Vowels
Unless preceding another vowel, all unstressed vowels are short.
| front | central | back | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | |||||||
| short | long | short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| close | ɪ | iː | ʏ | yː | ʉ | ʉː | u | uː |
| mid | ɛ | eː | œ | øː | (ə) | ɔ | oː | |
| open | (æ) | (æː) | ɑ | ɑː | ||||
/yː/ is protruded, whereas /ʉː/ and /uː/ are compressed, .
There are also a few diphthongs that can be analyzed as sequences of a short vowel and a glide: /ej/, /œj/, and /ɛw/. The diphthongs /ɔj/ and /ɑj/ only appear in loanwords - and /ʉj/ in just one single word (hui).
The phonemic status of long and short in Standard Eastern Norwegian is unclear since it patterns as an allophone of /eː/ and /ɛ/ before liquid consonants and approximants, though the introduction of loanwords has created some contrasts before /j/ such as tape ('tape') vs. sleip ('slimy') and minimal pairs like hacke ('to hack', from English) vs. hekke ('to nest'). only occurs in unstressed syllables.
Read more about this topic: Norwegian Phonology
Famous quotes containing the word vowels:
“Playing “bop” is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.”
—Duke Ellington (1899–1974)
“These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“As no one can tell what was the Roman pronunciation, each nation makes the Latin conform, for the most part, to the rules of its own language; so that with us of the vowels only A has a peculiar sound.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)