Swedish Plurals with Vowel Change (Umlaut)
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- Опубліковано 6 тра 2018
- A small but important number of Swedish nouns change their main vowel when they become plural. This process is called umlaut (Sw. omljud), and is an essential piece of Swedish grammar. In this video, we'll have a thorough look at all of the 30 nouns in question, sort them into groups and also check out some related anecdotes.
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After this very informed presentation I can't help making a comparison with Danish, as it's always funny to compare closely related language forms. I'll do it in English in line with the language of the video.
As far as I know, Danish has 25 nouns with umlaut in the plural. 18 are common to the two language forms. Swedish has 12 that Danish doesn't have and Danish has 7 that Swedish doesn't have.
Swedish and Danish have some differences in their accent possibilities. As far as I know, all Swedish two-syllable words distinguish between accents (1) and (2). One-syllable words can be said to have "no accent base".
In Danish, only words with A) a long vowel B) a vowel followed by a sonorant or an approximant can receive the so-called "thrust accent" ("stød"), corresponding to Swedish accent (1). Otherwise, the word has "no thrust accent base".
In return, Danish can distinguish between "thrust accent" and "absence of thrust accent" also in one-syllable words.
Below I quote Academia Cervena's accents ((1) and (2)) for Swedish and denote "thrust accent" and "absence of thrust accent" in Danish with (1) and (2) respectively, in order to get the best comparison. The accent I denote in compound words is the one on the last (secondarily) stressed syllable.
These words resemble the Swedish counterparts closely:
and - änder (1) = and (1) - ænder (1)
hand - händer (1) = hånd (1) - hænder (1)
natt - nätter (1) = nat - nætter (no thrust accent base)
stad - städer (1) = stad (2) - stæder (2)
stånd - ständer (1) (stånd) = stand (1) - stænder (1) (stande (2))
stång - stänger (1) = stang (1) - stænger (1)
tand - tänder (1) = tand (1) - tænder (1)
tång - tänger (1) = tang (1) - tænger (1)
Additionally, Danish has one case that is absent in Swedish:
kraft - kræfter (no thrust accent base) "strength, force"
Notes:
I'm not sure why 'stad - stæder' has no thrust accent. Something weird happend with accents and secondary vowel shortenings in the indefinite singular in many of the words of this type ('fad', 'had', 'mad' etc.) but I'm not sure what is cause and what is effect here. The accent in the plural might be influenced by the singular - however, this has not happened in other word of this type, so...?
Just as Swedish 'stånd', Danish 'stand' (which is common gender) only has the plural 'stænder' in the meaning "estate of the realm". In the meaning "market booth", it is 'stande (2)'.
This leads us to the words that have a different plural suffix and no umlaut in Danish:
brand - bränder (1) = brand (1) - brande (2)
land - länder (1) (land) = land (1) - lande (2)
rand - ränder (1) = rand (1) - rande (2)
spann - spänner (1) / spannar (2?) = spand (1) - spande (2)
spång - spänger (1) / spångar (2?) = spang (1) - spange (2)
stav - stäver (1) / stavar (2) = stav (1) - stave (2)
strand - stränder (1) = strand (1) - strande (2)
The reason is that Danish has a unique plural suffix, -e, which does not exist in Swedish or Norwegian. This was once the Old Norse accusative plural -a, which of course does not cause i-umlaut. Thence the Danish forms.
There may also be cases of lost umlaut, though. Actually, the former nominative plural and the former accusative plural could have competed until the latter won because of its regularity. The word 'spang' is archaic in Danish, and though I'm familiar with it, I have never seen its plural. Instinctively, I would go with 'spange'. Dictionaries seem to agree. But Ordbog over det danske Sprog also lists an archaic plural, 'spænger'!
Notes:
The Danish word 'stav (1)' only has the meaning "staff, rod". For "stave of a casket or barrel" a different "weak" lexeme, 'stave (2) - staver (2)' is used.
However, 'bogstav (1)' (Swedish: 'bokstav') has a singular that looks like 'stav (1)', and a plural, 'bogstaver (2)', that looks like 'stave (2)'.
Then there are some examples where Danish has clearly lost the umlaut in various ways:
As for 'ledamot (2) - ledamöter (2)', the Danish counterpart, 'ledemod (1)', is very archaic, and dictionaries list plurals with both -er and zero suffix. In any case, the umlaut is lost.
As for 'son - söner (2)', the Danish forms are 'søn (2) - sønner (2)'. Here the vowel of the plural has spread to the singular (which had an o in medieval Danish) by the process of back-formation; thus the umlaut is lost.
