Norwegian phonology

The sound system of Norwegian resembles that of Swedish. There is considerable variation among the dialects, and all pronunciations are considered by official policy to be equally correct - there is no official spoken standard, although it can be said that Bokmål has an unofficial spoken standard, called Urban East Norwegian or Standard East Norwegian (Norwegian: Standard Østnorsk), loosely based on the speech of the literate classes of the Oslo area. This variant is the most common one taught to foreign students.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Urban East Norwegian

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d		ɡ
Fricative		f	s	ʂ	ç	h
Approximant		ʋ	l		j
Flap			ɾ	ɽ

Vowels

Urban East Norwegian vowels

	Front						Central		Back
	unrounded		rounded		protruded				unrounded		rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	ɪ	iː	ʏ	yː			ʉ	ʉː	ɯ	ɯː	ʊ	uː
Mid	ɛ	eː	œ	øː	œ	øː	ɞ	ɵː	ʌ	ɤː	ɔ	oː
Open	æ	æː					a	aː	ɑ	ɑː	ɒ	ɒː

External links

• Norwegian phonology