Swedish Pitch Accent Revisited: Dialectal Variation

[@swedneck]

Gud vad konstigt allt det här låter när man är svensk.

[@Hattori_Hanzō_侍]

Haha, det låter ännu konstigare när man fortfarande lär sig svenska :'( I'm just gonna stick to the 2A type for now :P

[@AcademiaCervena]

Tänk då på mig som ska försöka leverera det på typ sju dialekter... ;)

[@sionrees1968]

Academia Cervena any chance of you covering älvdaliska ?

[@AcademiaCervena]

It's definitely a possibility, but probably not in the immediate future :)

[@ОвочеваБаза]

den känslan när du försöker att prata 2a-svensk, men i slutet är finlandssvenska allt du kan uttala :c minst är mitt svenskt uttal jävla mycket bättre än mitt danskt...

[@joshadams8761]

I am a language nerd, and I found this video riveting, just as I did the first one on Swedish pitch accent. Thank you for making it. Please learn Danish and teach me about stød.

[@AcademiaCervena]

Thank you! :) All in good time...

[@dan74695]

Do you want to learn about Norwegian dialects? I'm a native speaker, so I know a little bit about it

[@joshadams8761]

@@dan74695 That is one of many subjects that interest me! I am aware that Bergen uses the guttural R, likely under German or Danish influence.

[@dan74695]

@@joshadams8761 Do you have Reddit or Discord?

[@joshadams8761]

@@dan74695 Yes, both.

[@DoryanTheCritic]

This exactly what I was looking for, something DuoLingo never touches upon.

[@Infinite_Jester]

Yeah, my girlfriend is learning Swedish through Duolingo and she now has that dastardly rikssvensk pronunciation for everything. It drives me nuts. It's also a little bit sad that dialects disappear by being swallowed by the standard language.

[@brokendrug]

Tripticket vilket dialekt pratar du med då? :)

[@Matheus_Braz]

@@Infinite_Jester I'm learning Swedish due to my swedish partner and hes from east central Sweden, and ill be learning his variety, how different does casual swedish from that area and rikssvenska sound in your opinion?

[@Infinite_Jester]

@@brokendrug Jag är finlandssvensk från Helsingfors. Ibland kallar vi det "högsvenska" på skämt.

[@Infinite_Jester]

@@Matheus_Braz it's not, really. There might be some differences between formal/informal language but you're quite likely learning rikssvenska.

[@larsberggard4644]

Jag är från Tornedalen. I skolan hörde jag om akut och grav accent och fick en liten teoretisk aning om dem. Nu, sedan du förklarat det så utförligt, förstår jag intet!

[@arkivuo5284]

Being from Gothenburg I was so confused after the first video. Makes sense now.

[@KarinKrusmynta]

This is amazing, thank you!! I was born and raised in Göteborg to parents of varied dialectal backgrounds - a mix of Stockholm, Östergötland, and Skåne dialects. I speak the 2b type. Here’s my chart for the last 10 words: Accent 1: blåbär, sallad, Elin, Oskar Accent 2: ananas, persika, Arvid, Axel Free (?) variation between 1 and 2: morfar, Martin

[@tentativesuggestion]

Vad duktig du är på att härma dialekter!

[@AcademiaCervena]

Tack så mycket :)

[@Jharug87]

du kan ju gärne försöke di pa gotlendske :P

[@livedandletdie]

Jharug87, du skall inte be om det omöjliga. Ni har ju trots allt varit ett eget språk 700 år tillbaks i tiden. Precis som Skånskan var ett eget språk förr innan det splittrades till Skånsk och Dansk, och sedan hade andra halvan bortglömd i 400 år då Stockholmare marscherade in med soldater.

[@dan74695]

@@livedandletdie Også har dere elvdalsk/älvdalska/övdalską, som er et annet språk.

[@UlfErlingsson]

At 6:20 the pronunciation in type 1a is consistently backwards compared to the written English meaning. The first "anden" is 'the spirit' and the second "anden" is 'the duck', etc. They are all pronounced backwards in the video.

[@perjohanaxell9862]

Väldigt pedagogiskt både första och andra genomgången. Önskar jag hade haft tillgång till detta när jag försökte vara sfi lärare. Också kul att upptäcka hur små variationer får klickar olika. När du visar 2b känner jag direkt att det är "rätt" eftersom det är mina hemtrakter.

[@binkao2938]

Can you do a video about older Swedish dialects? I love how they speak in old movies from like the 40s to 60s.. I'd love to learn how to speak like that, but I'm terrible at discerning all these details and differences by myself.

[@Infinite_Jester]

Interestingly, some dialects that have been in relative isolation have developed very little. The dialects from Finland (don't confuse them with the accent of Finns who speak Swedish as a second/foreign language) are quite alike the 'standard' language from the 1800s. Thankfully, there is a host of material in these dialects as the linguistic minority in Finland is fairly strong. You can find spoken material easily on Yle Areena (the website of Finland's national broadcast company) as they have a channel dedicated to the Swedish language and almost all of it is in so-called "high Swedish" (högsvenska).

[@Tatwinus]

@@Infinite_Jester a lot of the swedish spoken in the "swedish parts" of the USA is also old swedish that has been preserved. Sadly its in steep decline as younger generations dont want to learn it.

[@xWood4000]

@@Infinite_Jester The disclaimer is that it's true in general but depending a lot on the dialect. And there are already pronunciation differences between how middle aged people spoke in the 80s and today.

