The Swedish SJ Sound, Part 2: Usage
2016 ж. 2 Нау.
21 140 Рет қаралды
When and where are the different versions of the SJ sounds used? This video explains the phonological distribution of the sound, and presents its dialectal variation.
This is part 2 of 3 in a series about the Swedish SJ sound.
Part 1, Pronunciations: • The Swedish SJ Sound, ...
Part 3, Spelling: • The Swedish SJ Sound, ...
RELATED VIDEOS
Swedish: The tj sound
• Swedish: The tj sound
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Thank you for helping me become a mighty SJ warrior!
+Correctrix omg clever.
Thank you for this very clear explanation! I became aware of this by watching the series "Äkta människor". The word "människor" is pronounced in both ways by different characters in the series.
Wow, I’m from Helsinki, Finland, and I’m supposed to speak some “standard Finland Swedish”, and I can confirm that our system for this pronunciation is much simpler than it seems to be in at least central Sweden. I teach Finland Swedish to foreigners here, and I always tell them that our sj-sound is the same that they use especially in German and Italian for instance, and I honestly don’t hear too much difference between our sj and sh in English ship. And then we have the kj-sound, which will have its equivalent in German, English, Italian and Spanish as well, the sound with the “t-förslag”, as it’s called in Sweden. So, it’s quite a simple system, and we don’t pay too close attention here to how the sounds are pronounced exactly, as we also have lots of dialects where the sounds may vary a bit, and some little variation still usually keeps the words understandable. I of course always also mention how the sounds differ in Sweden, but only very briefly.
So, nail on head... Awesome rundown on this particularity of the Swedish language.
Thanks for this awesome video series, I learned so much! I'm a German who's living in Småland for quite a while now, and I was so confused about the people's different pronunciation of kanske when I came here. But nowadays I'm proud of my people here with their funny farmer's accent, makes them super sympathetic :D
5:50 thanks for explaining this! Now I get it why my Swedish teacher encourages us to use this pronunciation rather than the other "dialectal" one. I wonder whether it sounds old-fashioned or just prestigious?
If you're old, especially an old female, then it can sound old-fashioned. Other than that I think you would be perceived as someone trying to sound fancy or superior, especially as a non-native speaker. Living in the north or speaking with a northern accent would be an exception to this as that is the standard pronunciation for them.
It's one of the sounds that make swedish intresting for me 🇸🇪
Great stuff as usual. The age-class-gender divide is spot on. My hunch is that the green-colored ch sound has a higher prevalence than the map suggests, and that the number of individuals in the south central regions who go in a full or near-full back sound direction is considerable. I'm from Varberg, marked just on the yellow-green border. I'm middle aged and even back in the 80's we (almost) all pronounced loan French -ge sounds with back sound, while doing the loan German -sch sound frontal, as is the norm everywhere for good reason. "Hyssja" is a word that we, too, often pronounced with a frontal sound since it's a direct derivative of the universal human sshhh frontal warning sound. But a French loan like duscha, we said with a back sj sound despite the frontal pronunciation of the original.
Bra gort! Tak ska du ha.
That's quite interesting, in Pashto/Pakhto it's the other way around. The letter ښ, as in the name of the language itself, پښتو , is pronounced as "sh" up south and as "kh" down north. Thus the language is called "Pashto" up south and "Pakhto" down north.
Adam--thank you so mcuh for these videos--the level of detail is incredible and extremely important for approaching nativelike pronunciation in Swedish. I was thinking about your rules for the back and front sj-sounds, and was wondering if it's accurate to collapse the two rules for the back variant by saying it occurs only prevocalically, while the front variant occurs elsewhere. Based on your characterization, I think this is correct. Can you confirm?
This series is very helpful, thanks! Can you explain what happens if there is an r before the SJ sound, e. g. version? My impression is that the r is merged with the back SJ sound (similar to rt/rd/rn). Does it also influence the choice of front or back SJ sound?
Thank you! In that case, the r is actually deleted. It does not influence the sj sound at all, but it does open the vowel before disappearing. I've been trying to get the video explaining this into shape for quite some time now, but it's been an annoying subject to make presentable :)
Thanks for the explanation! I’m looking forward to that video. :-) - The rt/rd/rn thing was one of the things that was never mentioned in my courses, but that irritated me when listening to native speakers and speaking self until I finally read about it in a grammar book.
