# Swedish:pronunciation of skj, sj



## PABLO DE SOTO

I would like to know about the pronunciation of these groups of consonants ( skj, sj)
I think there are two main ways to pronounce them, but is it regional? if it's so, in which parts of Sweden or Finland? is it social? 
If I want to learn Swedish what pronunciation should I adopt?

Tack så mycket.


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## quevedo

PABLO DE SOTO said:


> I would like to know about the pronunciation of these groups of consonants ( skj, sj)
> I think there are two main ways to pronounce them, but is it regional? if it's so, in which parts of Sweden or Finland? is it social?
> If I'd want to learn Swedish what pronunciation should I adopt?
> 
> Tack så mycket.


Skj is more common. In stockholm all people use that. But upper class prefer sj. But also in northen Sweden sj it is the normal. Hope you have heard how to say it because I can not write you the fonetic letters.


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## PABLO DE SOTO

quevedo said:


> Skj is more common. In stockholm all people use that. But upper class prefer sj. But also in northen Sweden sj it is the normal. Hope you have heard how to say it because I can not write you the fonetic letters.



I have heard both sounds. I am sorry because I can't write the phonetics but
I'd say that one is similar to the Spanish jota in jamón and another like sh in English.
I have been in Stockholm and I used to hear the "jota" sound. Actually I did not deal with the upper classes.
But what about Southern Sweden? and  Göteborg?


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## quevedo

Skj is as you say similar to jota in Spansish and sj is like English sh but not exactly.To make You a bit nervous I can tell You that there are more then 20 ways to spell this sound. For example: Skj, sj ssi. si, ti, ssi, g, j, stj,sk, xj etc. 
A member of parlament has every year asked for that we should make it easier for children to spell the sound and invent a new letter for the sound. In Norweign they allways spell this sound  sj. Sjoklad, stasjon etc. A very good idea! I am a teacher and I know the problems för the children to spell. We also have another sound like ch in spansih. Kyrka(church) tjej (slang for girl)


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## Andreas_Jensen

Sorry to barge in like this, but I have a few questions and objections  

First of all, I don't think I've ever heard any Swedes pronounce this sound as in Norwegian/Danish (I suppose that's what you mean by "sj"). Do people from Skåne really say it like that? Have I been paying that little attention?  

Besides I don't think the "Swedish" pronunciation of the sound is like the Spanish "j". It's close, but softer than the "j", as it is pronounced in Madrid and Castilla y León (where it's pronounced hard, as the German "-ch" in "auch"). It is also different from the Andalusian dialect (which I hear as a straight "h"). In some songs by Amarál I've heard it pronounced as the Swedish sound (she's from Zaragoza). I'd say the pronunciation is very, very close to the "j" in Mexican Spanish (which I only know from songs by Maná .     

Regarding the Swedish sound that is close to the Spanish "ch", that would, in my opinion, be the "ch" of the Andalusian dialect and the ll/y of Buenos Aires Argentinian. It's not as hard as the sound used in the rest of Spain (and most of the South American dialects that I know).

I could be wrong about these things, since none of these two languages are my mother tongue... Feel free to argue


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## kirsitn

quevedo said:


> In Norweign they allways spell this sound  sj. Sjoklad, stasjon etc. A very good idea!



I'm afraid it's not quite that simple in Norwegian either... We may not have 20 ways of spelling it, but there are at least three different consonant combinations that can be pronounced as the English "sh" - sj (sjø, sjy, sjiraff), skj (skjørt, skjære, skje) and sk (before i and y - ski, sky, skinn).


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## jonquiliser

Hello Pablo 'n others 

Well, the spelling is not entirely arbitrary. The difference between sk- and skj- is that skj- is used before certain vowels ("hard vowels"), to represent the /sch/ or /xj/ sound (sorry, don't know phonetics and don't know how to write the common (most common?) way of pronouncing the sj- as in _sju_ in Sweden). Cf. _skuta _and _skjuta _(and s*kju*ta, s*kö*t).

The pronounciation: yes, there are regional variations. The pronounciation quevedo refers to is similar to a strong Spanish jota, though as Andreas says, not exactly the same. (I'm trying it out for myself, and Swe /skjorta/ and Esp /juro/ get pretty close )

I believe there's not variant of Swedish in Finland which employs this pronounciation, /sch/ (as in English _shop_) being how it's said.


