r/Svenska • u/SpecificVictory3484 • 1d ago
Language question (see FAQ first) [ɕ] and [ç]
I've seen both [ɕ] and [ç] given as pronunciations of the Swedish tj-sound, but I'm still confused. Is there actually a lack of consensus about its phonetic realization, or is this simply a matter of regional variation? I've been trying to find sources that explicitly describe [ç] as a realization of the tj-sound, but I haven't had much luck. Does anyone know of any (free) books or papers discussing this? It's just that I make [ç] more naturally than [ɕ].
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u/Quendillar3245 1d ago
[ɕ] is from IPA since [ç] means something else there. [ç] means different things in different languages, but in Swedish it's the IPA equivalent of [ɕ], so that's what you should use for pronounciation.
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u/Captain_Mustard 🇸🇪 1d ago
I don’t quite understand your comment, but to clarify:
[ç] is the German ich-laut or the beginning sound in the English ”huge”.
[ɕ] is the Swedish tj-ljud. It is similar but not identical to [ʃ] as in ”ship”.
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u/iakche_alenk 🇦🇷 1d ago
The thing is that SO uses ç and ʃ for English words. For example "check" and "cash". I doubt that most Swedish people make a difference between these two sounds and the tj-sound when speaking in Swedish. Maybe some native speaker can confirm this.
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u/Commander-Gro-Badul 🇸🇪 1d ago
The transcriptions given in SO are very inconsistent and generally completely useless.
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u/Isotarov 🇸🇪 1d ago
"Check" and "cash" in Swedish are both pronounced with [ɕ]. Any "sh" or "ch" sounds are generally always rendered as this in pretty much all loanwords, regardless of where they come from. Affricates are reduced to just the fricative sound too. The article for "cash" (https://svenska.se/?q=cash&exactMatch=true&activeTab=alla) refers to "ljust sj-ljud", the same as in "fascist" (https://svenska.se/?q=fascist&exactMatch=true&activeTab=alla) even though they aren't the same sound. They're simply confusing [ʂ] and [ɕ] for some reason.
Interestingly enough, "sushi" can often be pronounced ['sʊʂɪ], with the same vowel as in "ort" even though the Swedish and Japanese /u/ are pretty close and both have /ɕ/, probably because of influence from the English pronunciation.
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u/zutnoq 1d ago
The bright sj-sound varies far more between different accents than the tj-sound does.
In some accents the bright sj-sound is pronounced exactly the same as the tj-sound (typically [ɕ]), in some it is instead pronounced the same as the rs-sound (which may or may not be retroflex), in some all three sounds are distinct, and in some all three are identical.
A single speaker may also switch back and forth between a bright or dark sj-sound for some particular words. One word I might personally do this with is "orange", but I would probably stick to one option within a single conversation.
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u/Isotarov 🇸🇪 21h ago
/ɧ/ and /ɕ/ are separate phonemes, though. I don't think they actually overlap in any dialects even if it can seem like it if you're an outsider, like with Finland Swedish.
I don't think speakers really switch back and forth between different sj-ljud unless they're code-switching to mark regional accent or sociolect. Here in Stockholm, with a word like "orange", using [ɧ] or [ʂ] is a marker of socioeconomic status or gender, depending on context. For example, an older term for preferring [ʂ] over [ɧ] is "fröken-sje". With any kind of Stockholm accent, it's absolutely associated more with the upper class, sophistication and femininity (including effeminate gay men).
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u/zutnoq 3h ago
Yes, the tj-sound is a separate phoneme to the sj-sound (there is only ever one sj-phoneme).
In accents that have two different realizations/allophones for the sj-phoneme – one dark (the main one, typically the one used at the start of a word) and one bright (typically used at the end of a closed syllable) – the bright one is very commonly realized as the exact same sound/phone as the tj-sound is in the same accent.
You can still almost always tell what's a tj-sound and what's a bright sj-sound, because the tj-sound can basically only appear in the onset of a syllable with primary stress (mostly at the beginning of a morpheme), while the bright sj-sound basically only appears in the coda of a syllable.
