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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. It also exhibits extensive lenition of plosives, which is noticeably more common than in the neighboring languages. Because of these and a few other features, spoken Danish can be challenging for Norwegians and Swedes to understand without training, although they can easily read written Danish.
Danish has at least 17 consonant phonemes:
A voiced velar continuant [ɣ] occurred distinctively in older Standard Danish. Some older speakers still use it in high register, most often as an approximant [ɣ˕]. It corresponds to [w], after back vowels and /r/, and to /j/, after front vowels and /l/, in contemporary Standard Danish.
/j/ is elided after /iː, yː/, and possibly also after /eː, øː/, and less commonly after /ɛː, aː/. Similarly, /v/ is elided after /uː/, and possibly also after /oː/, and less commonly after /ɔː/.
Modern Standard Danish has around 20 different vowel qualities. These vowels are shown below in a narrow transcription.
/ə/ and /ɐ/ occur only in unstressed syllables and thus can only be short. Long vowels may have stød, thus making it possible to distinguish 30 different vowels in stressed syllables. However, vowel length and stød are most likely features of the syllable rather than of the vowel.
The 26 vowel phonemes of Standard Danish (14 short and 12 long) correspond to 21 morphophonemes (11 short and 10 long).
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').
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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. It also exhibits extensive lenition of plosives, which is noticeably more common than in the neighboring languages. Because of these and a few other features, spoken Danish can be challenging for Norwegians and Swedes to understand without training, although they can easily read written Danish.
Danish has at least 17 consonant phonemes:
A voiced velar continuant [ɣ] occurred distinctively in older Standard Danish. Some older speakers still use it in high register, most often as an approximant [ɣ˕]. It corresponds to [w], after back vowels and /r/, and to /j/, after front vowels and /l/, in contemporary Standard Danish.
/j/ is elided after /iː, yː/, and possibly also after /eː, øː/, and less commonly after /ɛː, aː/. Similarly, /v/ is elided after /uː/, and possibly also after /oː/, and less commonly after /ɔː/.
Modern Standard Danish has around 20 different vowel qualities. These vowels are shown below in a narrow transcription.
/ə/ and /ɐ/ occur only in unstressed syllables and thus can only be short. Long vowels may have stød, thus making it possible to distinguish 30 different vowels in stressed syllables. However, vowel length and stød are most likely features of the syllable rather than of the vowel.
The 26 vowel phonemes of Standard Danish (14 short and 12 long) correspond to 21 morphophonemes (11 short and 10 long).
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').