Swedish Phonology

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Vowels

The Swedish alphabet uses nine vowels: a, e, i, o, u, y, å, ä and ö.

With regard to their pronunciation, the language consists of 18 vowel phonemes which are distinguished by their lengthening. There are nine long and nine short vowels which entail a difference of quality and quantity. The orthographic depiction of diphthongs does not exist in Swedish.

Long Vowels

There are nine long vowel phonemes which can cause a change in the meaning of a word.


  Front unrounded Front rounded Central rounded Back rounded
Close ʉː
Close mid øː  
Open mid ɛː      
Open       ɑː


Examples: is [iːs] ny [nyː] mus [mʉːs] sol [suːl] led [leːd] öl [øːl] bås [boːs] näs [nɛːs] sak [sɑːk]

Sometimes the doubling of a consonant also indicates the lengthening of a preceding vowel, e.g. bar - barr.

Short Vowels

Swedish makes use of nine short vowels.

  Front unrounded Front rounded Central rounded Back rounded
Close ɪ ʏ   ʊ
Close mid e   ɵ  
Open mid ɛ œ   ɔ
Open a      

In many cases e and ä coincide and are pronounced the same such as in sett - sätt. On that account some dictionaries mention that there are only eight short vowels in the Swedish language.

Consonants

A typical consonant in the Swedish language is for instance the ɧ, which is between a [x] and a [ʃ] sound. Furthermore the retroflexes ʈ, ɖ, ʂ, ɭ and ɳ are a fixture. Opinions differ concerning the total number of consonant phonemes since retroflexes are often treated as allophones. Counting them among phonemes, there are 23 consonant phonemes altogether in the Swedish language.

  Labial Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive p, b t, d ʈ [1],

ɖ [2]

  k, g  
Fricative f, v s ʂ [3] ɕ [4] ɧ [5] h
Nasal m n ɳ [6]   ŋ  
Trill / Flap   r        
Approximant       j    
Lateral Approximant   l ɭ [7]      

Annotation: Where two phonemes appear in one column the first phoneme is always voiceless and the second voiced.