[@johanfagerstromjarlenfors]

For quite a long time it was not allowed to speak in dialect in television and radio so movies from like 40s and 60s it is common that actors doesn’t really speak any dialect ”at all”. To like just a generation ago dialects were quite widely spoken in everyday use all over Sweden and for a person from the north it would be difficult to understand one from the south for example. But with television and radio dialects have started to fade. Just like my parents lived in a place where a lot of regional and local vocabulary were used everyday along with a distinct accent with in my regions have a lot of diphtongs and triphtongs, lack of the letter R etc... but they themselves didn’t really pick up more than a faded version of the accent and a reduced vocabulary and the same thing happend again to the next generation so i picked up a faded accent and vocabulary from my parents generation. In general today the ”dialect” mostly is swedish with an accent and a few dialectal words. But some regions holds on proudly to their dialect and accent while other regions tries to get rid of it. And the mind set they had for television and radio 100 years ago was to eliminate dialects🤷‍♂️

[@livedandletdie]

@@johanfagerstromjarlenfors yup, the good old times when all the clips were spoken in Rikssvenska.

[@vatnidd]

As a native speaker of a language with 6 tones I still find this challenging

[@peter-andrepliassov4489]

Cantonese?

[@vatnidd]

@@peter-andrepliassov4489 Yep

[@livedandletdie]

Cantonese sounds a lot easier to learn than Swedish if you ask me, as a type-1a Swedish Speaker, from Scania, pitch is the least of my problems, because it varies greatly here in Scania, and these pitches that Academia Cervena shows us are just the averages of the pitches. Still though, Swedish pitch accent is quite unique compared to Chinese or Japanese Pitch, Seeing as type-2a's accent 1 and type-1b's accent 2 are near identical. There is a lot of confusion.

[@ttaa21]

Samuel Lo how can this be challenging for a Chinese speaker? Just imagine the second accent of Swedish to be two fourth-tone mandarin characters in sequence like 放屁, or say 咩(what) twice in Cantonese

[@korvkorv532]

​@@ttaa21 I think you underestimate the difficulty of Scanian pronunciation, at least the south-western Scanian dialect, a bit (little known fact it could be considered an East-Danish dialect, rather than a southern Swedish one, but most Danes don't understand it either because usually all they ever hear on Swedish TV is the standard dialect/rikssvenska). Incoming explanation of what could make it difficult for non-natives: Maybe, with the pitch clearly slowly explained on its own in this video, it isn't difficult to hear the difference when isolated but Scanian seems to cause issues for most non-native speakers (heck it causes issues for native Swedish non-Scanians as well). Standard Swedish isn't that difficult of a language (class 1) but if you want to speak Scanian and sound natural it seems to me (I can't gauge exactly how hard it is as I'm a native speaker) you'll be very likely to run into issues. I have only heard two people ever(!) do a semi-decent job of it over the years (one of them being an American who had lived here for over 50 years). The guy in this video sounds like he's imitating the north-western parts of Scania (very clear and usually always stress on the first syllable. Wovels much flatter). This is the easiest 1A accent by far (the accents in Scania vary greatly). You change the stress points up for every word (there are no rules or logic to it afaik?) and add diphthongs/triphthongs/tetrapthongs (that can NOT be pronounced "off" in terms of order/harshness or it'll be instantly noticable) and (much) harsher uvular trills (sometimes guttural sometimes not (thus given some sound; making you sound like a purring cat or a crappy car depending on the word) that will sometimes bleed over into the following words (sucks if those words begin with R and especially if they contain more than one of them) and then the acute/grave accent on top of that (flattened out to the point where the noticable difference is a LOT smaller in some parts. It's normally nowhere near as clear as the guy this guy pronounces them) and all of it spoken at a (much) faster pace and it kicks difficulty up a notch... This without throwing older words, completely unique to Scanian, into the mix. For example... The sentence "hand/give me those (things) over there": Standard Swedish: Räck mig de där borta! (flat vowels and tongue trills that can bascially be ignored, to make it easy for English-speakers, without it sounding too bad) Approximate SW-Scanian pronunciation: Reägg muoaj duoåm daäöuorr buorta! (uvular trills on the R's and diphtons/triphtons/tetrapthongs. Hard K-sounds of standard Swedish sometimes softened to the point where they sound like G) Old Scanian: Flöeiyjj mi(e) di(e)(-)(d)a'a(uor)rr hi(eä)nn(g)e! (keeping above pronunciations in mind. Sadly VERY few people, even in Scania (likely due to media erasing the dialects), would understand this sentence nowadays) The video creator keeps using "anden" as an example. In my dialect (Söderslätt) you could easily add "(H)Ann den..." (Ann (name) that [insert expletives]), "Han den..." (him "it" ("it" = superfluous "that guy")), Handen (the hand) and HandeLn (the trade) to the same example because the speed of the dialect spoken could pretty much erase the inflection of the first examples and the capitalized letters of the latter ones could be so faintly pronounced you likely wouldn't know the difference without the entire sentence giving you context (again many native people run into issues). I spent considerable time once trying to teach a Mandarin-speaker the difference in tone between flygPLAN and PLANera (and that difference is VERY clear). Granted Mandarin has fewer and more distinguishable tones, so maybe they're not as good at telling the difference of pitch(?), but I also heard a Cantonese girl struggle distinguishing between the letter R and "to be" (är) spoken in Scanian. The "quirks" I listed previously would seem a lot more difficult to me than these "easier" examples at least(?). ^My attempt at an explanation. GLWTS:P Edit: oh and regarding Cantonese have to ask you... I don't speak it at all but listened to the tones once a while back and I found tones 2 and 5 to be pretty similar sounding to my untrained ear(?). Hearing them isolated right after one another it wasn't too bad but on their own I might've had difficulties (both were rising iirc). Do Cantonese-learners get those wrong often?