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## María Madrid

Pablo: con la jota de jamón no conseguirás más que te miren con cara rara. Ese sonido no existe en español y por escrito me resulta imposible explicarlo, pero la lengua se "aplasta" más en la parte central y sube un poco más la punta, sin echarla hacia delante... me rindo. 

Pero tienes la opción de pronunciarlo como sh inglesa, como hacen en el norte de Suecia e incluso en ciertos ambientes en Estocolmo (sí, algunos lo consideran pijo, pero te entenderán a la primera). Es más socorrido para empezar. Si vives aún en Suecia te recomiendo un curso exclusivo de pronunciación, a mí me vino de perlas.

Quevedo: jag tycker absolut inte at sk/sj/ osv (skön, sju...) låter som spanskt j. Visst är båda starka ljud men inte samma. Inte heller låter tjej eller kyrka som spanskt ch. 

Andreas: Amaral and everyone in Zaragoza pronounce their j's just like we do in Madrid. Mexican j (American j in general and in Southern Spain and the Canary Islands) is like a slightly stronger h (again with local slight variations), but again, not like sjö. If we had that sound in Spanish it would have been so much easier for me to learn to pronounce it. I think it was by far the most difficult sound in Swedish. Sju sköna sjukhus... 

Hälsningar, 

Edit: jag hade inte sett ditt inlägg Jonqui! Jag tycker att skjorta med j som i juro låter hemskt!


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## Outsider

See here for the phonetic transcription.


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## Andreas_Jensen

"Skjorta" with "j" as in "juro" is really far from what it's supposed to sound like, and besides the pronunciation of a Spanish "j" doesn't depend on the word. 

I'd still hold though, that the "j" pronounced by Maná is strikingly close to the Swedish sound, although maybe not hard enough. Listen to for example "Pobre Juan" and you'll (hopefully) see what I mean (already in the third line, the pronunciation of "Mexico/Mejico"). And if you don't know them, they are a really wonderful band :-D (write "pobre juan" on youtube and pick the first hit... that's the studio version)...

María>>> I'll agree that most Latin Americans pronounce the "j" as a slightly stronger "h", but with this band I feel that they get quite close to Swedish  Forresten kan du også godt skrive svensk til mig, hvis du vil ;-)


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## Spectre scolaire

I don’t know whether your browser will accept the IPA sign for this Swedish phonetic intricacy: ɧ - an *h* with an additional serif both on the upper and on the lower right part of the letter.

Under the Wikipedia heading “Voiceless palatal-velar fricative” the famous British phonetician Peter Ladefoged (who died two years ago today) attempts a description of this sound, but admits there are several problems involved. 

I always thought the so-called “sje”-sound in Swedish had a double articulation like – mutatis mutandis – Czech ř, but “it is not clear”, writes Ladefoged*), “that any of the variants [in Swedish dialetcs] is actually a doubly-articulated fricative.” 

To add to my confusion, when ř is being described, in Wikipedia s.v. “Czech language”, as “a specific raised alveolar non-sonorant trill which can be pronounced both voiced and voiceless”, I withdraw all my previous ideas about this category[?] of human sounds.  Is the word “specific” here used to denote a particular category of sounds - those with double articulation? - or is it an excuse for not being able to pinpoint was sort of category we are talking about? 

*) –quoting from the intriguing book “The Sounds of the World’s Languages” (1996) which he wrote together with Ian Maddieson. 
 ​


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## María Madrid

Andreas_Jensen said:


> "Skjorta" with "j" as in "juro" is really far from what it's supposed to sound like, and besides the pronunciation of a Spanish "j" doesn't depend on the word.
> 
> María>>> I'll agree that most Latin Americans pronounce the "j" as a slightly stronger "h", but with this band I feel that they get quite close to Swedish  Forresten kan du også godt skrive svensk til mig, hvis du vil ;-)


Maná: det kanske låter så för dig för att de sjunger och det är lite svårare att höra tydligt med musik i bakgrunden, men j i Mexico (och visst känner vi Maná här!) uttalas inte på ett helt annorlunda sätt om man jamför med andra spansktalande länder och även andalusiskt j, inte precis som det starka j i centrala och norra Spanien, men inte heller som det svenksa ljudet. Tyvärr, tycker vi spansktalande! Annars har Juan och juro har precis samma ljud... det är så svårt att förklara det här i skrift!! 

