# Swedish: rules for silent 'g'



## Sorror

Hi.

Are there any rules for when the letter '_g_' is silent in Swedish pronunciation? This topic has been a source of confusion for me since the beginning of my adventure with Swedish. It's easy to get used to simple, frequently-used words with silent '_g_' like '_jag_' or '_dig_'; or words that have a letter '_g_' in front of '_t_', as in '_roligt_'. But for the most part, it seems very chaotic to me. And today I got across a pronunciation that I can't at all get my head around: silent '_g_' in '_någon_' (nå-on)... Are there any rules, then? Is there, for example, a logical explanation why '_g'_ is not silent in '_aldrig_', but it is in '_smaklig_'?


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## Sorror

No rules then, aye?  That's brutal, but we'll manage.


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## MattiasNYC

Sorror said:


> Hi.
> 
> Are there any rules for when the letter '_g_' is silent in Swedish pronunciation? This topic has been a source of confusion for me since the beginning of my adventure with Swedish. It's easy to get used to simple, frequently-used words with silent '_g_' like '_jag_' or '_dig_'; or words that have a letter '_g_' in front of '_t_', as in '_roligt_'. But for the most part, it seems very chaotic to me.



First of all I'm wondering what "silent" means. Does it mean a different sound or dropped completely? Because "jag" easily becomes pronounced "ja", but I don't see "dig" becoming "di", if you know what I mean. The latter word is actually sort of curious, because if you pronounce the "g" sharply it requires the "i" sound to remain read as the letter by itself, resulting in a very old fashioned way of speaking. But when you then change it you don't really drop it, instead the "i" and "g" create a different sound, basically the sound of the vowel in "hey" (or "hay"). The same would apply to "säg" (say), which most people would pronounce like the English word actually. Both of them are now also written more like they sound for the most part; "dej" and "säj"

And in my humble opinion it's not at all certain that a Swede would omit the "g" in those words actually. I think I hear plenty of Swedes saying "jag" pronouncing it. I think speed really plays a role here, as well as clarity (sonically), formality and possibly "class". So a person who's speaking a bit slower, perhaps searching for words and still thinking, may very well pronounce "g" in "Jag... har nog inte hittat en lösning än" (I... don't think I've found a solution yet), where as speaking rapidly probably results in it being silent "Det var inte jag som tog bilen" (It wasn't I who took the car). The latter would sloppily be pronounced something along the lines of "devainte jasom tog bilen", if you know what I mean.



Sorror said:


> And today I got across a pronunciation that I can't at all get my head around: silent '_g_' in '_någon_' (nå-on)...



Well that's simply incorrect. Regardless of circumstances it sounds more like someone has a speech impediment to me. I would expect nobody to pronounce it that way and also have to think about what they wanted to say if they did.



Sorror said:


> Are there any rules, then? Is there, for example, a logical explanation why '_g'_ is not silent in '_aldrig_', but it is in '_smaklig_'?



Again, I think it has to do with speaking casually or 'formally'. Both "aldrig" and "smaklig" can be heard with and without the "g" pronounced.

Unfortunately I can't give you a rule for when it's really proper for the "g" to be actually silent (versus just dropping it because you're speaking casually). My grammar isn't that great I'm afraid. But my guess is it has something to do with vowels and where it is within a word. I'm betting that words similar to "någon", with that type of vowel after the "g" would get it pronounced always. "Fager" is another one ("fair", as in "pretty"). And as for when it's appropriate to make it silent in casual speak I'm again sorry I can't contribute more than on an individual case basis. Personally my bet is the following based on the words you just talked about:

Would be silent:

Roligt
Dig
Säg

Would never be silent:

Någon

Would be silent casually:

Jag
Aldrig
Smaklig

Would sound very formal with pronounced "g":

Dig
Säg


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## MattiasNYC

I actually just thought about "Någon" again. Possibly what you heard, or should have heard, is "nån", with one vowel sound as opposed to the two you implied when you wrote "nå-on". But the sounding "nån" would be written exactly like that. Same thing with "Tager" (english "take") where the better way to think about it is the word being substituted for the casual "tar", rather than thinking of it as the "g" being silent.

Did that make any sense?


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## Sorror

MattiasNYC said:


> I actually just thought about "Någon" again. Possibly what you heard, or should have heard, is "nån"



Well spotted! The material I was referring to is a series of audio conversations in Swedish, each with a transcript. And as it turns out, the transcript for this particular conversation for some reason had "_någon_" in the place where the person speaking was actually saying "_nån_". I was not familiar with this word at the time of writing my original post (I'm only about 7 weeks deep with Swedish), so I was not able to figure this out by myself. Now it makes perfect sense and it's clear that the transcript is simply not 100% accurate. Thanks!



