Danish phonology

The phonology of Danish is similar to that of the other closely related Scandinavian languages, Swedish and Norwegian, but it also has distinct features setting it apart.

For example, Danish has a suprasegmental feature known as stød which is a kind of laryngeal phonation that is used phonemically.

[5] /ŋ/ occurs only before short vowels and stems morphophonologically, in native words, from |nɡ| or |n| preceding |k| and, in French loans, from a distinct |ŋ|.

[20] /ð/ – the so-called "soft d" (Danish: blødt d) – is a velarized laminal alveolar approximant [ð̠˕ˠ].

[28] When emphasizing a word, word-initial /r/ may be realized as a voiced uvular fricative trill [ʀ̝].

The alveolar realization is considered non-standard, even in classical opera singing – it is probably the only European language in which this is the case.

[32] A voiced velar continuant [ɣ] occurred distinctively in older Standard Danish.

The three way distinction in front rounded vowels /y ø œ/ is upheld only before nasals, e.g. /syns sønˀs sœns/ synes, synds, søns ('seems', 'sin's', 'son's').

However, a two-phoneme interpretation can be justified with reference to the unexpected vowel quality in words like andre /ˈɑndrɐ/ 'others' or anderledes /ˈɑnɐˌleːðəs/ 'different', and an increasing number of loanwords.

The long /uː/, /oː/ and /ɔː/ of Danish are also more conservative as compared with their historical counterparts in Norwegian and Swedish, which have undergone a counter-clockwise vowel shift to /ʉː, uː, oː/.

Some phonemes and phones that only occur in unstressed position often merge with full phonemes and phones:[47] The vowel system is unstable, and according to a study by Ejstrup & Hansen (2004), the contemporary spoken language might be experiencing a merger of several of these vowels.

The following vowel pairs may be merged by some speakers (only vowels not adjacent to |r| were analyzed):[50] In addition to /ɐ/, which stems from the fusion of |ər|, |rə|, or |rər|, /ə/ assimilates to adjacent sonorants in a variety of ways:[51] In casual speech, /ə/ may also be elided after an obstruent, for instance: /ˈmasə/ → [ˈmæs] masse 'mass'.

Durational distinctions are also present and affected by the grammatical context, but are usually considered part of the vowel phonemes.

[63] Historically, this feature operated as a redundant aspect of stress on monosyllabic words that had either a long vowel or final voiced consonant.

Nordenvinden og solen kom engang i strid om, hvem af dem der var den stærkeste.