[@joshualotz340]

Amazing video, first video I've seen covering pitch accent in the regional variations in detail. Super informative.

[@dromedda6810]

its cool that we natives just kinda know, didnt know what a pitch accent even was but i could also tell where the pitch accents were from mostly from sound. and definately the difference in meaning

[@jozeus3840]

Your intuition at the end seems to apply to my dialect. I am from the Jönköping area and have lived a fair bit in Gothenburg, and I have the second pitch accent for all the words you listed at the end.

[@AcademiaCervena]

Thank you!

[@hentehoo27]

The reason why Finnish Swedish accent lacks the pitch accent is that Finnish language has influenced the Swedish language in some degree in Finland. Stress in Finnish is non-phonemic. Like Hungarian and Icelandic, Finnish _always_ places the primary stress on the first syllable of a word. For example in Swedish "köping" /tʃøː'piŋ/, but in Finnish /'kaupuŋki/

[@AcademiaCervena]

Yes, that's correct; the loss of pitch accent in the eastern parts of the language area is definitely due to language contact. It's also true that Swedish has irregular stress, but in native words, such as _köping_, it's always on the first syllable, just like in Finnish. If you encounter a word with non-initial stress you can be pretty sure it's originally a loan!

[@rudde7918]

@@AcademiaCervena Is that because Proto-Germanic had the stress always on the first syllable and native Swedish word inherited that?

[@AcademiaCervena]

Yep!

[@dankwoodburning]

I have to give you props for being surprisingly accurate, 2:45, that small area in the south-west of Finland is my dialect of swedish!

[@Nen_niN]

If you're having a hard time: just know that I'm a native swedish speaker and still understand barely anything

[@verymuchfun4237]

Svenne Karlsson, vilket jävla namn

[@airconditionedBreeze]

@@verymuchfun4237 Coolaste namnet man kan ha liksom

[@oskarwallstromer6530]

As a 2a speaker (from Närke originally) your 1a example pairs all sounded like the opposite when you used the 2a dialect. So when you said anden (the duck) it sounded like anden (the spirit) and vice versa. So weird.

[@janenwiki3237]

Exactly what I thought too!

[@DaReaperZ]

As a 1a speaker, they definitely are. When the arrow is at "the host" side it sounds like "values" and vice versa when the arrow is on the "values" side it sounds like "the host" is being spoken. So yeah, it's most definitely mixed up.

[@vooran]

I come from east of Gothenburg and I pronounce every word like 2, it almost sounds like Norwegian to be honest...had a girl from Stockholm today in school who got confused and started talking English...

[@honeyfromthebee]

Hvor sjovt. Jeg tænkte også, at 2b minder mig om norsk.

[@johanfagerstromjarlenfors]

I’m from blekinge and in stockholm they think i speak danish...

[@sionrees1968]

oooh great timing im moving to Sweden in a few days and this is really helpful

[@mayainactiveemail3986]

Did you learn Swedish perhaps? I'm looking into learning the language.

[@sionrees1968]

SHEEKO TM yeah I'm pretty much fluent. I've had experience learning Welsh french and Italian and as a native speaker Swedish is by far the most enjoyable and easiest to learn. unlike the other languages which I was taught in school I taught myself Swedish and reached fluency unlike the other languages. when starting Swedish I think pronouncing vowels was the hardest as we don't have the Swedish o or u sound and it can be hard. I'm about 1.5 years into learning and i can understand 90% of newspapers. another plus is you can understand Norwegian and Danish if you try hard. you can understand a few words in Icelandic but it's few and far between. if you are learning for the sake of learning a language I would advise you learn Norwegian as it's slightly easier and they understand Swedish and Danish well. but if you want to live in Sweden obs do Swedish. I recommend the book "Swedish an essential grammar" the app "Duolingo" and the kids show "Mumintrollet" between these I learn most of my Swedish. if you have any questions just ask !

[@mayainactiveemail3986]

Thank you so much for the informative answer! I will take your book suggestions, I've been trying to remember a few words and get the hang of reading for a week now, but it is just so difficult... I can't seem to get the hang of it, I can read both German and Latin just fine, I'm Francophone and have lived in the UK for almost a decade. but Swedish is about to make me cry, maybe it's just me, better start watching the moomins in Swedish then. Thank you so much!

[@livedandletdie]

Sion Rees, are you sure you learned Swedish to Fluency because I highly doubt it, I however believe you learned it down to 30% vocab, with a horrible pronunciation specially for vowels and sj sound, because most foreigners I've met that didn't grow up here as kids, have really difficult times learning those things.

[@unfathomablyunfathomable]

@@sionrees1968 Vem kommer i vår ruta här, jovisst det mumintrollet är (fire song, how's your stay in Sweden so far? And do you pronounce kärna differently from stjärna?)

[@IreneKlevtsova]

Tusen tack! Nu vet jag varför det är så svart för mig att förstå och lära mig skånska när jag har vänner bara från Stockholm. Bra video!

