Swedish

Consonants
There are six plosives:

	Symbol		Word		Transcription
	p		pil		pi:l
	b		bil		bi:l
	t		tal		tA:l
	d		dal		dA:l
	k		kal		kA:l
	g		gås		go:s

There are six fricatives:

	f		fil		fi:l
	v		vår		vo:r
	s		sil		si:l
	S		sjuk		S}:k	(front and back allophones#)
	h		hal		hA:l
	C		tjock		COk	(not syllable-final)

There are six sonorant consonants (nasals, liquids and semivowels):

	m		mil		mi:l
	n		nål		no:l
	N		ring		rIN	(not syllable-initial)
	r		ris		ri:s
	l		lös		l2:s
	j		jag		jA:g

Vowels
There are nine long and nine short vowels.

Long vowels (followed by short consonant):

	i:		vit		vi:t
	e:		vet		ve:t
	E:		säl		sE:l
	y:		syl		sy:l
	}:		hus		h}:s
	2:		föl		f2:l
	u:		sol		su:l
	o:		hål		ho:l
	A:		hal		hA:l

Short vowels (followed by long consonant):

	I		vitt		vIt
	e		vett		vet
	E		rätt		rEt
	Y		bytt		bYt
	u0		buss		bu0s
	2		föll		f2l
	U		bott		bUt
	O		håll		hOl
	a		hall		hal

There are also two pre-r allophones (long and short) of /E/ and /2/ (see below).

The following important allophonic variants occur in Swedish which require separate symbolic representation:

	{:		här		h{:r	pre-r allophone of E:
	9:		för		f9:r		"	2:
	{		herr		h{r		"	E
	9		förr		f9r		"	2

	@		pojken		pOjk@n	schwa vowel allophone

	rt		hjort		jUrt	retroflex consonant, not initial*
	rd		bord		bu:rd		"
	rn		barn		bA:rn		"
	rs		fors		fOrs		"
	rl		karl		kA:rl		"

* in cases where the dental consonants do not change into retroflexes, they are transcribed using the separator sign (ASCII 45): r-t, r-d.

Swedish has two contrasting tonemes, but only in stressed syllables. Tone 1 is indicated by the ordinary stress mark, Tone 2 by a doubled stress mark, e.g.

stress and toneme 1	anden		"and@n		(the duck) 	
stress and toneme 2	anden		""and@n		(the spirit)

# Note on the use of [S] for orthographic sj etc.: although [S] is an unambiguous way of transcribing this unusual sound of Swedish, some commentators find this symbol phonetically imprecise. Those who feel this way are free to use more elaborate symbols instead: [s`] or even [x\] (from X-SAMPA). —JCW

SAMPA home page, UCL Phonetics and Linguistics home page, University College London home page.

Maintained by J.C. Wells. Created 1995 09 20. Last modified 1998 07 01 (note on tonemes corrected), 2004 02 10 (note about [S] added)