This word seems to have had a short vowel followed by short consonant in Old Norse since it has not received a thrust accent (and thus has "absence of thrust accent" (2)), though it clearly has a thrust accent base by today's standards.
Is there a connection between this and the accent (2) in Swedish??
(Today, Danish words do not distinguish between long and short consonants. Swedish words must have either a long vowel or a long consonant.)
As for 'bot - böter (1)' something similar has happened but here the word split into two lexemes. The singular 'bod (1)' still exists but with no plural. And from the plural 'bøder (2)' a new "weak" singular, 'bøde (2)', has been formed via back-formation. 'Bod' and 'bøde' are almost synonyms, though the latter has a somewhat wider semantic range. I'm not sure why the plural 'bøder (2)' has no thrust accent but I have a feeling that this has contributed to the formation of the new singular. At any rate, the umlaut alternation is lost.
The group with consonant lengthening (= vowel shortening) in Swedish has almost similar counterparts:
bok - böcker (1) = bog (1) - bøger (1)
fot - fötter (1) = fod (1) - fødder (1)
rot - rötter (1) = rod (1) - rødder (1)
Danish only has vowel shortening in the cases with old t which has here become d - dd (/ð/) following the so-called Danish stop weakening (klusilsvækkelse). It must have had the aforementioned short vowel plus short consonant in Old Norse.
The phonology does not allow for the result of the weakening of old k (former [ɣ], now [w/j]) to follow a short vowel, so in 'bog (1) - bøger (1)' the vowel has been lengthened instead. The accent pattern is the same in Danish and Swedish.
This is also the case for:
bonde (2) - bönder (1) = bonde (2) - bønder (1)
The plural apparently had one syllable in Old Norse, producing the accent (1).
Then there are the kinship terms:
dotter (2) - döttrar (2) = datter - døtre (no thrust accent base)
moder (2) / mor - mödrar (2) = moder (2) / mor (2) - mødre (2)
broder (2) / bror - bröder (1) = broder (2) / bror (2) - brødre (2)
fader (2) / far - fäder (1) = fader (2) / far (2) - fædre (2)
Here, instead of the -ar suffix for the feminine terms and the zero suffix for the masculine terms, Danish has generalised the old accusative plural -e everywhere. This must have happened early enough for all Danish terms to have "absence of thrust accent" = accent (2), the reflex of an Old Norse two-syllable word.
Notes:
Danish does not have the words 'mamma' and 'pappa', so 'mor' and 'far' are just as semantically unmarked as 'bror' here.
'Broder', 'fader' and 'moder' are just as archaic as in Swedish and have the same limited uses.
As for the vowel in 'datter', something weird has happened. In medieval and renaissance Danish the singular was 'dotter', and the umlaut was quite normal, but somehow the singular o was replaced with a. It has been speculated that it could be influenced by 'fatter' which along with 'mutter' were introduced from Low German. Both terms are archaic and humorous and correspond more or less to English "pa" and "ma". I think this explanation seems a little far-fetched, so at least I would propose that the alternation may also have come along as an imitation of 'barn - børn' "child", see below.
Then there are the zero suffix words. These closely resemble the Swedish forms:
man - män = mand (1) - mænd (1)
gås - gäss = gås (1) - gæs (no thrust accent base)
'Gæs' has no thrust accent base because the vowel has been shortened in the plural just like in Swedish.
However, in the following, the umlaut has been lost in Danish, and plural is unmarked:
lus - löss = lus (1) - lus (1)
mus - möss = mus (1) - mus (1)
Somehow Danish has lost the ability to have an umlaut of u. Obviously this means that there are no ambiguities with the plurals of 'linselus' or 'computermus' (they're identical). "Crowbar" is 'koben' or 'brækjern'.
In return, here are the last Danish words to have retained an umlaut which was lost in Swedish:
klo (1) - kløer (1) "claw - claws"
ko (1) - køer (1) "cow - cows"
rå (1) - ræer (1) "yard - yards" (the horizontal poles carrying the sails on a full-rigged ship)
so (1) - søer (1) "sow - sows"
tå (1) - tæer (1) "toe - toes"
The common denominator is, obviously, that these vowels are in the final position in the singular. Somehow Swedish has lost the ability to have umlaut here.
Notes:
I personally wasn't aware that the plural of 'rå' was 'ræer' until I spent time on a wooden ship. I presume that this is the case for most Danes; today this alternation comes quite natural to me (also because of 'tå - tæer').