[@AcademiaCervena]

Tack så mycket! Det finns ju förstås lite annat också som kan göra skånska svårt för ovana; kanske får det bli en senare film :)

[@livedandletdie]

Dialektala ord, en sådär 500 olika dialekter, är det a ändelse eller en ändelse, vilka konsonanter uttalas, vilka uttalas inte, är det ente eller inte eller ej eller i eller icke eller ick... Är det nasalt(typ trelleborg) eller inte nasalt, är det Tungspets R eller är det franskt rullande R eller ett skånskt rullande R... hur många diftonger/triftonger finns det i dialekten...

[@bobbyggare8364]

@@AcademiaCervena gärna :)

[@MenelionFR]

wow, now that gets mind-blowing for me too! 😂😂 I was sure there are two types of accents, basically yes and no for pitch accent. Thank you for this video, very informative!

[@apotato4873]

Didn't know about pitch accents at all until today, and it was really obvious for me that it exists with the Buren example: In accent 1 I thought of the word cage, while in accent 2 I thought about the word carried. For me that example was great with actually realizing that pitch accents change the way a word is interpreted.

[@joalexsg9741]

You are fantastic but these are really hard for people like me, I couldn't tell them apart no matter how wonderfully you explained them. Fortunately, I could get at least the ones shown in the first video.

[@annicaesplund6613]

It would be easier with a full sentence.

[@joalexsg9741]

@@annicaesplund6613 I don't think so, I've tried to learn some tonal languages many times and every time I had to give them up for realizing they're simply unfeasible for me. However, one Swede friend of mine told me the Swedish dialect spoken in Findlan does not use tones, if that proves true it could be a feasible alternative for me:-) Thanks for your kind coaxing to learn Swedish nevertheless!

[@joalexsg9741]

@@aliceberethart No offense taken! I first heard this expression on a book about language learning in 1979, when I was 19 years old! Yes, that's it but it doesn't bother me anymore cause I've realized I only like tones in singing, lol. The site of Fenno-Swedish has started working, I checked a while ago and started learning but it's a very simple course, I'll need more supportive material. I often have to slow the pace as they speak too fast. I find it so lovely. I love to compare related languages and if I weren't tone deaf I'd be tempted to learn all Germanic Scandinavian languages, they're super sweet! Celtic and Germanic languages have always been my linguistic passions, followed closely by Slavic languages but my issues with them are the complicated spellings of two Goidelic ones, I'm still trying to cope with them at this late in life, had even given up learning them (except for Manx, the spellings of which I find a bit easier, though still not ideal). Fortunately, although I love them all, the Brythonic branch is my favorite!

[@DaReaperZ]

In the south part, it's quite strange. All of the words seem mixed up. For example when you say "the gnome" the arrow shows to the left side where it says "the plot". Then you say "the plot" and the arrow goes right where it says "the gnome". It seems like the words should all switch side with one another. I say this as a native Scanian.

[@NidusFormicarum]

The noun "pojke" from your preicious video also falls into the "Scania cathegory" 14:26. The noun "fågel" from that video is another example of a nuon that you can sometimes hear with accent 2 here in Scania.

[@janenwiki3237]

As a Type 2a swedish speaker the words in 6:30 sound like the opposite of what is written. The first "tomten" sounds like "the gnome" and not "the plot"

[@martianlake]

Are you sure? I'm a 2a-speaker (from Lund) and I would say it the same way he did.

[@reineh3477]

Something similar to the Mälar-type 10:00 are still spoken in Enköping

[@TheZebinator]

I've heard it in Halland and the area between Vänern and Vättern as well. Bert Karlsson, aka Skara Bertil, famously has this way of speaking. I had a classmate who's grandparents lived in "LI-shÖ-piing" or "Lidköping" as it's written on the map :p

[@revilo00]

Så pratar Jonatan Unge också fortfarande

[@ormuriauga]

@@revilo00 så himla tillfredsställande att äntligen få en förklaring på hans sätt att prata! Och förvånande att det inte är ett talfel utan en nästan utdöd dialekt :D

[@elinkallgren564]

Living in japan, studying Japanese. Instead of actually watching videos of the language i have to learn, i'm here watching videos of my native language...

[@theforgot3n1]

KAWAII DES NEEE. Japanska är fint dock

[@dan74695]

Samme her... Men jeg bor ikke i Japan.

[@liahk1000]

Kan hjälpa en när man lär sig andra språk att förstå uppbyggnaden av sitt eget:)

[@shahadmoeen1290]

oh jeez ! swedish is HARD ! it'll take me forever to master it *sigh* thank you for the great work though, it was really educational .

[@rzeka]

Well you found what is probably the best channel to teach it to you. this channel has the most in depth explanations of a language I've ever seen.

[@shahadmoeen1290]

Giuliano Reinhart thank you so much for the advice ! i'll definitly try that :D

[@Frajmando]

I don't think this is something you should be focusing on learning Swedish, didn't know anything he was talking about, and i'm born and raised in Sweden

[@Jinado1]

Frajmando det beror ju på att vi aldrig tar upp det på vanliga svenskalektioner då det är helt onödigt för oss svenskar att veta, för vi bara kan det från födelsen liksom. Meeeen om vi skulle ha studerat lingvistik så hade det dykt upp under en lektion. Och personligen så tycker jag inte att de som lär sig svenska, men även bor i Sverige under tiden måste plugga hur vi betonar våra ord, så länge de pratar med svenskar som talar svenska som modersmål så kommer de enkelt snappa upp det, jag har sett det hända med ett antal vänner, både ryssar, kroater, serber och tyskar.

