Finland-Swedish

Finland-Swedish is a general term for the closely related cluster of dialects of Swedish spoken in Finland by Finland-Swedes as a first language. For the most part, these dialects are mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish or can even be considered varieties of it. A common mistake made by many Swedes is to mistake Finland-Swedish for Swedish with a Finnish accent, something that can be a considerable source of frustration to most Finland-Swedes. Curiously enough, the percentually most Swedish speaking municipality in the world, Korsnäs, resides in Finland.

Sounds

With the exception of the dialect spoken in Ostrobothnia along the west coast, closer to the Gulf of Bothnia, Finland-Swedish are not particularly deviant from Central Swedish. The phonology is identical, but with slightly different vowel qualities. The phoneme /?/ is more centralized and pronounced like {{IPA|}}, quite similar to the American English pronunciation of /u/ (as in moon). This should be compared to the Central Swedish {{IPA|}}, which is very close to the short vowel {{IPA|}} and is more rounded.

Related Topics:
Ostrobothnia - Gulf of Bothnia - American English - Rounded

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The realization of the highly variable phoneme {{IPA|/?/}}, is more frontal on the mainland and can vary between {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}} while the realizations on Åland are more similar to the velar (and often distinctly labialized) {{IPA|}} in Sweden. {{IPA|/?/}} is affricated into {{IPA|}} in all dialects.

Related Topics:
Phoneme - Labialized - Affricate

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The tonal word accent, which distinguishes some minimal pairs in most dialects of Swedish and Norwegian is not present in Finland-Swedish. The so-called accent 2, used mainly in words with a two-syllable root is not used at all, and instead the normal accent 1 is used in all words. Hence Sweden-Swedish minimal pairs like {{IPA|/?and?n/}} ("the duck"), with stress on only the first syllable, and {{IPA|/?and??n/}} ("the spirit") with both syllables stressed, are both pronounced {{IPA|}} in Finland.

Related Topics:
Tonal - Word accent

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