouncing the word sjuksköterska ("nurse"): listen (help·info)
The first realization is produced by pushing the air through almost clenched teeth. The second one is (as far as I can tell without the means of analyzing it properly) some sort of velar obstruction with pursed lips, which I guess would mean it's labial to some degree (w in the IPA symbology). How the first sound is produced, I don't know and don't have the phonetic training to analyze, but it feels far more frontal, even alveolar. However, the tip of the tounge is not involved as in the English or German [ʃ], but obstructing in a manner I simply can't analyze and that feels far more diffuse than any of the other sibilants.
Peter Isotalo 18:14, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

About removal of text

I noticed that a some text has been removed with the motivation that there are seperate articles for this. This is a fair assumption, but it's not a good idea to remove material without actually moving it.

Unless it is flat-out wrong, don't remove text by claiming the article is too long. In the matter of the immigrant varieties, I'm note sure if it's appropriate to simply move fairly relevant information on a quite interesting aspect of the Swedish language. Considering that FA articles on languages like Russian language and Portuguese language are extremely extensive in comparison, it would seem odd that Swedish would have to be so minimalist in information, even when there are seperate articles for certain subjects. I recommend discussing the removal of any information that is not actually erroneous on the talk page, and if it is removed, that the information is moved either to another article or at the very least its talkpage. Some duplicate information must be tolerated in any encyclopedia, and especially in such a general article as this. Peter Isotalo 13:39, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)