I don't think everyone is so familiar with the phonetic alphabet and I'm afraid an h with serifs here and there (I can't see it on my screen) will be helpful to understand how and where to place your tongue, when we can't even agree if it's or not the same sound as some Mexican band pronounce Spanish J! And I'm afraid I haven't got the slightest idea about Czech pronunciation.

Hälsningar,


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## jonquiliser

Ok, I'm probably not the best to try and explain the Swedish /sj/ as I don't use it (although I believe I can reproduce a decent one), but I really do think it's close to a certain way of pronouncing jota. It's just a little bit more narrow, and more intense... (Andreas, I chose juro not because of the placement of the jote but because of the following letters which were closer to the rest of the word skjorta )

Edit: I should add that I'm not sure what you meant, quevedo, with the "spelling variations" Skj, sj ssi. si, ti, ssi, g, j, stj,sk, xj etc. At least -ti- does not represent the same sound for me, as I pronounce delegation [delegatjon] and not [-sjon]. Sk/skj- are in reality the "same" spelling, and the extra j- is addded before a hard vowel. 

Xj- I don't recognise at all, and I can't think of any words with a /sj/ sound spelled with g or j. Could you give examples of the spellings you gave us?


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## PABLO DE SOTO

Thank you for your helpful information.
My Spanish jota is more similar to the Maná jota than  the sound listened in central and northern Spain. My jamón is softer than in Madrid, but stronger than in Seville.
I have heard and paid attention to the sound we are talking about( my sources are Swedish bands, Kent, Raymond och Maria, Bo kaspers etc) and tried to imitate it ( I am good imitating sounds, much better than in grammar or writing) and I have also thought to do what Maria Madrid points, make the sound in the Northern Sweden way, but I was not sure if it was too regional or had a special social distinction ( you have confirmed that it can sound "posh") but maybe Swedes are used to foreigners make this sound in the less difficult way.
I am starting to learn Swedish, and I wanted to pick up a good sound since the beginning, because, as you all know, when you start making a sound in a way, it's difficult to change it later.


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## Spectre scolaire

María Madrid said:


> Maná: det kan*sk*e låter så för dig för att de *sj*unger och det är lite svårare att höra tydligt med musik i bakgrunden


 My impression is that the first word would be pronounced with the “sje”-sound (see #11), and the second one, at least in many dialects, would be realized in the same way. I am not quite *su*re. 

Many years after my studies in Denmark I had a colleague from Finland belonging to the Swedish-speaking minority. He didn’t have this sound in his phonetic inventory – in any case he did not say _kan*sk*e_ as I have clearly heard it in Sweden. 

The problem is obviously “How to describe what I clearly heard”... I am a bit confused about the discussion between _María Madrid_ and --



jonquiliser said:


> I really do think it's close to a certain way of pronouncing jota.


 I would tend to agree with _jonquiliser_, but perhaps referring to Mexico – as _Andreas_Jensen_ is indeed doing! - rather than to realizations of *j* in Spain.

And with all respect, _María Madrid_, I think we should accept the value of things we might not know anything about – like *IPA* (which is an extraordinary tool in spite of the idiosyncrasies of certains browsers), *serif*s (which is a word to be found in Webster) and *Czech ř* (about which one can read a description - which I incidentally didn’t like - in Wikipedia). The reason why I brought up Czech ř is the important question related to the description of the “sje”-sound: _Does it have a double articulation or not?_ The Wikipedia article “Swedish phonology” (reference to which was made may _Outsider_ in #9), states that –



> The Swedish phoneme /ɧ/ (the “sje-sound” or voiceless palatal-velar fricative) and its allegedly double place of articulation is a difficult and complex issue that is still debated among phoneticians. [With a reference to the Ladefoged/Maddieson book, see my previous post.]


 We should perhaps not expect a solution of the issue in this forum , but some refreshing new views might always crop up. 
 ​


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## Wilma_Sweden

Without wishing to discombobulate anyone, I'd like to add my thoughts on the subject. 