The pronunciation of västgötar och östgötar was a total surprise to me, even though I've been listening to audio books (in Swedish) mentioning these people. :o I would probably not have understood if they had been pronounced this way!
Fun fact: This pronunciation also serves as an indicator of your relation to the provinces in question, since no one who actually comes from Väster- or Östergötland would pronounce them with anything but a sj sound :)
nice.
About the age difference i'd say it's the other way around, younger people tend to use the front sj sound more, but maybe that's just where i live. I'm from Småland and i almost only use the back version myself.
Just to be sure: am I right in thinking that when the spelling is as in eg "första" you always get the retroflex /ʂ/ by any speaker?
No, many speakers pronounce as /rs/ (or /s/). You'll find this in Southern Sweden and in Finland. You will never have with a back sj sound though, which I suspect might have been your actual question?
@@AcademiaCervena Yes, that's what I meant. Thanks for the answer!
Quite odd how i amost only say the back sj here in Kalix, covered by that lined northeastern dot
Very great video! However, as I'm not advanced in swedish yet it's not clear to me why the sj sound is pronounced in words like 'position' and 'giraff' as they're not written with sj nor with variants?
It's because they are loanwords, so the unintuitive spellings have been kept. I explain this further in part 3 of the series :)
I guess that may explain why in old Swedish films they tend to use the front sj sound regarding class and older people?
Yes, partly, but in the first part of the 20th century, the front sj was also considered to be the 'standard' version of the sound. So you would also use it in order not to sound dialectal to begin with.
All these videos are teaching me is that i pronounce some swedish words weirdly, even though i'm a native swede lmao. I would never pronounce some of the words the way you do lmao (i live in Västmanland, Västerås, so pretty central).
Well, the point of this video is to show that it depends on your dialect (and sometimes other factors as well) what version of the sj sound that you use :)
Hi, Adam. Is there a pattern on wether to use the single or doubly articulated back sj sound? Based on the following vowels, perhaps?
Not that I'm aware of, really. In the end it's mostly individual variation. The doubly articulated version is more common to the south though. In the central parts of Sweden you can encounter both (the same person might switch between both too), but often the labiodental part is weaker there, if present.
Where did you get all this information? Why are there differences between genders?
Similar as for other sociolects. Social identity affecting speech pattern. For the words where there is plenty of individual choice on the sj sound, frontal version preference has more of a flamboyant and/or educated and/or artsy ring, whereas the deliberate back sound emphasis signals a more down to earth personality. This social rule does not apply however in regions where frontal sj is already general norm for most or all sj sounds. Sociolectal frontal sj emphasis usually comes with added speech variations on top, forming a distinct social speech marker. Swedes of all regions can therefore usually distinguish between dialectal frontal sj and sociolectal frontal sj. The two are partly merged and harder to separate in parts of the capital however.
I am sorry but English is not my first language and I can't make out what you are saying at 2:05 , please help ?
"There are also a couple of compounds, where an _sj_ sound has arisen due to assimilation"
I'm from the north west and I only use the front sj-sound, but I tend to make it lower in the mouth with more air and less of a hissing noice (if that makes any sense haha). I also realised during this video that I've been pronouncing regissör wrong, I say "resisjör" instead of resjisör
Hi, you can always edit out the "ressigör" thing at any time you wish ;) I'm Varberg native with skåne/ångermanland parents. Love the smell of the Padjelanta mires. The northern sj is much fun, without the snobby feel of the Sthlm sj (no offense, or just a tiny bit you östermalmare). You do it with the classic pouty-mouth too, as with the in-breath "jo" thing?
Det låter konstigt när du säger dusch med bakre ljudet men inte konstigt när du säger sjö med främre. Beror nog på att jag är från Umeå o här använder vi bara det främre.
Bra insikt! Sånt som vi är vana vid att höra låter naturligt för oss, och vice versa :)
Det låter brano konstigt när du säger detdär bakre sj-ljudet Man är ju van att bara höra det främre
Tvärtom här 🐢
Beror ju på var du bor som sagt...
I'm Swedish
But not born there
im an american can you just tell me which i should study plz lol
Unless you're aiming for a particular accent/dialect, I'd recommend learning the common pattern of using both the back /ɧ/ and the front /ʂ/ sound.
Which sound is attractive to Swedish girls, front or back?
Doesn't really matter because the way you say words with the sj sound depends on where you're from in Sweden.