[@livedandletdie]

Jinado... ERROR DOES NOT COMPUTE. INGEN TAGER UPP Tonaliteten, uttal eller liknande någonsin... tro mig. Jag lovar och svär att jag hade hört vart dina vänner kom ifrån så fort de öppnade munnen.

[@db7213]

I'm from Linköping, and here's how I'd pronounce it: ananas 1, blåbär 1, morfar 2, persika 1, sallad 2, tretti (I don't pronounce the o) 1, Arvid 1, Axel 1, Elin 1, Martin 1, Oskar 1, Simon 1.

[@AcademiaCervena]

Stort tack! (Och så gott som ingen uttalar _trettio_ med _-o_!)

[@11lvr11]

Aw tack så mycket, it's very interesting for me learning svenska:3 tho it's kinda complicated xd

[@QingWeiSanguine]

This is one of the hardest part of our swedish language to try to teach ❤

[@Ymirheim]

Interesting, as a northern Swede myself, there is nothing that gives away that someone is from somewhere else more than when they double pitch a name. It sticks out like a sore thumb. Maybe because names are so personal that our ears react to inconsistencies more rapidly on those. I am suddenly made aware of situations where someone has lived in my region for a long time and absorbed the local dialect to the extent that it doesn't occur to me that they might be from southern Sweden. Until they say someones name and put a second pitch on it.

[@Imevul]

Northern Swede living in Norway here. I usually default to accent 1 even for Norwegian names, even though I know they themselves pronounce it with something similar to accent 2. It almost feels a bit uncomfortable to change the way you naturally speak. Since double names are common here, I've noticed that I pronounce them differently as well. For example, I would pronounce "Arild" using accent 1, where Norwegians use a double peak. But in the name "Odd-Arild" I actually do use both accent 1 and 2 randomly, and it doesn't seem as weird. I have also gotten used to hearing my own name being pronounced "incorrectly" by other Swedes, and it doesn't bother me now.

[@maverick_monkey]

Tack, super intressant och bra gjort! Vilka källor använde du? Kan du rekommendera några studier eller böcker som skulle vara bra material om man vill lära sig mer om accenter i svenskan, särskilt i icke-“centralsvenska” dialekter? Jag kämpar lite med att hitta någonting mer ingående att läsa om t.ex. skånsk prosodi…

[@mayainactiveemail3986]

Finally

[@theNansasa]

No wonder people have a hard time learning Swedish. As a native speaker I doubt most people techin Swedish in Sweden can even explain this stuff in a well enough way so that people who don't speak it would understand. Heck explaining it to someone who does speak it. Good job dude

[@bertkarlsson3224]

Alla dessa ord uttalar jag med accent 1: blåbär, sallad, trettio (dock uttalat tretti), Arvid, Axel, Elin, Martin, Oskar, Simon. Accent 2: morfar De två övriga vet jag inte vilken accent men förenklat blir det: 'anan'as och p'ersika eller pers'ika.

[@ellenorbjornsdottir1166]

interesting. I'll keep an eye on it if I ever learn Swedish.

[@Narnendil]

Superbra video! Jätteintressant! Ser fram emot fler videor! Från Uppland (åt det nordligare hållet) och säger accent 1 på alla utom tretti(o) där jag tror jag varierar? Båda känns helt rätt, men möjligen viss preferens för accent 2.

[@Uwek212]

You sir just earned a subscriber from me ;)

[@Jontethim]

This confuses me so much as I lived in götaland until the age of 6 after which I moved to southwestern scania lmao. My pitch accent varies so much all across the board but my dialect still remains more or less småländsk

[@eljestLiv]

Yay, a new video!

[@kajsaa.dahlgren6217]

This was a very interesting video, but as a native 1a-speaker I’d say the placement of the English translations (starting around 6.20) might be a little confusing. The way you pronounce the words with the arrow on the left, they have the meaning of the translation on the right (and vice versa). Maybe that’s how you meant it, but just wanted to point it out if someone else got confused.

[@Muck-qy2oo]

I believe I now understand that we have the same thing in german. Normal german, or standard german and most of its dialects are primarily stress accentuated. But a few dialects like swiss german or ripuarian have a pitch accent.

[@peterlindqvist1816]

Now I understand why I (born and raised in Dalarna) often get confused with a Gotlander when talking to people in Stockholm!

[@akehapkap6143]

Malmoe. That's hard to comprehend for a Danish Norwegian :) The dialects from North Sweden and Northern Norway are a little similar, and probably its from the smapi and Finnish languages. It's easier for me to understand a person from North Sweden than from the south, even the south is oser to Denmark (speak both Danish and Norwegian) I grew up with Swedish television so I understand it spoke and written, but I can't write perfectly in Swedish.

[@martah5369]

So I'm from Lund (which can be very confusing when it comes to pronunciation) living in Malmö. I feel every pitch is allowed somewhere in Skåne.

[@lgzster]

mycket intressant!

[@Northpolish]

Om du får möjlighet så försök att lyssna på Enköpingsdialekten. Blir väldigt intressant ur detta perspektiv då den dialekten förvränger många ord till accent 2 som egentligen är accent 1.

