# Norwegian: Standard East pronunciation of Lillehammer



## 2wrbk

Hello. What is the Standard East Norwegian pronunciation of _Lillehammer_? Wikipedia clearly doesn't indicate how it's pronounced in Oslo but rather how it's pronounced locally. What I hear on Forvo is either [ˈlɪləhɑmər] (with accent 1 as in _bønder_) or [²lɪləhɑmər] (with accent 2 as in _bønner_). Unfortunately, I can't hear the difference very well so which one is it? I suspect that accent 2 is more likely if the word is perceived to be a compound consisting of _lille_ and _hammer_ since that would very likely get accent 2 as well because that's the accent used in _lille._

I know that the speaker pronounces /lə/ as a syllabic lateral [l̩] but that's beside the point (there are other slight inaccuracies in my transcriptions when you closely examine them).


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## Svenke

I consider toneme 2 to be the norm for _Lillehammer_.


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## 2wrbk

Thanks!


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## JonTve

2wrbk said:


> Thanks!


i would have said: [ˈlɪlhɑmər]
Jon.


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## 2wrbk

Thanks. So you'd completely drop the first schwa (rather than producing a syllabic lateral approximant) and use accent 1 as in _bønder_?


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## raumar

I think most people usually pronounce the first "e" in Lillehammer, but this letter isn't stressed, and it may easily disappear in fast speech. But that should not affect the accent.

I am not a linguist, and I don't really understand what accent 1 and 2 means in words with more than two syllables. But my understanding would be that the first part, "Lille", is pronounced with accent 2, and the second part, "hammer", with accent 1. If you drop the first schwa, the accent of the second part is unchanged. 



2wrbk said:


> Wikipedia clearly doesn't indicate how it's pronounced in Oslo but rather how it's pronounced locally.



The name is pronounced the same way in Oslo and Lillehammer.


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## Svenke

There's normally only one accentuated syllable in a word. The syllable _ham _in _Lillehammer _has only secondary stress.

To illustrate the difference between the tonemes/accents in a compound, compare:

_bekkenløsning _with toneme/accent 1
_pakkeløsning _with toneme/accent 2


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## 2wrbk

Thanks.



raumar said:


> I think most people usually pronounce the first "e" in Lillehammer, but this letter isn't stressed, and it may easily disappear in fast speech. But that should not affect the accent.


Yes, this makes sense. But I think that I hear a syllabic [l̩] on Forvo. The schwa still manifests itself as a lengthened /l/ (though I'm not saying that it can't be completely dropped - I don't know that).



raumar said:


> The name is pronounced the same way in Oslo and Lillehammer.


You mean tone-wise? That'd be no surprise. What about consonants and vowels? According to Wikipedia, in the (presumably) local pronunciation the doubled _ll_ is voiceless and both _a_ and _e_ before _r_ are realized as a short _å_ sound (so the name is pronounced almost like _Lillehåmmår_, but with a voiceless _ll_).


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## raumar

2wrbk said:


> Yes, this makes sense. But I think that I hear a syllabic [l̩] on Forvo. The schwa still manifests itself as a lengthened /l/ (though I'm not saying that it can't be completely dropped - I don't know that).



Yes, I agree. The Forvo pronunciation sounds right to me, and you can hear the schwa there. 



2wrbk said:


> You mean tone-wise? That'd be no surprise. What about consonants and vowels? According to Wikipedia, in the (presumably) local pronunciation the doubled _ll_ is voiceless and both _a_ and _e_ before _r_ are realized as a short _å_ sound (so the name is pronounced almost like _Lillehåmmår_, but with a voiceless _ll_).



Certainly tone-wise, but also regarding consonants and vowels. People I know who were born in Lillehammer pronounce it more or less like what you can hear on Forvo. I am certainly no expert on the different Norwegian dialects, but _Lillehåmmår_ sounds more like a pronunciation from the Gudbrandsdal valley, north of Lillehammer. Many of the Eastern Norwegian dialects are gradually losing ground, and are replaced with something close to an Eastern Oslo dialect. Especially in the towns (like Lillehammer), while the original dialects have a stronger position in the rural areas.


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## 2wrbk

Ok, thanks.


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