In Skåne we have our own version of the sje-sound (e.g. usch, stjärna) which is described by the phonetics profession as a voiceless laboivelar approximant. Its IPA character looks like the letter w turned upside-down. It's similar to the wh in English (whisky, which), except with tenser lips and more air pressure. It should sound more like a sje-sound than a w sound. 

The advantage is that there is a marked difference between the sje-sound and the tje-sound, which makes it easier to distinguish words such as stjärna/kärna.

My tje-sound (as in kyrka, tjur) sounds much like a slightly "sharper" (more tongue pressure, if you like) version of the English sh as in sheep, or the French ch as in cherchez. Those of you who compare it with the English or Spanish ch should bear in mind that the little t-sound heard in those languages should be omitted for standard Swedish. I totally disagree with the comparison to Spanish j as in jota, that sound simply does not exist in the Swedish phonology.

Since there are so many variants of the sje- and tje-sounds, I wouldn't worry too much about them to begin with since there are so many other parts of the phonology that have more impact on understanding, such as the way you pronounce the vowels, stress and tone.

For those of you who are into dialects, there are a lot of sound samples on the Swedia 2000 web site. Unfortunately, there aren't that many samples of the sje- or tje- sound, and the samples I've heard sound more or less the same from one dialect to another. I was amazed that there are still so many different dialects, some of which sounded more like a different language, i.e. I didn't understand anything at all! http://swedia.ling.gu.se/index.html

/Wilma


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## Spectre scolaire

Wilma_Sweden said:
			
		

> I totally disagree with the comparison to Spanish j as in jota, that sound simply does not exist in the Swedish phonology.


 You may disagree, but did you ever listen to a person from Mexico pronouncing the name of his country?  

If you add, simultaneously, an almost closed mouth to this Mexican sound – a bit like a Frenchman saying ouf – you wouldn’t be too far away, I think. 

By the time this thread is falling back into the catacombes of WR fora we’ll probably have received a quote in next edition of Ladefoged/Maddieson... 
 Ouf! Bon débarras. ​


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## María Madrid

Spectre scolaire said:


> My impression is that the first word would be pronounced with the “sje”-sound (see #11), and the second one, at least in many dialects, would be realized in the same way. I am not quite *su*re.
> 
> Many years after my studies in Denmark I had a colleague from Finland belonging to the Swedish-speaking minority. He didn’t have this sound in his phonetic inventory – in any case he did not say _kan*sk*e_ as I have clearly heard it in Sweden.
> 
> ....
> 
> And with all respect, _María Madrid_, I think we should accept the value of things we might not know anything about – like *IPA* (which is an extraordinary tool in spite of the idiosyncrasies of certains browsers), *serif*s (which is a word to be found in Webster) and *Czech ř* (about which one can read a description - which I incidentally didn’t like - in Wikipedia). The reason why I brought up Czech ř is the important question related to the description of the “sje”-sound: _Does it have a double articulation or not?_ The Wikipedia article “Swedish phonology” (reference to which was made may _Outsider_ in #9), states that


Just kanske is some kind of exception, actually. In Stockholm it's normally pronounced as sh. 

I certainly don't disregard the value of IPA or anything else. I just believe it may not be the least useful for certain people, just like comparisons with Czech sounds I've never heard means nothing to me, even if it may certainly be extremely useful for many others. And thanks but I know what serif means, as well as the word used for that in Spanish. 

My point is you don't have to know a lot about phonology to pronounce things ok (the fact that natives of all languages learn to pronounce perfectly without knowing a word about phonology proves that). Furthermore, even if you don't know about phonology you can certainly explain how to pronounce a sound with simple terms. And I'm using my personal experience to explain how I perceive that sound compared to Spanish. In my words, you place your tongue almost like a Spanish f but place your lips almost like a Spanish j, without pressing your tongue forward, as you do in Spanish. 

I'm sure there are more appropriate explanations for that, unfortunately phonology is not something I know much about, but a native Spanish speaker who doesn't know a word about Czech or phonology will get an immediate idea of what I'm trying to convey, even for me it's obvious these things are not best explained in writing, but listening and using a mirror to compare the differences in the way each one place their lips, for instance.