> First of all I'm wondering what "silent" means



I mean cases where the letter is not vocalized at all.



> [but I don't see "dig" becoming "di"



I got carried away with '_dig_' when giving examples of the top of my head, surely it doesn't lose '_g_' when pronounced formally (not as '_de-i:_'). I'm sorry for the confusion.

As for "_jag_", I hardly ever hear Swedish natives saying it with '_g_' at the end, but that might be a case of not having enough exposure to the language yet.

Anyway, from what I gather based on your posts, this whole issue of silent letter '_g_' is more about formal vs. informal spoken language (or about timing, in some cases), rather than being phonetically correct or not. This is surely good news. As you probably know this is not always the case with other languages and I wasn't sure how it goes in Swedish (all the books I have are rather vague on the subject).

Thank you very much for your help *Mattias*.


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## MattiasNYC

Sorror said:


> As for "_jag_", I hardly ever hear Swedish natives saying it with '_g_' at the end, but that might be a case of not having enough exposure to the language yet.



Yeah, I'm not sure it's that usual any longer, but I'm hearing it every now and then. Things have changed maybe. I've lived in the US for quite some time.



Sorror said:


> Anyway, from what I gather based on your posts, this whole issue of silent letter '_g_' is more about formal vs. informal spoken language (or about timing, in some cases), rather than being phonetically correct or not. This is surely good news. As you probably know this is not always the case with other languages and I wasn't sure how it goes in Swedish (all the books I have are rather vague on the subject).
> 
> Thank you very much for your help *Mattias*.



There might be some rule I'm unaware of actually. Anyway, you're most welcome!


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## Tjahzi

As you have noticed, the realization of  Swedish /g/ is highly variable   and dependent on environment. Luckily however, it's  relatively regular  once you have the  rules in place.

Below is my attempt to outline the principles determining the  realization of /g/ (including some that you   probably know already). Do  note however that more or less recent   borrowings may (or may not)  ignore these rules.


Initial position

When proceeding......a vowel that is...​...a front vowel (/i/, /y/, /e/, /ö/ or /ä/), */g/* is realized as /j/.​...a back vowel (/o/, /å/, /a/ or /u/*), */g/* is realized as /g/.​...a consonant that is...​.../n/, /r/ or /l/, */g/* is realized as /g/.​.../j/, */g/* is mute/realized as /j/.​
Final position


When following......a vowel...​...in a monosyllabic word, and...​...the vowel is long, the likeliness of */g/* being mute  increases the more common the word is.** Else, it's  realized as /g/.
...the vowel is short...​...and the word is a personal pronoun, */g/* is realized as /j/.
...and the word is not a personal pronoun, */g/* is realized as /g/.​...in a polysyllabic word, and...​...the vowel is not /i/, */g/* is realized as /g/.​...the vowel is /i/, */g/* is usually mute or realized as /g/, depending on level of formality.***​...a consonant that is...​.../r/ or /l/, */g/* is realized as /j/.​.../n/, the cluster */ng/* is realized as /ŋ/.​ 
Medial position

The medial position is a bit tricky since the vast majority of cases  are compounds. However, most of the rules regarding initial position  will still apply, with the following differences. 
Only if the following front vowel is long will */g/* be realized as /j/, else /g/.****
When following a vowel and proceeding an /n/, */g/* will now be realized as /ŋ/ (rather than /g/, which would be the case if in initial position).

*Technically, modern (long, at least) /u/ is a front   vowel.  However, this is a relatively recent adaptation and in regards  to  /g/,  it behaves like a back vowel.
**This principle also applies to the other voiced stops /b/ and /d/ and can be seen in words like _jag_, _dag_, _träd _and _blod_.
***Meaning, the more informal the conversation, the more likely is the /g/ to be mute/dropped.
****These cases are few, the only really noticeable being _igen_.


Feel free to ask questions or correct any errors you may find.


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## MattiasNYC

Awesome. I bet I'd be able to learn all that if I was only about 25 years younger... lol.


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## Sorror

Thank you very much for such a detailed explanation *Tjahzi*.


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## Sorror

Check this out guys: http://www.solidfiles.com/d/5b2d2acfb6/10-10_lekcja_2___10_lekcja_2.mp3 (just press 'play' without downloading).

The gentelman is saying 'för två dagar sedan', with both 'g' and 'd' silent. Is it standard?