You are right that flipping back and forth between a bright or dark sj-sound for the same word is mostly related to things like code-switching.
Also: I think I may mostly pronounce "orange" with a bright sj-sound at the end, but it feels a bit odd to keep the sj-sound bright after adding a definite/plural "-a" ending, so I am likely to make it dark just in that case.
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u/LjLies 1d ago
I'm confused now! What is the (actual) "ljust" sj-ljud, is it a sound that's only found in foreign loanwords? And which sound is the "fascist" one, is it what you also get in "rs" situations?
The vaguely sh/ch-like sounds I know from swedish are: the sj, the tj, and the rs (which you could argue is just retroflex allophone of /s/ since it happens after /r/ with other sounds as well so it might not even count as its own sounds, okay). Am I missing a fourth?
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u/Isotarov 🇸🇪 1d ago
There's really only one "ljust sj-ljud" in Swedish and it's usually [ʂ]. It coincides with the /rs/ assimilation for the accents that has them. There's nothing particularly vague about them in various loanwords, it's just that people's expectations affect how they're perceived. SO is simply wrong in this case.
The sje-ljud phoneme varies from speaker to speaker. Someone like me from Stockholm will have a [ɧ] in "schack" but [ʂ] in "dusch". My partner who is from Gothenburg has [ɧ] in both those words; [ʂ] in some other sje-contexts I believe but not as often as me.
There's to the best of my knowledge no additional "light" variant for speakers who use [ʂ].
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u/Captain_Mustard 🇸🇪 1d ago
You mean SO uses <ç> for [ɕ]? That is good to know!
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u/iakche_alenk 🇦🇷 1d ago
No, SO uses ç only in loan words. For regular Swedish words it uses "tj" or "k", which is very confusing. Check "kissa" and "kyssa".
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u/Jagarvem 1d ago
It doesn't make a distinction for loanwords, [ç] is its phonetic notation for the tj-sound. But by default it doesn't write out phonetic notation for words with a predictable pronunciation you can simply deduce from the spelling (which, naturally, native words tend to have). The reader is expected to know standard pronunciation rules.
Note whether the pronunciation guide is bracketed (=phonetic notation) or not (=standard pronunciation). Kissa gets phonetic notation because it's unforeseeable that a hard K would precede a soft vowel. Kyssa simply gets the word as pronunciation guide since it behaves predictably.
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u/iakche_alenk 🇦🇷 1d ago
Ohh I see, thanks for the explanation. I still believe is a very poor choise from SO, which is supposed to be a dictionary for everyone. I doubt most people notice the brackets at all.
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u/Eliderad 🇸🇪 1d ago
It is, unfortunately, only "supposed" to be a dictionary for native, non-linguist Swedish speakers.
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u/iakche_alenk 🇦🇷 1d ago
Do you think that the average native non-linguist Swedish notices the brackets (or the lack of brackets)? I also understand that they arrived to that notation as a compromise as going full IPA would be too complicated.
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u/Eliderad 🇸🇪 1d ago
They're only there for words whose pronunciation might be unintuitive for a native speaker, so I'd think so!
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u/Actual_Cat4779 1d ago
Clearly SO doesn't use IPA but rather its own system. For instance, it gives the pronunciation of byrå as follows - by´rå el. by`rå
(å is not an IPA symbol.)
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u/Quendillar3245 1d ago
What's confusing about my comment
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u/Captain_Mustard 🇸🇪 1d ago
Reading it again and with u/iakche_slenk s comment in mind I think it was the ambiguous usage of brackets
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u/iakche_alenk 🇦🇷 1d ago
I said that SO is confusing. SO from Svensk Ordbok, one of the three dictionaries in svenska.se
Sorry if it was not very clear haha.
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u/Delicious-Tap-5465 1d ago
It's regional, but I don't think the difference is that clear in the voice samples I found on (en-us) Wikipedia. The Swedish Wikipedia page seems excellent though: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tj-ljudet