[@Waterfront975]

I was thinking as a swede, when I compare the word tomte as gnome and tomt as land plot I pronounce of course the e in tomte. So when i use definitive form I still stress the e in the gnome variant, but the e in the land plot variant is not stressed because it is only a syntax thing.

[@johanung]

As a native 2b speaker (Falköping) only ananas and morfar use type 2, the rest are type 1.

[@KitKitsuneVixen]

for the words at the end i say all of them without too much of peak anywhere. For a lot of the words there is a small peak in the first syllable, but there's not as much of a peak as you demonstrated in the vid.

[@wizmizz]

ananas is one of those words where you really hear the difference in accent

[@borjeman]

Från hälsingland. Namn brukar uttalas med accent 2 på ett ganska distinkt sätt om man absolut inte gör i norra sverige. Exempelvis Johan uttalas med två accenter Jo-An (inget hörbart H). Jämfört med "norrländska" där det uttalas med en accent Jooan. Det liknar Dalmål, men utan att man behåller höjden mellan de två accenterna. Hälsingemål är som dalmål utan solstinget (höjden mellan accenter) som man hör i värmländska och dalmål.

[@sirseigan]

I am from a area on the map that is marked as 2a but most people I know speak more like 2b.

[@KitKitsuneVixen]

10:10, omg this is the accent my little sister uses all the time.

[@hugoingelhammar6163]

Dalarna is an interesting accent, as it relies so heavily on the pitch. The other dialectal variations like are not that big actually, but the pitch is often a dead giveaway that they are from Dalarna. I have met a couple of people from there who don't think they have an accent, but the pitch gives it away so clearly that it no doubt at all. In that case they think their pitch is the natural way to speak they dont hear it as a dialect, bc they don't otherwise have many unique sounds like for example skånska.

[@thli8472]

I'm from Småland and I pronounce Martin and Arvid with tone 1. When I lived in Scania and Blekinge I heard people use tone 2. I got the feeling that they did so because with tone 1 there would be a temptation to reduce the i to a schwa, and they want to speak clearly. What do you think? I'm probably wrong and this is just natural variation.

[@livedandletdie]

Sounds about right. I'm from Skåne, and a lot of words when we speak quickly is Consonant+schwa, and it's not just with i being reduced, it's every vowel. Skjorta for example becomes [ɧxə:ta] instead of [ɧɯᵝ:ta] It's either that or we add 50 vowels to something that doesn't need it.

[@KitKitsuneVixen]

12:13, jeez that is so accurate!

[@adriandavid2732]

Accent 1: Blåbär Sallad All the names Accent 2: Ananas Morfar Persika Tretti(o) From uppsala.

[@mayainactiveemail3986]

What books would you recommend for beginners?

[@KitKitsuneVixen]

Your accents are quite on point my lad

[@Jharug87]

I'm going to take this in English so as many as possible can pick this up it interests anyone. As a Gotlandic person who are proud over my dialect and actually strives to keep as much of it i can even when talking to mianlanders (easier said then done cus it's annoying to repeat oneself all the time) I have to say that this was 2 very interesting videos even tho much of it went way over my head. I lived close to Västervik one year and i had to call home once a week just to convince myself i was not losing any dialect. I know it's just a very very minor detail but it ticked me the wrong way to see that on the dialectal variation map there was no different shade over the most southern parts of Gotland. It really should especially if one already have another shade over the north cus still today the south gotlandic dialect is more special then the northern one (at least to us locals), and i say that as someone that was close to my grandfather that indeed was from the south. About 100 years ago a conversation between a person from the southern tip of Gotland and one from Fårö (North) would take a little while to get anywhere at all. I just felt i had to point that out. Also if you ever get around to a video on the Gotlandic dialect i'l gladly help you if you want to. Also do you have any idea just how on earth it can be that Dalarna and Gotland 2 regions who have little to no historical contact with each other somehow both made fairly similar developments to there respective and very unique dialects. Thx for 2 very interesting videos and keep it up man.

[@AcademiaCervena]

The map is only an approximate map showing pitch accent types, so it's not supposed to show boundaries between different dialects to begin with! Gotland is the same color because the accent type is the same all across the island. Naturally there can be variation within this group, but the _type_ is still the same (with regards to accent peaks etc.). It's the same with the other groups; a Stockholmer and a Kalmarite will have the same pitch accent type, but I don't think it would be very hard for anyone to tell their dialects apart :) On a more narrow map showin actual dialectal divisions, then you'd get a boundary between Fårö and Gotland proper (i.e. the main island), where there are a bunch of differences historically speaking. Structurally speaking, the traditional dialects of Gotland proper are quite unitary, but of course that doesn't change the fact that there might be significant differences in melody or vocabulary etc! The connection between Dalarna and Gotland is likely just a coincidence, just like you have the same accent type in Götaland and Kalix :) If we assume a viking age origin of the pitch accent, then when the dialects diverge you're bound to have different dialects developing some features in the same direction without actually being in contact with each other, since they share the same starting point. The same accent types are also present in Norway, where the 1b (Dala/Gotland) type is present in Northern Norway (if I remember correctly), which doesn't have any geographical connection to the areas in Sweden either! Thank you for your offer to help with a video on Gotlandic, I appreciate it a lot! If you'd like, you can send me a PM or an email with your contact info so that I can reach you in the future in case this is something I'd like to take you up on :) You can find my contact info in the About section on my channel page!

