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Swedish plurals pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| caam_imt Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4863 days ago 232 posts - 357 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, Finnish Studies: German, Swedish | Message 1 of 18 28 June 2014 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hej! just a really quick question. How is the "o" in plural nouns ending in -or supposed
to be pronounced? I can't seem to find a straight answer and I feel my ear is playing tricks on me. Sometimes I hear an å and sometimes something like the "o" in "bok". How about all other words (plural or not) that also end in -or? Should I treat these o's the same way as in other positions? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4100 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 2 of 18 28 June 2014 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I haven't studied the theory, being a native speaker, but my experience tells me the variation is largely regional.
I'm from the south, and I'd pronounce the -or in words like hålor or håsor almost the same way I do the å-sound in those word. Not quite, but close. Other areas will use an o-sound close to bok. I'd say, choose one and stick with it. If you're going for one particular accent, look up -or words on Forvo until you find the pronunciation of the area you're aiming for. I find that there's a subtle shift in stress happening too, depending on which ending you use. Take this Stockholmer saying "kulor" for example. Notice how heavy he is on the -or. If I were to say the same word, I'd put a lot of stress on kul- and hardly any on -or. So there's a bit more going on than just a difference in sound. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 3 of 18 29 June 2014 at 12:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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The original pronunciation was /er/ (kronor pronounced as if it were written ''kroner''), but now more people pronounce it like /ur/ (or sometimes /or/)
More trickier is the realization of tones, 2 syllabic -er plurals usually have compound/2nd/grave tone, except in the case of a) races, ethnicity (britter, goter, khmerer etc... all have simple/1st/acute tone) b) words with unstressed -el/-er in singular: fabler, cykler, regler (these have 1st tone too) c) words denoting pats of body which come in large number: celler, nerver, vener, porer (also have tone1) d) words that make plural with umlaut, for example; städer, böter, händer (these have tone 1 two), disyllabic -or plurals and most -ar plurals take tone 2 (gravis): kronor, bilar This newscaster pronounces -or in kronor with a vowel which is 75% IPA /u/ and 25 % IPA /o/ (almost like /u/ but slightly lower): http://youtu.be/BsgIkyZh1-I?t=16s Edited by Medulin on 29 June 2014 at 12:28am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4100 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 4 of 18 29 June 2014 at 9:24am | IP Logged | |||||
Probably just an error of being a bit rushed, but it's: cyklar.
Swedish schools don't teach tones, and skimming Wikipedia definitely doesn't make me much wiser, so I won't argue with you (I probably wouldn't have to anyway, since you probably know what you're talking about). I will note again, however that words that end in -or are stressed differently depending on which -or sound you use. So, if you/the OP/anyone else for some reason are aiming for a dialect that uses the sound that approximates an å: don't follow the textbooks for stress and pitch, because if you don't get that not-quite-an-å right it's often going to be incomprehensible (I tried it and now my husband thinks I'm crazy, sitting in the kitchen repeating seemingly random gibberish words to myself all with the same stress and ending, heh). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 5 of 18 29 June 2014 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
According to my Swedish grammar book it's exactly the other way round. The -or plural ending used to be pronounced /ur/, but nowadays a lot of people tend to say /er/. Could anybody clarify this? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lugubert Heptaglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6868 days ago 186 posts - 235 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Danish, Norwegian, EnglishC2, German, Dutch, French Studies: Mandarin, Hindi | Message 6 of 18 29 June 2014 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Anecdotically perhaps, but I, at the age of 71, normally use [-er]. I find [-ur] in most situations sounds funny bordering to archaic, and I would be deeply surprised if I even in Southern Sweden, where the [-ur]'s I register greatly outnumber the [-er]'s, were to hear [-or].
Without having studied the history, I vote for [-er] as the newcomer. Evidence: when I was (much) younger, there would now and then be Letters to the Editor complaining of the sloppiness of newscasters who happened to slip in an [-er]. Nowadays, extremely few seem to react. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| aloysius Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6241 days ago 226 posts - 291 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: French, Greek, Italian, Russian | Message 7 of 18 29 June 2014 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm not even sure of my own pronunciation here, but I guess I use /er/ (or perhaps even leaning towards a schwa)
most of the time. The spelling could indicate that /or/ is the original pronunciation used in the central parts of Sweden forming the basis of orthography. Another well-known tendency is that in a text-based society we tend to pronounce words more closely to how they are written, so I'd say that Joaquin's grammar book may very well be correct as well. It all depends on the time perspective. Cyklar has tone 2 (like bilar), cykler (as in ""allt går i cykler") has tone 1. //aloysius 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6660 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 8 of 18 29 June 2014 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Pronouncing -or like -er is a Stockholmian phenomenon that has spread, as far as I know. When people from here
pronounce the -or like it's spelled it sounds a bit pretentious bordering to hypercorrection (ärtor is a very common hypercorrection). Nonetheless I think I would pronouce it -or if I spoke on any formal occasion or if I read written text aloud. I've never ever in my entire life heard anyone pronounce -or with an å-sound. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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