Swedish Phonology - Standard Pronunciation

Standard Pronunciation

Contrary to the situation with Danish or Finnish, there is not a uniform nation-wide spoken Standard Swedish. Instead there are several regional standard varieties (acrolects or prestige dialects), i.e. the most intelligible or prestigious forms of spoken Swedish, each within its area. Within Sweden, actors, singers and TV-personalties are often advised to "neutralize" their dialects by assimilating Central (Svealand) Swedish pronunciation.

The differences in the phonology of the various forms of prestigious Central Swedish can be considerable, although as a rule less marked than between localized dialects, including differences in prosody, vowel quality and assimilation. The differences between the various regional dialects may be compared with those of General American, Australian English, and British Received Pronunciation.

In Sweden, the more prestigious Central Swedish varieties often go under the name of rikssvenska ('National Swedish')