# Swedish(/Norwegian/Danish): preservation of hv-



## Gavril

The consonant cluster _hv-_ seems to have been retained in standard Norwegian and Danish (witness Norwegian _hval _"whale", Danish _hvad _"what" -- I'm still not sure exactly how _hv- _is pronounced in these words), but simplified to _v- _in standard Swedish (_val, vad_). However, there are Swedish dialects in which the cluster hasn't been simplified: for example, östnyländska (spoken on the southeastern coast of Finland) has _kva _for "what".

Are there any Swedish dialects other than östnyländska in which older _hv- _hasn't been reduced to _v-_?

Thanks for any info


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## Billebob

The 'h' in 'hv-words' is always silent in Danish.

BB


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## Gavril

Billebob said:


> The 'h' in 'hv-words' is always silent in Danish.
> 
> BB



Thanks for the correction. I knew that at least some regions of Norway pronounce _hv- _as a cluster ([kv] or similar) but I wasn't sure about Danish.


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## zyzzy

I have never heard of any such Swedish dialects, but I found this when I googled: 

"...dialekterna i nordvästra Ångermanland uttalar vit som _gvit_, i Delsbo (norra Hälsingland) säger man mer _gwit_, i nordvästra Jämtland (Lidmålet) säger man _kvit_."

Not the words of a linguist, though. 

So, there seem to be some old, very local dialects in the Ångermanland-Jämtland-Hälsingland area with remnants of "hv".


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## Tjahzi

It was very interesting to hear that there are still Swedish dialects that still realize Old Norse /hv/ as [kv], because I never heard of that. However, I'm actually a bit doubtful of the validity of this claim. I checked out a few dialects sample from Borgå (which I suppose must be considered an _östnyländsk_ speaking area), but none of them contained an example of this usage. Neither did some gooling return any written evidence.
That said, I have no reason to doubt your source, I'm just very eager to examine it since I find this very interesting and, would it turn out to be true, somewhat revolutionary claim. 

I've been of the impression that while the orthographies of Danish, Norwegian, Faroese and Icelandic all prefer _hv_, the _h_ is always silent in Danish, silent in _most_ Norwegian dialects (obviously this can be debated, however, following the recent Norwegian tragedy, I've been watching a lot of Norwegian TV and I'm under the impression that while there are speakers that realize _hv_ as [kv], they are in minority. (Also, I suspect that these speakers are from _Vestlandet_, could someone please confirm/discomfirm this? (The only dialect that I can clearly recognize is _östlandsk_.))), realized as [kv] in _most_ Icelandic dialects (according to my Icelandic "grammar", _"*hv *is realized as *kv*, except for parts of southern Iceland"_) and [kv] in all of the Faroese islands.
As such, it seems that this trait, like so many North Germanic ones, is quite region bound, "originating" in the west, stretching eastward, and then to find out that the easternmost North Germanic dialect of all does this as well....now, that would be cool. I do doubt it however.


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## Alxmrphi

> and [kv] in all of the Faroese islands.


Yeah, that's confirmed here. ("_hv_ verður framborið [kv]: _hvør _[kvø:r]")


> (according to my Icelandic "grammar", _"*hv *is realized as *kv*, except for parts of southern Iceland"_)


Apparently about 50 years ago there was an effort to change the pronunciation through the school system, and this pronunciation was frowned upon, and educators were pressing for the [hv] pronunciation, but it was an (to borrow some terminology from the internet) "epic fail"  and people went to universally pronounce it this way. That's what a professor of English phonetics said in a lecture I watched at the University of Iceland (Pétur Knútsson).


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## sammio

I don't know about östnyländskan, but at least in österbottniska dialects _kv-_ is still alive and kicking. Here's some examples from Närpes (1, 2). Be aware that you might not understand what they are saying even if you can Swedish.


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## TomTrussel

Tjahzi is right about /hv/ being [kv] mainly on vestlandet in Norway, some parts even miss the v-sound, so they say "kem" for "hvem", "kor" for "hvor" etc

TT


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## mosletha

> The _h_ is always silent [...] in _most_ Norwegian  dialect [...] I'm  under the impression that while there are speakers that realize _hv_ as [kv], they are in minority. Also, I suspect that these speakers are from _Vestlandet_, could someone please confirm/discomfirm this?


Det er rett. Ein del av årsaka er regelen på nynorsk om at ein aldri kan skriva hv-, bare kv-, og nynorsk er dominant på nettopp vestlandet. Det  er eit veldig utsett og døyande dialekttrekk, som alle andre dialekttrekk i Noreg - sett burt frå skarring, som faktisk veks. 

That's right. Part of the reason for this is the rule that in (correct) neo-Norwegian, one can never ever write hv-, only kv-, and neo-Norwegian is dominant in the west. It is a very vulnerable and dying  dialectical trait , just like all others dialectical traits in Norway - except for the "guttural R", which is actually growing.


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## Gavril

Tjahzi said:


> It was very interesting to hear that there are still Swedish dialects that still realize Old Norse /hv/ as [kv], because I never heard of that. However, I'm actually a bit doubtful of the validity of this claim. I checked out a few dialects sample from Borgå (which I suppose must be considered an _östnyländsk_ speaking area), but none of them contained an example of this usage. Neither did some gooling return any written evidence.
> That said, I have no reason to doubt your source, I'm just very eager to examine it since I find this very interesting and, would it turn out to be true, somewhat revolutionary claim.



