Jutlandic

Jutlandic, or Jutish (Danish: jysk; pronounced [ˈjysk]), is the western variety of Danish, spoken on the peninsula of Jutland in Denmark.

Generally, Jutlandic can be divided into two different dialects: general or Northern Jutlandic (nørrejysk; further divided into western and eastern) and Southern Jutlandic (sønderjysk). However, the linguistic variation is considerably more complicated and well over 20 separate isoglosses exist throughout Jutland. There are major phonological differences between the dialects, but also very noteworthy morphological, syntactic, and semantic variations.

The different subdialects of Jutlandic differ somewhat from each other, and are generally grouped in three main dialects, where two of them are sometimes considered together.

Sønderjysk (South Jutlandic) is often seen as very difficult for other speakers of Danish, even other Jutlandic dialects to understand. Instead of the normal Danish stød, it has tonal accents like Swedish. Many of the phonemes are also different, including velar fricatives much like in German. It also has the definite article before the noun, as opposed to the standard Danish postclitic article.

Østjysk (East Jutlandic) is the closest to the standard of the three Jutlandic dialects, but still differs widely in the pronunciation of vowels and the voiced stops word initially or intervocalically. Some dialects of East Jutlandic also still have three genders, like the majority of Norwegian dialects.

Vestjysk (West Jutlandic) is also well known for this enclitic article as well as a complete lack of gender distinction. Phonetically, it is known for having [w] for the phoneme /v~ʋ/ in all positions, as opposed to only post-vocalically in standard Danish. It also can exhibit stød in slightly different environments from the standard.

Standard Danish phonology contains nasal, aspirated voiceless and devoiced plosives (labial, alveolar, and velar). Four voiceless fricatives ([f, s, ɕ, h]) are present, as well as four approximants: [ʊ̯, ð̞, ɪ̯, ɐ̯]. There are also four approximants, including three regular and one lateral: [ʋ, l, j, ʁ]. Below is a table depicting the phonemic inventory of Danish and Jutlandic consonants, with phonemes only seen in the dialects of Jutland (jysk) in bold.

The most prevalent phonological process in Jutlandic consonants is lenition, which is the weakening of originally voiceless consonants in either the coda of a syllable or word as well as intervocalically. This process causes voicing as well as the reduction from a stop to a fricative and finally to a sonorant. The final step of lenition is then complete apocope.