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UNIT 1
What makes Swedish familiar? . . . and a few challenges
Introduction
Swedish is spoken by around 10 million people, which means that it is not a major world language. Nevertheless, it is still a language spoken by a relatively large number of people, coming 85th out of about 6,000 languages spoken in the world. Swedish is spoken in a geographically clearly distinct and restricted area; it is the language of more than 90% of people living in Sweden and about 5% of those living in Finland, where it is also an official language. It is also a language that has been cultivated and studied assiduously over the centuries, possessing standardised spelling conventions and reliable reference books in the form of dictionaries and grammars. Swedish has a rich literature and is used in a wide range of literary and technical fields.
English and Swedish are cousin languages; Swedish is a North Germanic language, closely related to Norwegian and Danish, as well as historically to Icelandic and Faeroese. Norwegian and Swedish are regarded as mutually intelligible. Spoken Danish and Swedish are more difficult to understand for their neighbours because of differences that have emerged in pronunciation.
Pronunciation
Generally speaking, Swedish spelling reflects its sounds; it is largely a phonetic language, unlike English or French (see Unit 2).
Swedish has three vowels not found in English: Ă„, Ă€, ö. There is a major distinction in length between long and short vowels: compare the first a sound in bada âbatheâ and badda âdabâ, respectively (see Unit 2).
The consonants only present one major challenge: gâ, kâ, skâ are pronounced either âhardâ [g], [k], [sk] or âsoftâ [j], [ç], [Ê], depending on the vowel that follows:
âą âhardâ before a, o, u, Ă„ in gas âgasâ; kontrast âcontrastâ; kung âkingâ; gĂ„s âgooseâ; skandal âscandalâ
âą âsoftâ before e, i, y, Ă€, ö in genetik âgeneticsâ; gĂ€st âguestâ; Kina âChinaâ; kyss âkissâ; köld âcoldâ; skidlift âski liftâ.
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Stress and accent
As in English, an important distinction occurs between stressed and unstressed words in the sentence (all significant words are stressed) and stressed and unstressed syllables in these words. Notice, for example, the unstressed prefixes in be'tala âpayâ and för'stĂ„ âunderstandâ, and the stressed negative prefix in words beginning in oâ: 'olycklig âunhappyâ.
In compound nouns (those made up from two or more nouns), there is stress on both the first and last part of the noun, and in the spoken language in central Sweden this also shows a falling and rising tone:
When two stresses occur in a single word â not a compound, but one with two syllables â they also have a distinctive tone pattern, with a rise at the end of the word that makes Swedes sound as if they are singing. This fallingârising tone pattern is often called Accent 2:
However, many bisyllabic words â including verbs in the present tense and words ending in âer, âel, âen â only have one rising tone, called Accent 1:
This is the same as in monosyllabic words:
Vocabulary
One feature that makes Swedish easy to learn is its vocabulary. English and Swedish share a great deal of their core Germanic vocabulary, thus making many words recognisable: arm, fot, finger, knĂ€, kniv. This includes words for family relationships (broder, dotter, syster, moder, son) and for rural life and nature (fisk âfishâ; gĂ„s âgooseâ;...