The sound system of Norwegian is similar to Swedish. There is considerable variation among the dialects, but the variant generally taught to foreign students is Standard Østnorsk.

Consonants

Most of the retroflex (and postalveolar) consonants are mutations of [ɾ] or [l]+any other alveolar/dental consonant; rn /ɾn/ > [ɳ], rt /ɾt/ > [ʈ], rl /ɾl/ > [ɭ], rs /ɾs/ > [ʃ], etc. /ɾd/ across word boundaries (“sandhi”), in loanwords and in a group of primarily literary words may be pronounced [ɾd], e.g., verden [ˈʋæɾdn̩], but it may also be pronounced [ɖ] in some dialects. The most exotic of the retroflex consonants is the retroflex flap which is only found in a few languages worldwide. Most of the dialects in eastern and central Norway use the retroflex consonants. Most western and northern dialects do not have these retroflex sounds. In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lips and the upper teeth, or viceversa. ... Dentals are consonants such as t, d, n, and l articulated with either the lower or the upper teeth, or both, rather than with the gum ridge as in English. ... Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the superior teeth. ... Sub-apical retroflex plosive In phonetics, retroflex consonants are consonant sounds used in some languages. ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... A stop or plosive or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... Liquid consonants, or liquids, are approximant consonants that are not classified as semivowels (glides) because they do not correspond phonetically to specific vowels (in the way that, for example, the initial in English yes corresponds to ). The class of liquids can be divided into lateral liquids and rhotics. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. ... The retroflex flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ...

Traditionally, the retroflex flap has not been used in Standard Østnorsk, and still many (especially the higher classes in Oslo) consider it vulgar and don't use it, but in several words it must now be considered standard.^[1] Many children and youths (especially in Oslo) don't master/use the palatal fricative.

In Southern and Western Norwegian more guttural realizations of the /r/-phoneme, known in Norwegian as skarring have become more commonplace in the last century. Depending on phonetic context voiceless ([χ]) or voiced uvular fricatives ([ʁ]) are used. The unvoiced stops are regularly aspirated. The voiceless uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ...

Some loanwords and onomatopoeia are pronounced with external sounds, not used in proper Norwegian words: gin [dʒin], wow! [wau] and bzzzzz! [bz:::] (imitation of the sound of a bee). A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. ... Look up onomatopoeia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article concerns the beverage. ... Families Andrenidae Apidae Colletidae Halictidae Megachilidae Melittidae Stenotritidae Bee collecting pollen Bees are flying insects, closely related to wasps and ants. ...

Vowels

There are many variations in vowel pronunciation in different dialects and idiolects of Norwegian, as in other Germanic languages. The above vowel chart is meant to be fairly representative of Standard Østnorsk. The orthography of a language is the set of symbols (glyphs and diacritics) used to write a language, as well as the set of rules describing how to write these glyphs, including spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. ... For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words see here. ... Ash (Æ, æ; pronounced ) is a letter of the Latin alphabet for English. ... // This article is about the vowel Ø. For other uses, see Ø (disambiguation). ... // This article is about the vowel Ø. For other uses, see Ø (disambiguation). ... // For other uses, see Ã… (disambiguation). ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

Many don't consider the e (weak)/schwa to be a distinct vowel phoneme — but just an allophone of the e (short) in weak positions. In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. ...

Accent

Norwegian is a pitch accent language with two distinct pitch patterns. They are used to differentiate two-syllable words with otherwise identical pronunciation. For example in many East Norwegian dialects, the word "bønder" (farmers) is pronounced using tone 1, while "bønner" (beans or prayers) uses tone 2. Though the difference in spelling occasionally allow the words to be distinguished in written language, in most cases the minimal pairs are written alike, since written Norwegian has no explicit accent marks. In most eastern low-tone dialects, accent 1 uses a low flat pitch in the first syllable, while accent 2 uses a high, sharply falling pitch in the first syllable and a low pitch in the beginning of the second syllable. In both accents, these pitch movements are followed by a rise of intonational nature (phrase accent), the size (and presence) of which signals emphasis/focus and which corresponds in function to the normal accent in languages that lack lexical tone, such as English. That rise culminates in the final syllable of an accentual phrase, while the utterance-final fall that is so common in most languages is either very small or absent. Pitch accent is a kind of accent system employed in many languages around the world. ... Intonation is a term used to cover particular uses of tones in linguistics and music. ... It has been suggested that Tonal language be merged into this article or section. ...

There are significant variations in pitch accent between dialects. Thus, in most of western and northern Norway (the so-called high-pitch dialects) accent 1 is falling, while accent 2 is rising in the first syllable and falling in the second syllable or somewhere around the syllable boundary. The pitch accents (as well as the peculiar phrase accent in the low-tone dialects) give the Norwegian language a "singing" quality which makes it fairly easy to distinguish from other languages. Interestingly, accent 1 generally occurs in words that were monosyllabic in Old Norse, and accent 2 in words that were polysyllabic. Old Norse or Danish tongue is the Germanic language once spoken by the inhabitants of the Nordic countries (for instance during the Viking Age). ...

