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:
“These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“Playing “bop” is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.”
—Duke Ellington (1899–1974)
“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)