The phonology of Kven is basically the same as that of Finnish. It is however worth noting that while Standard Finnish has been replacing /ð/ by /d/, it is retained in Kven. For instance, the word meiđän ('our') in Kven is meidän in Standard Finnish.
Vowels[]
Kven has 16 vowels, if one includes the vowel length:
| Front | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unrounded | Rounded | Unrounded | Rounded | |
| Close | i iː | y yː | ɯ ɯː | u uː |
| Close-mid | e eː | ø øː | ɤ ɤː | o oː |
| Open-mid | ɛ ɛː | œ œː | ʌ ʌː | ɔ ɔː |
| Open | æ æː | ɶ ɶː | ɑ ɑː | ɒ ɒː |
In writing, the vowel length is indicated by doubling the letter, e.g. ⟨yy⟩ /yː/ and ⟨öö⟩ /øː/.
The graphemes representing /ø/, /æ/ and /ɑ/ are ⟨ö⟩, ⟨ä⟩ and ⟨a⟩, respectively.
Consonants[]
Kven has 14 consonants found in native vocabulary, and four consonants found in loanwords:
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | ɱ | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | c | k | ʔ | |||
| voiced | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | ɸ | f | θ | s | ʃ | ç | x | h |
| voiced | β | v | ð | z | ʒ | ʝ | ɣ | ɦ | |
| Trill | ʙ | r | |||||||
| Approximant | ʋ | l | j | ɰ | |||||
/b, d, ɡ, ʃ/ are only found in loanwords.
/ʋ/ and /ʃ/ are represented in writing by ⟨v⟩ and ⟨š⟩, respectively.
/ð/ is represented in writing by ⟨đ⟩.
/ŋ/ is represented in writing by ⟨n⟩ if followed by /k/, and ⟨ng⟩ if geminated, i.e. ⟨nk⟩ /ŋk/ and ⟨ng⟩ /ŋː/
Gemination is indicated in writing by doubling the letter, e.g. ⟨mm⟩ for /mː/ and ⟨ll⟩ for /lː/