Other than that I'm don't know about your knowledge of Swedish or Spanish, nor what your mother tongue is. My posts on this thread (a question posted by another native Spanish speaker, that's what prompted me to answer) are based on my experience with the Swedish (stockholmska) and Spanish languages, not what the Wikipedia says.

And even if that was a question to Wilma, I've heard Mexicans say México and again... no, it's not the same. When I studied Swedish there was a Mexican guy in my class. Funnily enough he chose to use the /sh/ sound because he found th sj sound too difficult to pronounce.


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## Andreas_Jensen

Maria_Madrid: "And even if that was a question to Wilma, I've heard Mexicans say México and again... no, it's not the same. When I studied Swedish there was a Mexican guy in my class. Funnily enough he chose to use the /sh/ sound because he found th sj sound too difficult to pronounce."

Perhaps I'm not the biggest authority on Mexican Spanish but, with all respect, it seems to me, that you have a slightly simplified view on a dialect spoken by more than 100 million people in Mexico alone. Indeed, Latin American Spanish is spoken from Tierra del Fuego all the way to Tijuana, so I'd be monkey's uncle if there weren't any regional differences in how to pronounce a "j". In my ear, Maná pronounces the jota in a way close to the Swedish sound and as an example of how to make the Swedish sound, I find it quite valid. But next time I meet a Mexican, I'll definitely interrogate him/her thoroughly  Besides, Pablo seems to agree with me... "My Spanish jota is more similar to the Maná jota than the sound listened in central and northern Spain. My jamón is softer than in Madrid, but stronger than in Seville." This also points to the fact that there might be several pronunciations of jota within Spain, not just the plain versions of "Castilian" and "Andalusian". Perhaps in Zaragoza too? ;-) Another thing is that I think we should write in English, when discussing something that everyone can benefit from reading (although I asked you to write Swedish  

Wilma: "Those of you who compare it [the "tje" sound] with the English or Spanish ch should bear in mind that the little t-sound heard in those languages should be omitted for standard Swedish"

As I emphazised above, the "ch" should not be the "Castillian"/Standard Spanish "ch"-sound but the "Andalusian" "ch" which is softer and indeed sounds like the English "sh" and French "ch".

Jonquilizer>> I know that you know that about the Spanish "j". As I read my own post now, I might have come off a bit blunt. As I remember you are quite fluent in Spanish. Sorry about that 



PS: I know that the divisions into Castillian and Andalusian dialects aren't quite correct but it was the best I could come up with. Besides these two dialects don't appear to be completely heterogenous. And yes, I am aware that the Spanish language is (occasionally) called Castellano in Spanish


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## María Madrid

Hej Andreas, Back to English then...

Believe me, my view on American Spanish is not the least simplified but that's not the point anyway so it doesn't seem reasonable start telling about my life but without getting into details, let me just tell you this regarding Maná: I've worked at their record company, I know exactly how they (especially Fher) talk, not just sing.

All I can say as far this thread's question is concerned is that I can pronounce the Mexican j and the Swedish sj and the sound is not the same nor is my tongue placed in exactly the same place. Certainly those sounds are kind of related, no one denies that, it's not like comparing sj with b. But the same? certainly not.

As for jota pronounced by Amaral, do you really think I'd be unable to tell the difference between j in Madrid and Zaragoza but you can? Since you seem to be interested to know, let me tell you that there's not just one j sound in Madrid. There's a stronger version, considered kind of lower class, "standard" less strong and the one you hear in most of Spain (except Andalusia and the Canary Islands, yes) and posh which is even less strong, still far from the Andalusian one. Being native Spanish speakers we are certainly likely to detect some nuances you don't, don't you think? 

I know this is going really too off topic, so I'll add just one more thing: Spanish is not *occasionally* called castellano in Spain.

Hälsningar


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## jonquiliser

Perhaps there is no need to get too upset here, people!

I don't think anyone is denying that as native Spanish speakers you may be rather more well versed in the intricacies of the jota, and especially María who also knows Swedish. 