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## MattiasNYC

Sorror said:


> Check this out guys: http://www.solidfiles.com/d/5b2d2acfb6/10-10_lekcja_2___10_lekcja_2.mp3 (just press 'play' without downloading).
> 
> The gentelman is saying 'för två dagar sedan', with both 'g' and 'd' silent. Is it standard?



The word "dagar" can be changed to "dar". So I'm not sure if it's technically dropping "g" and "d" as much as it is choosing a different more casual version of the word.

http://www.svenskaakademien.se/svenska_spraket/svenska_akademiens_ordlista/saol_pa_natet/ordlista


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## Sorror

Didn't know about '_daga_r', thank you. Letter '_d_', however, is silent in '_sedan_' (so it's '_dar sen_') , any pointers here? I think it's the first time I encounter silent '_d_' in this position.


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## MattiasNYC

Sorror said:


> Didn't know about '_daga_r', thank you. Letter '_d_', however, is silent in '_sedan_' (so it's '_dar sen_') , any pointers here? I think it's the first time I encounter silent '_d_' in this position.



Same thing. In casual conversation and writing "sedan" can be written as "sen". So again - and I'm not sure if this is splitting hairs - I think that what happens is a person sees "sedan" and actually substitutes it for "sen" rather than pronounces "sedan" as "sen". If you look in the glossary the abbreviation "var" indicates "casual" language version:

http://www.svenskaakademien.se/svenska_spraket/svenska_akademiens_ordlista/saol_pa_natet/ordlista

I'm actually curious to see if other Swedes will agree with this distinction.


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## Sorror

This is very interesting, because while talking about silent letters in Swedish pronunciation, we've wondered into whole another subject, namely casual varieties of different words. I surely accept your premise and I can agree that it was indeed a case of substituting one version of word with another, rather than pronouncing a word in different ways. Okay then, can you tell me if this is something we can find in modern Swedish very often? Would you say that many words have their short, more casual versions? I just wonder if I should be on a lookout for them during my study, because there's no way to figure it out by just looking at the 'standard' version.

By the way... A textbook comes with a series of recordings and transcripts are included. But what's the point of doing that if they let the speaker substitute some words with another? How silly.


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## MattiasNYC

Sorror said:


> Okay then, can you tell me if this is something we can find in modern Swedish very often? Would you say that many words have their short, more casual versions?



Uhh... Not sure. I've never thought about it because it comes naturally to me, and because I never think about whether or not I'm swallowing letters or using a different version of a word.



Sorror said:


> I just wonder if I should be on a lookout for them during my study, because there's no way to figure it out by just looking at the 'standard' version.
> 
> 
> By the way... A textbook comes with a series of recordings and transcripts are included. But what's the point of doing that if they let the speaker substitute some words with another? How silly.



Well, you've got to start learning somewhere though, right? I think it's just a difficult choice between teaching people a more traditional and maybe formal way of speaking and writing versus one that is more practical. If you start with practical language it'll be potentially difficult when you go back and read older texts. And, conversely, if you start with more formal language it's harder to pick up on how words are used currently. And of course if you then try to learn everything at once you increase the work load. I honestly have no idea what the best solution is. In general though I would guess that it's much more common for language to lose letters than to add, right? So it's probably easier to figure out how to reduce a word to something "easier" than it is to figure out where a "simple" word came from by adding stuff to it.

But since you seem very interested in learning the language I would suggest just checking for this when a situation like this comes up. If you have a feel for what the word means but it doesn't sound quite right just look for alternatives maybe. Does that make sense?


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## Sorror

MattiasNYC said:


> Does that make sense?



Absolutely. Like most language learners, I have my own way of acquiring a new language. Part of which is collecting at early stages of study as much structural (both grammatical and phonetic) rules as possible, on which I build my further learning. And this is why I might seem to get a little too curious about some things at times, or drill on some issues when one would think there's no point of doing so. With this thread we've covered a lot of ground and most probably all what's left are irregularities, that have to be dealt with one by one as they show up in the future.

Thank you again for your excellent input and help, Mattias.


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## Tjahzi

As for _dagar_ being pronounced [dɑːr], it's actually the grammatical plural form of [dɑː]. That is, _dag_having undergone apocope and losing it's /g/ (as I explained in my previous post).

_Sedan_/_sen_ is a case of its own, and probably should be added to that (relatively short) list of "seemingly randomly contracted words". Do note however, that _sedan_/_sen_ ([se:dan]/[sɛn:]) is distinct from _sen_ ([seːn]).

I wouldn't advice you to go into detail regarding the cases like _sedan_/_sen_. You'll cover a lot more ground by learning ten rules rather than a list of ten exceptions.