This page is my main source on östnyländska. Here's what it says about the [kv] pronunciation:



> T.ex. uttalas ord som i danska, norska och i äldre svenska skriv(it)s med <hv-> med [kv-], såsom _kva_ "(h)vad", _kvart_ "(h)vart" och _k(v)em _"(h)vem". Jag känner inte till huruvida detta drag finns upptecknat i svenska Norrland men även om så inte är fallet påminner uttalsvarianten misstänkligt om uttal i södra Österbotten och Tröndelag vilka på något sätt torde höra ihop, eftersom det rör sig om en novation, inte en arkaism.



According to this source, östnyländska is spoken around Loviisa, just east of Porvoo / Borgå.



> I've been of the impression that while the orthographies of Danish, Norwegian, Faroese and Icelandic all prefer _hv_, the _h_ is always silent in Danish, silent in _most_ Norwegian dialects (obviously this can be debated, however, following the recent Norwegian tragedy, I've been watching a lot of Norwegian TV and I'm under the impression that while there are speakers that realize _hv_ as [kv], they are in minority. (Also, I suspect that these speakers are from _Vestlandet_, could someone please confirm/discomfirm this? (The only dialect that I can clearly recognize is _östlandsk_.))), realized as [kv] in _most_ Icelandic dialects (according to my Icelandic "grammar", _"*hv *is realized as *kv*, except for parts of southern Iceland"_)



How is it pronounced in southern Iceland? (I know that the original question was about Swedish, but now I'm wishing that it had been more general to Scandinavia.)


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## Alxmrphi

> How is it pronounced in southern Iceland? (I know that the original  question was about Swedish, but now I'm wishing that it had been more  general to Scandinavia.)





> *Mállýskueinkenni á suðausturlandi*
> * Hv-framburður: Það er kallað hv-framburður þegar menn nota uppgómmælt  önghljóð í framstöðu orða sem eru rituð með hv-, með öðrum orðum, þú  segir orð eins og þau eru skrifuð með. Dæmi um orð; hver, hvalur.



(basically it's saying [x])


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## Tjahzi

sammio said:


> I don't know about östnyländskan, but at least in österbottniska dialects _kv-_ is still alive and kicking. Here's some examples from Närpes (1, 2). Be aware that you might not understand what they are saying even if you can Swedish.



Yea, indeed. But that said, _Närpesmål_ is known for its ancientness. (For the record, my comprehension of those samples are way below my comprehension of standard Norwegian and probably better than that of the trickiest Norwegian dialects I've encountered so far (though still not as bad as of Danish...)). In fact, it's a relic of it's own, comparable to Icelandic, in terms of grammar and syntax (and apparently, to some extent, phonology as well). 
More or less the same goes for various tiny rural dialectal enclaves scattered around (mainly) Northern/northwestern Sweden. You can find most dialectal traits there, but hardly a speaker under the age of 40. 

That said, I'm not saying that the realization of _(h)v- _is never [kv] in Swedish, I'm just saying there is no dialect mutually comprehensible to standard Swedish and with speakers of all ages that realizes it that way.


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## sammio

Did some more research and found this: http://www.sls.fi/doc.php?docid=410
Listen to the äldre man. That is from Liljendal which is even more to east than Borgå. I didn't listen to other clips from Nyland yet but if you want you can do it by yourself: nyländska dialekter


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## Alxmrphi

> How is it pronounced in southern Iceland? (I know that the original   question was about Swedish, but now I'm wishing that it had been more   general to Scandinavia.)


The site "Icelandic Dialects" has a page on it, with illustrations showing the prominence in different areas of Iceland and also the proportions of ages of people that use it.
Here's the site (you can also hear recordings of the pronunciation). As you can see it's mainly confined to Vestur-Skaftafellssýsla and the neighbouring _sýslur_ (counties).
I'd do a translation of the page in my post but I'm sure that'd be breaking some sort of rule, so Google Translate might be your best option, but it does the page awful justice to what's actually written.


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## Strömmingsmånglaren

In the dialects of Västerbotten and (parts of) Norrbotten, original hv- has evolved into w-. A few examples: 

wå? (vad?)
wårs? (var?; vart?)
wit (vit)
wääss (vässa)


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## Alxmrphi

Was reading something and this popped up again, it had some sources of other studies and some dates of when this is attested from so thought it might be useful to stick it with the rest of the information already gathered here:



> The transition of initial /hv-/ > /kv-/ with the reinforcement of both elements (differentiation) has already been discussed for MNorw. in 3.1.3.(c.f. Einarsson 1986,33). While this particular process of consonant strengthening  is datable to the 14th c. in Norw., it is attested much later in Icel. viz. not until the latter half of the 18th . (Benediktsson 1961/62,105; Karlsson 1965). Chapman (1962) brings into focus particular parallel developments of Icel. and West Norw. as mentioned above.


From "The Nordic Languages - Volume 2", page 1089.


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