We're all just trying to get/give a rough idea of how to pronounce this damn sound. A perfect explanation simply isn't possible in writing - until you hear the sound, and many times at that!, I believe it's hopeless to reproduce it faithfully. I've been trying to learn some Arabic and relying only on written descriptions is absolutely impossible. Not even with the best of my imagination can I get the sounds exact.

Also remember thus far only one Swede using the ɧ-sound has written anything here, so in that way most of us in the discussion are non-natives 

Warms regards to all of you,


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## Lemminkäinen

Let's keep this interesting thread on topic, folks. Comparing the Swedish sounds with Spanish in an attempt to explain is ok, but this isn't the right forum for discussing Spanish phonology in itself


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## PABLO DE SOTO

I am afraid I should not have mentioned the Spanish jamón because I already knew it was different from the Swedish *skinka*. I said it could be a similar sound, not the same.
I have followed Maria's advice, placing my tongue like an f and my lips like a Spanish j (just my lips) and it works.
I have  more doubts about some more sounds, but I'll try not to mention Spanish.


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## María Madrid

My old Stora Ordlistan says there are nine spellings för the sj sound at the beginning of a word. Since I don't think all of them were listed I'll copy them here.

Sj: sjunga
Sk: skena
Skj: skjorta
Stj: stjärna
Sch: schack
Ch: chef
Sh: sherry
G: geni
J: jalusi

Besides I can only think of t in the middle of a word with the same sound (portion), and s (vision)... would that be all the possible spellings of the /sj/ sound?


Andreas: jag svarade din fråga med pm.

Hälsningar,


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## Forero

I asked my Norwegian friend to pronounce "sky", and he pronounced it exactly like the Chinese Surname "Hsü" (pinyin "Xu").  The "y" is like German ü (U umlaut), which makes the "sk" soft, very similar to the "ch" of German "ich" and somewhat similar to the "x" of "México".  The nearest thing in English to the Scandinavian "sk" of "sky" is the "h" of "hue" in dialects where "hue" does not sound just like "you".  German "sch" and French "ch" are remotely similar to but very different from Scandinavian "skj".  English "sh" is kind of between French "ch" and Norwegian "skj".

My Norwegian friend said that the younger generation are losing some of the traditional distinctions and will pronounce "sky" with an initial sound more like English "sh".


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## María Madrid

I don't think you can say there's a "Scandinavian skj" as words with that spelling will not be pronounced the same in Norwegian and Swedish (and I don't mean the supposedly posh Swedish alternative).


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## Spectre scolaire

María Madrid said:


> My old Stora Ordlistan says there are nine spellings för the sj sound at the beginning of a word. Since I don't think all of them were listed I'll copy them here.


 As far as I have understood in this thread we are discussing the articulation of a Swedish phoneme. _Swedish *orthography*_ is an entirely different issue.Chez la plupart des individus les impressions visuelles sont plus nettes et plus durables que les impressions acoustiques; aussi s’attachent-ils de préférence aux premières. *L’image graphique finit par s’imposer aux dépens du son.* (Ferdinand de Saussure)​ Just a reminder. ​


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## kirsitn

Forero said:


> My Norwegian friend said that the younger generation are losing some of the traditional distinctions and will pronounce "sky" with an initial sound more like English "sh".



The distinction he was trying to explain must have been between the "kj"-sound and the "skj"-sound. The "skj"-sound is pretty similar to the "x" in pinyin (also in the pronunciation of the word "sky", whereas the "kj"-sound does not have any equivalent in pinyin (or in English for that matter). The closest sound in pinyin is the "q", if you take away the "t"-sound at the beginning of it and try to replace it with a kind of "h"-sound instead, but it's still not the same thing.

I'm hoping that the sound will not disappear while I'm still alive, though, since losing the distinction between "kj" and "skj" also means losing the distinction between the words "chain" and "vagina"...


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## Basaloe

You must also remember that it differs how "hard" the sk is pronoanced. For example "Skämtar" (Joking) tend to have a hard "sk" almost like achtung. I even heard people have this guttural arabic sound but that is not standard


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## Andreas_Jensen

María Madrid said:


> I don't think you can say there's a "Scandinavian skj" as words with that spelling will not be pronounced the same in Norwegian and Swedish (and I don't mean the supposedly posh Swedish alternative).