[@carolineowe7055]

I've been saying those last words and names out loud for several minutes now. I grew up around Mälaren but I can easily slip into Skånska and somewhat Göteborska, gotländska and norrländska when talking to someone from those regions. I definitely use accent 1 for the names and most likely for the words too. I'm a bit uncertain about Trettio and I can make accent 2work for the other words too but it wouldn't be my first instinct. This video also explains why I thought some of my relatives have been saying Martin in a strange way, never been able to put my finger on it before.

[@Aurora-oe2qp]

Oh really? I'm from Västerås and I too mostly use accent 1 for trettio but sometimes I use accent 2. Interesting. Do you not use accent 2 for morfar and persika too?

[@Elora445]

I'm actually unsure what kind of pitch accent I have. 2a, I think. I live in the western parts of Mälardalen, so... But I have the tendency of getting easily influenced by other dialects, so who knows? (Example: the town names of Piteå or Luleå, for example, you pronounce the å, right? I have been influenced by my best friend - who is from the northern parts of the country - so I no longer do so. Tends to make people think I am not from around here - born and raised here!)

[@gunnarthegumbootguy7909]

most people, yes, they pronounce the å, but often it can be realized as an o, my grandpa was from piteå but he died like 20 years ago so i don't really remember his accent and i'm from östergötland (where Norrköping and Linköping is, if you're not familiar with the provinces) so it's far a way but the few times i say the names of those -eå place names i tend to say them as -eo, or even -io if speaking quickly because it's a lot easier for some reason. But the official pronounciation is with the å anyhow, I know they sometimes say just Pite and such up there, but if they speak more formally the very same people will say Piteå too, even though that might be realized as -eo, -io, -iå, -jå or -jo sometimes...

[@Aurora-oe2qp]

I live in Bohuslän and I have a classmate who for some reason does that too.

[@PierreBezemer]

I've heard an accent in North-Eastern Stockholm, I think, where it kinda sounds like they squeeze their throat and make some kind of doll-sound when thry are speaking. I was wondering what that is about

[@ChaosturnMusic]

Look into "the lidingö i"

[@PierreBezemer]

@@ChaosturnMusic yes, that's it! thank you :)

[@jasonlk9472]

As in all languages, swedish words might be stress in the first, second etc syllable. Are there any rules to know which syllable to stress or we have to learn stressing with each word?

[@AcademiaCervena]

There are no absolute rules, but there are a lot of tendencies. For example, native words tend to be stressed on the first syllable, and loanwords tend to keep the stress where it was in the original language. There is of course more to it-hopefully I'll be able to cover this in a future video!

[@jasonlk9472]

Thank you very much!

[@purple_purpur7379]

I'm not a native Swedish speaker (and also wouldn't say I'm fluent quite yet, although I guess it depends on your definition of fluency in my case), but I would say: (not sure about some) ánanas (not even sure that the stress goes here lol) blå̃bär mõrfar pẽrsika sãllad tréttio Árvid (never come across this name but this is what I'd do intuitively) Áxel Elín (I would guess the stress is supposed to be on the first syllable, I just took the stress that I'm familiar with from other languages) Mártin Óskar or Õskar (I think I would do Õskar if the person in question was Swedish and Óskar otherwise) Sĩmon

[@livedandletdie]

When the map of Sweden turns into a creeper...

[@livedandletdie]

Man I didn't know I already posted this comment... I'm still a bloody genius.

[@fabiovinicius4766]

It would be easier to conceptualize it if you consider some differences in pitch as vowel length, which is not possible to write using sweedish alphabet. In some dialects the pitch is on the first mora, and others on the second mora. Strange as it might seems, this is far easier in ancient greek to understand hahaha

[@brokendrug]

The name "Linda" in Scanian takes accent two btw

[@leaguehighlights3160]

What do you recommend for a beginner who wants to learn the pronunciations correctly?

[@AcademiaCervena]

Off the top of my head: - Watch my videos on pronunciation :) - Learn some phonetics/IPA to more easily relate the actual sounds with those in languages you already know - Listen to native speakers and imitate what you hear (don't be afraid to exaggerate) - Trust speech over spelling (ie. trust what you hear and not what you read)

[@leaguehighlights3160]

Academia Cervena thanks I will try to do

[@bengan960921]

De flesta från Växjö uttalar nog Persika: PÄssikA, där Ä och A är hög i pitch. Är inte så bra på dialekter men är det någon annan dialekt som aktivt tar bort R? Om jag ska säga mormor och morfar blir det ju måmå o måfa. Känns som att det är ytterst unikt även för delar av småland.

[@AcademiaCervena]

Att r blir till en vokal efter en annan vokal (som i mormor, korv, mark osv.) är en sydsvensk företeelse, med kärnområde i sydvästra Småland och Blekinge. Sedan finns ett större område i söder där r faller i kombination med t/d/n/s, så att man får t.ex. massipantåta. Detta senare förekom också i äldre göteborgska och stockholmska (men knappast längre i någon större utsträckning), samt i de svenska dialekterna i västra Finland. Förhoppningsvis kommer jag ta upp det lite mer i en film framöver.

[@Aurora-oe2qp]

I'm from the Mälar area (more precisely Västerås) and I pronounce all the words except morfar and persika with accent 1. I sometimes pronounce trettio with accent 2, but typically accent 1, I think.

[@rebeccah7496]

Jag kommer från Piteå och jag säger alla orden/namnen med accent 1 förutom Axel som jag säger med accent 2.

[@AcademiaCervena]

Tack!