The plural forms 'kløer', 'køer' and 'tæer' are actually one-syllable words, pronounced without the e. The e is there because of the spelling principle of morpheme consistency: in the definite plural, 'kløerne', 'køerne', 'tæerne', the e "reappears" and the forms have indeed three syllables.
There actually exists a 26th plural with umlaut, although it is today completely obsolete and unknown by most people, namely:
okse - øksne (no thrust accent base) "ox - oxen" (the present pural is 'okser') which also has a curious plural in -ne. Cf. the English form.
And after all this i-umlaut, here is the unique example of u-umlaut of a that unlike Swedish and Norwegian (except for a few valleys on the Vestland) was preserved in Danish:
barn (1) - børn (1) "child - children".
PS: as for 'spang (1) - spange (2)': It's a separate and intriguing question how one chooses to form e.g. a plural that one has never heard. At 2 years old, my niece formed the plural *fisker of fisk ("fish"). The actual plural has a zero suffix; but the suffix -er is indeed generally regarded as the most productive and the default option, at least for first-language learners. Why is it, then, that later in life I seem to choose -e for some words? Obviously I'm more familiar with the different suffixes of the language. But what determines the choice and makes me so certain that in this case it should be -e??. It also seems that -e always forms the plural with "absence of thrust accent" (2), whereas -er can do both; and if I were to use a plural 'spænger' I would instinctively do it with a thrust accent (1)...
Edit: I now see that many of the apparent i-umlauts are actually cases of r-umlaut whereby the more or less syllabic Old Norse plural r-suffix causes umlaut by itself. Since they are monosyllabic in Old Norse they obviously produce forms with thrust accent in Danish. But how did I "instinctively" know that umlaut and thrust accent should go together also in this case?
PPS: As for u-umlaut of a, I can't help sharing a little knowledge. Unlike mainland Scandinavia, this alternation is still productive in Icelandic and Faroese in the plural of neuter nouns ('navn - nøvn' "name", 'skjal - skjøl' "document", 'takk - tøkk' "thanks" etc. etc.). In Faroese dialects that merge old a and æ (including the standard language, although they're distinguished in writing), it even applies to æ, i.e. 'bræv - brøv' ”letter”, 'knæ - knø' ”knee”.
Thanks for writing all this! Really interesting stuff.
And by the way, I thought that "sen" is Danish/Norwegian for "son".
Yes, I believe I got carried away a little. I'm very happy that you appreciate it and take interest in it.
Dina videor har hjälpt till att svara på frågor, min fru som modersmålssvensk har inte kunnat svara.
Vi säger båda tack!
I've heard ei mus - møss in North Norwegian. In traditional Nynorsk, it's mus - myser, which is weird.
Love it!
I noticed that the strong verbs in Swedish have more regular vowel patterns than several other Germanic languages. Perhaps you could make a video about this?
long a - o - a ... short a - ö - a
long i - e - i ... short i - a - u
long u - ö - u ... short u - ö - u
long y - ö - u
long å - ä - å ... short å - ö - å
long ä - a - u ... short ä - a - u
The only exceptions are the following five verbs: ge, se, slå, äta, ligga. Other Germanic languages tend to have more than 5 exceptions.
I'm not sure that I agree about the strong verbs being more regular in Swedish, but I'd absolutely like to make a video about them!
Red Arrow :D There are more exceptions. I’ve tried to list them all here (sv.wiktionary.org/wiki/Användare:Jonteemil/Oregelbundna_verb ), feel free to expand if you find any more.
In the souther swedish (scanian) dialect we actually say "fädrar" instead of the standard swedish "fäder". Kinda shows the difference in dialects in swedish
3:26 know no thing about Swedish, guessed söner
nice
Hej Adam, Any more of these high quality courses, please ?!!!
Definitely, but I can't make any promises on when.
Wish you all the best 👍
Never heard the word Spänger! Intressant! :)
Dutch only has one: stad -> steden
Red Arrow :D schip - schepen, smid - smeden, lid - leden
Those aren't umlaut. Umlaut occurs in a syllable when the letter "i" disappears in the next syllable. I should have mentioned those 3 words in my post because their vowel changes as well. In Old Dutch, short vowels became longer in open syllables: dag - daagen, hol - hoolen, spel - speelen. The long version of short i was realised as ee, hence those three words!
Red Arrow :D I see!