 
And what about Danish, people? Here it's different too ;-)


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## The Traductor

A truly interesting discussion, but perhaps the impassioned (and equally interesting) debate on the variants of the Spanish jota could be held elsewhere...

When reading the treads above one might get the impression that there are only two possible pronunciations of "sje-ljudet", but, in fact, there are several. You can definitely not apply just one of the two for an accurate pronunciation of Swedish.

Take, for instance, this example from Wikipedia:

"Sje-ljudet varierar mycket över landet. För att notera uttalet används ibland en neutral frikativa, [[FONT=Gentium,GentiumAlt,Lucida Sans Unicode,Arial Unicode MS,Lucida Grande,TITUS Cyberbit Basic,Code2000,Doulos SIL]ʃ[/FONT]]. För att skilja de olika uttalen åt används främst [[FONT=Gentium,GentiumAlt,Lucida Sans Unicode,Arial Unicode MS,Lucida Grande,TITUS Cyberbit Basic,Code2000,Doulos SIL]ɧ[/FONT]] för sje-ljudet i rikssvenska "ske" och [[FONT=Gentium,GentiumAlt,Lucida Sans Unicode,Arial Unicode MS,Lucida Grande,TITUS Cyberbit Basic,Code2000,Doulos SIL]ʂ[/FONT]] för sje-ljudet i rikssvenska "fors"."


This link might also be of some use: (Hmm...I am not allowed to post links... just google sje-ljud and have a look at the one from susning.nu)
To be continued...


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## MarX

Hello!

I hadn't read through the thread before I wrote my previous post.
Now I've read the first page and found out that Spanish has been mentioned the whole time.

What some foreros wrote about *sj* (and the other variations in spelling) being pronounced as Spanish _jota_ (that is, like German ch in _Bach_) is true. I didn't know about this pronunciation until I was in Sweden myself and noticed that many people actually pronounced it that way.

I had the luck of having the opportunity to meet and talk to Swedes from all age groups from various parts of the country, and I did notice that the pronunciation of *sj* varied from an _sh_ sound, as in _sherry_ to a _kh_ sound, as  in Spanish _jota_ or German _Bach_ I mentioned above.

  Hälsningar,


  MarX


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## María Madrid

Spectre scolaire said:


> As far as I have understood in this thread we are discussing the articulation of a Swedish phoneme. _Swedish *orthography*_ is an entirely different issue.
> 
> Just a reminder.


As the spelling of that sound was mentioned in an earlier post I just thought it'd be useful to include the complete list which I happened to find when looking up something else in my dictionary. I suppose it's not so off topic, but if it is, Lemminkäinen, please let me know and I'll delete it, or you delete it yourself if it's too late for me to do it and the system won't let me. 



Andreas_Jensen said:


> And what about Danish, people? Here it's different too ;-)


I only mentioned Norwegian as I know it's pronounced differently but I know too little of Danish to dare saying anything about a language I'm not so familiar with (even though I supposed the pronunciation would be different too, maybe similar to the Norwegian sound?). My point anyway: there's no "Scandinavian" pronunciation for that spelling.


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## Wilma_Sweden

I found a very detailed document about Swedish phonology which is written in Swedish, but those of you who understand it might find it helpful.

It is written by Tomas Riad who is Professor of Nordic languages at Stockholm University, and he describes the sje-sound as labial (se p. 13, the grid and notes at the bottom).

http://www.nordiska.su.se/content/1/c4/78/98/Svenskt_Fonologikompendium.pdf

There are other similar documents out there on the net, just search "svenskt fonologikompendium".

/Wilma


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## Spectre scolaire

The suggested link seems to be a good introduction to Swedish phonology. It is less relevant when discussing Swedish phonetics. But as long as the latter is a premise in order to discuss the former, the author (Tomas Riad), rightly includes a chapter on “Articulary phonetics”.

This phonetic part comprises some five pages (from p. 9), at the end of which the only apparent _descriptive difficulty_ – the “sje”-sound, not surprisingly! – receives a footnote. At this point the author, referring to two other authorities - from the 1970s! - chooses the one who considers /ɧ/ to be _labial_ rather than a _palato-alveolar_ [fricative].

As far as our thread is concerned, - that’s about it. 
 ​


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