Swedish phonology

Swedish has a large vowel inventory, with nine vowels distinguished in quality and to some degree quantity, making 17 vowel phonemes in most dialects. Swedish pronunciation of most consonants is similar to that of other Germanic languages. Another notable feature is the pitch accent, which is unusual for European languages.

There are 18 consonant phonemes of which /ɧ/ and /r/ show considerable variation depending on both social and dialectal context.

Standard pronunciation

Contrary to the situation with Danish or Finnish, there is not a uniform nationwide 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.

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.

Swedish

Swedish may refer to:

See also

Alexander Skarsgård

Alexander Johan Hjalmar Skarsgård (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈskɑːʂɡoːɖ]; born August 25, 1976) is a Swedish actor. He is best known for his roles as vampire Eric Northman on the HBO series True Blood, Meekus in Zoolander and Brad Colbert in the HBO miniseries Generation Kill. He is the son of Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård.

Skarsgård has been cast as Tarzan in the upcoming film The Legend of Tarzan, to be released in 2016.

Early life

Skarsgård was born in Stockholm, Sweden. He is the oldest son of actor Stellan Skarsgård and his first wife, My, a physician. He has five younger siblings: Gustaf, Sam, Bill, Eija and Valter, and two half-brothers, Ossian and Kolbjörn. Gustaf, Bill, and Valter are also actors.

A friend of his father, who was a director, gave Skarsgård his first film role when he was seven years old. He played Kalle Nubb in Åke och hans värld (Åke and His World). In 1989, the lead role in the Swedish television production Hunden som log (The Dog That Smiled) made him famous in Sweden at the age of thirteen. Uncomfortable with being recognized, he quit acting for the next seven years.