In some dialects, there is a tendency to this for the diminutive form though. Koek -> kükske, doek -> dükske, mop -> möpke, drop -> dröpke
Swedish got "städer" and "länder" from Low German. "Een Stadt", "mehr Städer", and "een Land", "mehr Länder".
it's interesting that ledemot has an umlauted plural, but mot doesnt. i looked it up and yeah, it doesnt. it seems to be a somewhat uncommon word, and refers to a meeting place, so maybe the connection to ledemot isnt well known? so they diverged? i wonder
Would you have any interest in making a video about the Icelandic language? I find Icelandic to be a fascinating language and I’m sure others will as well.
I'd love to cover Icelandic at some point! It's always a question of time :)
7:23 I was really suprised and thought that there where a word in Swedish ending in Ø.
Is the common preference of "brödrar" in Skåne part of old dialect/Danish?
It's certainly part of the traditional dialects of Skåne. Danish has the same type of plural in that word, but it also occured in older Swedish, so I would not assume it to be specifically Danish.
@@AcademiaCervena Uppskattar svaret grymt mycket!
This is the hardest to me
German has a load of these.
Yes, about 180 I think.
Kul att du är svensk
How many languages do you exactly speak? Is Finnish your native language?
I don't actually speak Finnish, only a little bit. My native language is Swedish. I also speak a couple of other languages to various degrees, but which ones is a question of interpretation :)
Academia Cervena your native language is Swedish? But you have an American accent! Guess you’ve lived in the states a long time 👍 Thanks for your videos btw
MrCurry He’s just chosen to speak this accent I’m guessing. Most Swedes speak American English when they speak English.
@@linusfotograf agree. I think that most Swedes that speak English well use an American accent.
I wish Swedish retained land -> lönd and barn -> börn.
I think the plural of 'barn' would've been 'börn', indeed. (Compare with 'örn' = 'eagle', from Old Norse 'ǫrn', where the 'r' has been crucial.) But the plural of 'land' wouldn't have been 'lönd'. It would in that case have been 'lånd' or perhaps 'lond'. In Old Norse the u-umlaut of 'a' wasn't 'ø' [ø] but 'ǫ' [ɒ]/[ɔ]: land -> lǫnd, barn -> bǫrn.
This group of nouns (neuters with plural u-umlaut) is generally only found in western Scandinavian languages, like Icelandic. With the exception of the word 'barn', which had 'börn' as a less common parallell plural form, Old Swedish didn't have them at all, so 'land' had the plural 'land' already back then!
@Cognomen, 'bǫrn' developed into 'börn', which is an attested form in Old Swedish. As you say, ö is the common reflex before an /r/ (although there are examples of /o/ as well). 'lǫnd' would've become 'lond', had it existed, provided the retention of an etymological spelling.
Land -> lond, and barn -> born in Norwegian.
Can you do your 1914 and 1933 maps for 1945
Hopefully at some point! But it won't be the next map video :)
I wouldn't use the word "musar" even in a compound word as datormusar, since it's dialectal for plural of the female genitalia.
Wait Umlaut is a German word! German is my motherlanguage and i never noticed that! xD
"Umljod" in Norwegian.
Are ett land and ett stand the only neuter nouns? Are the rest common gender nouns?
Yes, as I mention at 04:00 :)
bra video. du kunde också ha nämnt ord som get getter nöt nötter
infart - entrance
utfart - exit
Not rly
@@wuicy6227 Kinda, when talking places were vehicles have a presence as in parking lots or highways. You would use infart and utfart as entrance and exit. But if its a place were humans are, you would use ingång and utgång as entrance and exit.
infart = vehicle entrance
utfart = vehicle exit
ingång = human entrance
utgång= human exit
Why say umlaut? When I was learning Swedish it was drilled into me that the umlaut doesn't exist in Swedish - the umlaut is German.
man => män; man => men
Just so you all know, many of these forms are not commonly used. For instance, people normally say "smörgåsar" and "tångar."
Jag har aldrig hört någon förutom små barn säga "tångar", det låter ju till och med fel.
The word IS smörgåsar, no?
Kvi leseuttalar svenskar so myket? D-en i "ljud" skal vera stumb lol
Nej.
@@vequalia4411 Jau, det skal han. T-en i den bestemda formi skal ogso vera stumb.
@@dan74695 Nej.
@@vequalia4411 Jau. D-en er eigenlega ein ð. "Ljud" var "hljúð" på fornaustnordrønt.
@@dan74695 Nej.
My feminist ass using ”moder” on the daily because it sounds more powerful and cool 😎