Tonal accents and morphology

In many dialects, the accents take on a central role in marking grammatical categories. Thus, the ending (T1)—en implies determinate form of a masculine monosyllabic noun (båten, bilen, (den store) skjelven), whereas (T2)-en denotes either determinate form of a masculine bisyllabic noun or an adjectivised noun/verb ((han var) skjelven, moden). Similarly, the ending (T1)—a denotes feminine singular determinate monosyllabic nouns (boka, rota) or neutrum plural determinate nouns (husa, lysa), whereas the ending (T2)—a denotes the preterite of weak verbs (rota, husa), feminine singular determinate bisyllabic nouns (bøtta, ruta, jenta). The preterite (also praeterite, in American English also preterit, or past historic) is the grammatical tense expressing actions which took place in the past. ...

Monosyllabic tonal accents

In some dialects of Norwegian, mainly those from Nordmøre and Trøndelag to Lofoten, there may also be tonal opposition in monosyllables, as in [ˈbiːl] (‘car’) vs. [ˌbiːl] (‘axe’). In a few dialects, mainly in and near Nordmøre, the monosyllabic tonal opposition is also represented in final syllables with secondary stress, as well as double tone designated to single syllables of primary stress in polysyllabic words. In practice, this means that one gets minimal pairs like: [ˌhɑːniɲː] (‘the rooster’) vs. [ˌhɑˈːniɲː] (‘get him inside’); [ˈbryɲːa] (‘in the well’) vs. [ˈbryɲˈːa] (‘her well’); [ˈlænsmɑɲː] (‘sheriff’) vs. [ˈlænsˈmɑɲː] (‘the sheriff’). Amongst the various views on how to interpret this situation, the most promising one may be that the words displaying these complex tones have an extra mora. This mora may have little or no effect on duration and dynamic stress, but is represented as a tonal dip. Nordmøre (lit. ... Trøndelag is the name of a geographical region in the middle of Norway, consisting of the two counties Nord-Trøndelag and Sør-Trøndelag. ... Reine, Lofoten, seen from top of Reinebringen (June, 2003). ... Nordmøre (lit. ... Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines syllable weight (which in turn determines stress) in some languages. ...

Other dialects with tonal opposition in monosyllabic words have done away with vowel length opposition. Thus, the words [ˌvɔːg] (‘dare’) vs. [ˌvɔgː] (‘cradle’) have merged into [ˌvɔːg] in the dialect of Oppdal. County Sør-Trøndelag District Dovre region Municipality NO-1634 Administrative centre Aune Mayor (2004) Ola Røtvei (Ap) Official language form Neutral Area  - Total  - Land  - Percentage Ranked 21 2,274 km² 2,202 km² 0. ...

Loss of tonal accents

Some forms of Norwegian have lost the tonal accent opposition. This includes mainly parts of the area around (but not including) Bergen; the Brønnøysund area; to some extent, the dialect of Bodø; and, also to various degrees, many dialects between Tromsø and the Russian border. Faroese and Icelandic, which have their main historical origin in Old Norse, also show no tonal opposition. It is, however, not clear whether these languages lost the tonal accent or whether the tonal accent was not yet there when these languages started their separate development. County Hordaland District Midhordland Municipality NO-1201 Administrative centre Bergen Mayor (2004) Herman Friele (H) Official language form Neutral Area  - Total  - Land  - Percentage Ranked 215 465 km² 445 km² 0. ... Coat of Arms of Brønnøysund Brønnøysund is a coastal town with approx. ... County Nordland District Salten Municipality NO-1804 Administrative centre Bodø Mayor (2005) Odd-Tore Fygle (Ap) Official language form BokmÃ¥l Area  - Total  - Land  - Percentage Ranked 62 1,392 km² 1,308 km² 0. ... County Troms District Municipality NO-1902 Administrative centre Tromsø Mayor (2004) Herman Kristoffersen (Ap) Official language form Neutral Area  - Total  - Land  - Percentage Ranked 18 2,566 km² 2,519 km² 0. ... Old Norse or Danish tongue is the Germanic language once spoken by the inhabitants of the Nordic countries (for instance during the Viking Age). ...

Pulmonic ingressive

The word ja "yes" is sometimes pronounced with inhaled breath (pulmonic ingressive) in Norwegian — and this can be rather confusing for foreigners. In human speech, pulmonic ingressive sounds are those in which the air stream is created by the lungs (pulmonic) inhaling and pulling air in (ingressive) through the mouth or nose. ...