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## More od Solzi

_Jag _with [g] pronounced is ''spelling pronunciation'' actually (like pronouncing [t] in English _often_].
If you get a chance to see older Swedish TV programs (from 50ies, 60ies) you will see no _g _was pronounced in _jag_
(and no -_de _was pronounced in _kastade,_ and the infinitive particle was always pronounced  [o] as in Norwegian and never [at:], regardless of formality and pace of speech).

The new ''fad'' is tendency  to pronounce most consonants because it's considered more formal,
(I've even heard T pronounced in _mycket_:  _tack så mycke_[t] sounds contrived, rather than formal)

 But it's the other way around,
the more correct forms are those with silent letters (just like in English:_ silent t _in *often *is more correct than the spelling pronunciation with t pronounced).

100 years ago, *landet *in Swedish was pronounced in the ''Norwegian'' way:  /1lan:e/ and not /1landet/.
I guess in 100 year time all silent letters in Swedish will be fully pronounced, it's a reverse tendency.

Similar topic: 

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1956274


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## Dashiel

Tjahzi said:


> Initial position
> [...]
> When proceeding...
> ...a vowel that is...
> 
> ...a front vowel (/i/, /y/, /e/, /ö/ or /ä/), */g/* is realized as /j/.​
> 
> [...]



I just stumbled upon this thread and thought I should add that while this might be the general rule, it is far from safe to use it I would say. There are many words where the initial g followed by a front vowel is pronounced as /ɧ/ (wikipedia IPA), /∫/ (SAOL PA). To name a few:

Generell, generalisera, geni, generad, genant, gelé, gest, gestikulera... 

There are also cases where the g is truly pronounced like a /g/, but I can only find one frequent word, and some far less frequent (such as medical words)

Gem, gerontologi


Same goes for g followed by an i. Giraff (/ɧ/), for instance.


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## AutumnOwl

Dashiel said:


> Generell, generalisera, geni, generad, genant, gelé, gest, gestikulera...


Isn't most of these words loan words from the French coming to Sweden and thus the /ɧ/ sound, as in French?
While _generalisera_ is pronounced with /ɧ/, _general_ is pronounced with /j/, perhaps because _general_ is considered as a "genuine" Swedish word while _generalisera_ is seen as a newer loan word.


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## Dashiel

AutumnOwl said:


> Isn't most of these words loan words from the French coming to Sweden and thus the /ɧ/ sound, as in French?



One could argue that, of course. However, if that is the threshold for a "loan" word, you won't find many Swedish words left.


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## DerFrosch

Dashiel said:


> There are also cases where the g is truly pronounced like a /g/, but I can only find one frequent word, and some far less frequent (such as medical words)
> 
> Gem, gerontologi



Interestingly, there's also one non-loanword with this pronunciation: "gegga" (and the related words "geggamoja" and "geggig").


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## DerFrosch

Dashiel said:


> One could argue that, of course. However, if that is the threshold for a "loan" word, you won't find many Swedish words left.



I don't know why you dismiss AutumnOwl's comment. It's quite relevant, since it makes it possible for us to state that the general rule is still valid for non-loanwords. At least I can't think of any exception to that rule which isn't a loanword, please inform us if you're aware of any.

(It may of course in some cases be difficult to determine whether a certain word is a loanword or not; I think it's fair to say that words that've been around since Old Swedish should not be considered loanwords. For words newer than that, if a dictionary states that they're been borrowed from another language, than they're loanwords.)


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## AutumnOwl

Dashiel said:


> One could argue that, of course. However, if that is the threshold for a "loan" word, you won't find many Swedish words left.


The "loan" words in Swedish comes basically from/through three sources, German, French and English (there are Latin and Greece of course but those words have we got from other sources, not directly). Depending on when and from what language a certain word came into Swedish, it's likely that the pronunciation it had in its "original" language followed into Swedish. As the pronunciation in German and Swedish is more similar when it comes to the letter "g", it's natural that the pronunciation follows the rules Tjahzi mentioned above in words we got when German was the main source for loan words. In French the "g" before a front vowel such as "e" is pronounced /ɧ/, which can explain why those words don't follow the common Swedish pronunciation.


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## DerFrosch

AutumnOwl said:


> In French the "g" before a front vowel such as "e" is pronounced /ɧ/, which can explain why those words don't follow the common Swedish pronunciation.



In French, "g" in the cases is actually pronounced [ʒ]. When the words were first imported, they were likely pronounced like that. But of course we don't have that sound in Swedish, so it was assimilated to [ɧ], which actually exists in non-loanwords too, like "sjok".

Visit Östermalm, by the way, and you might still hear people pronounce the "ge-" words the French way.


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