[@skeptic781]

I have 1a pitch with rikssvensk pronunciation (I'm from Lund)

[@stardusstie]

So then how do you know which word is which when you read it? Just based on context??

[@AcademiaCervena]

Essentially, yes. It's very rare that you get minimal pairs that aren't distinguishable by context!

[@salmjak]

”Tomten blev buren till buren på tomten” (Santa was carried to the cage on the plot) Sure, we could have a cage on top of santa. But reason tells us its probably a plot. “Anden talade till anden” (the duck/spirit spoke to the duck/spirit) This is an example which needs more context.

[@mjeienhe]

Sometimes when you pronounce the pairs (anden, anden), I feel like this "comma" or anticipation of the second word is reflected in your pitch. If you reversed the order (²anden, ¹anden) I'd expect slight differences. You did this anticipatory pitch rise less in your previous video, I think

[@AcademiaCervena]

I think you are right, and I did notice something like it when making the video. I probably did it to help me keep track of the different accents when changing dialect all the time :) I don't think it makes a huge difference as to how the various accents actually sound, but I'll try to keep it in mind for future videos!

[@ollebolle03145]

I am from Northern Sweden

[@bertkarlsson3224]

Varför spelas en bit upp igen efter 15:29?

[@AcademiaCervena]

Det är ingenting som jag har märkt. Kanske är det någon bugg bara?

[@Ludvig_Lindgren]

The meaning of every single word for 1a accent at 6:20 is switched. The arrow show on one side but the meaning of the word is on the other side. 1a use the words with accent 1 for spirit, carried, gnome and so on.

[@docholl93]

Åland swedish to me sounds just like Uppländska yet spoken with type 0

[@x3kiwiix3]

I am confused as never before in my life xD

[@theNansasa]

9:40 is this why i dislike the Stockholm dialect so much? As someone from Skåne but with most of my family and dialect from Växjö.

[@TheRedSphinx]

I'm type 2b, the Master Race.

[@brokendrug]

I Skåne säger vi Línda inte Lindá bara så att du vet :)

[@saftobulle]

As a type 2b, I feel like this distinction is enough to justify a geatish independence movement. Bare gör’t!

[@fumped]

I grew up in western sweden and moved to stockholm ten years ago. My language is completely broken. A bit sad

[@AxnerSaab]

I guess I really wasn't on the 1A side.

[@dan74695]

North Norwegian has a 1b accent.

[@theophonchana5025]

Stockholm: Type 2a

[@Apeshaft]

Hoppa gärna in på Reddit och säg något i den aktuella tråden. :) www.reddit.com/r/sweden/comments/6gf9af/swedish_pitch_accent_revisited_dialectal_variation/

[@konrad92pp]

I might be wrong but i always thought about the fact that the stress on surnames and place names are different. And to make it worse; the stress is reversed when you compare northern swedish and central swedish. The place name "Renström" is pronounced with accent 2 in northern sweden and with accent 1 in central sweden. And the last name "Renström" is pronounced with accent 1 in NS and accent 2 in CS. Words like "tallrik" are also reversed.

[@reureya]

Yeah, this confused me to no end when I moved to Dalarna from the west coast. ALL NAMES HAVE THE WRONG STRESS. Like the name Tobias should have double stress in my original dialect (TO-BI-as), but in Dala dialect it's (to-BI-as). It's confusing when I meet and greet new people, and they introduce themselves with common names with "the wrong stress". The polite thing is for me to use their name as they pronounce it themselves, so now I use this weird pitch pattern where I switch according to dialectal words or names of people from around here. But when I talk about these people with friends and family from the west coast, I sometimes switch back the pattern. Sometimes I can hear myself using different pitch for the same name in two separate sentences during the same conversation. Wth is "to-BI-as NY-ström" and "an-DRE-as REN-ström", it should be "TO-BI-as NY-STRÖM" and "AN-DRE-as REN-STRÖM"! :'D

[@brokendrug]

U mixed up the words in the 1a type accent ;-;

[@anul6801]

People from Tornedalen have much more pitch than people from Finland.

[@your_opponent]

I might miss to hear but the "standard" accent from previous video was 2a accent? I feel difference between the previous video's accent and any of accents from this video....

[@AcademiaCervena]

The accent in the other video is of the 2a type, yes, so they should sound the same.

[@catotwol2865]

I understand nothing, (even tho I'm swedish) because I'm stupid. But I know one thing, if you pronounce words like "kasse" as "ckasse" and not "ckache", we can't be friends.

[@toshineon]

So this is why my girlfriend thought I said the name of the town Hofors so weird. I say it with accent 2 - type 2a, she uses accent 2 - type 1b.

[@okjhum]

15:16 the words with varying accent: Some of them even vary within myself (East Central Standard). I.e., I sometimes say ´persika, sometimes `persika; ´Martin or `Martin. I do that with all of the names (right column), but not all of the nouns (left column). Thus always `ananas, ´blåbär, `morfar, `tretti; but variably ´sallad or `sallad. There are many individual variations, as you said, and no prescriptably "correct" answers.

[@Mel-__-]

I picked up the Norrköping accent when in Sweden, it's a kind of exaggerated accent I think.

[@AcademiaCervena]

Well, I wouldn't call it more exaggerated than any other accent! It's all a question of habit :)

[@linusfotograf]

You don’t want to speak the really broad version of the Norrköping (Östgötska) accent. It can get comical