{"id":1729,"date":"2018-07-31T23:50:12","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T23:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/?p=1729"},"modified":"2018-08-01T02:59:50","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T02:59:50","slug":"silent-letters-in-danish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/2018\/07\/31\/silent-letters-in-danish\/","title":{"rendered":"Silent Letters in Danish"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

(Free image from Pixabay; no copyright.)<\/p><\/div>\n

Ever thought about all the letters we don\u2019t say out loud \u2013 like the h in \u2019hour\u2019? Just like English, Danish is notorious for its strange relationship between pronunciation and spelling, including a bunch of stumme bogstaver<\/b> (silent letters, literally \u201dmute letters\u201d).<\/p>\n

Hvem, hvad, hvor og hvorn\u00e5r?<\/b> (Who, what, where and when?) The H of the question words is not pronounced at all\u2026 In fact, it\u2019s silent both in front of V and J. Hvem vil hjem?<\/b> [vem vil yem] (Who wants to go home?) Fun fact: In some older Danish dialects, this H is<\/i> pronounced\u2026 I\u2019ve heard both [hyem] and [hwalp] (for hvalp<\/b>, puppy) in Northern Jutland.<\/p>\n

The most frequent silent letter in Danish is D. In none of the following words the D has any sound: begynde, vand, mand, kvinde, vild, kulde, sv\u00e6rd, v\u00e6rd, krudt, bl\u00f8dt, plads, lakrids, tilfreds <\/b>(begin, water, man, woman, wild, cold, sword, worth, gunpowder, soft, space, liquorice, pleased). I have no idea why the medieval scribes who helped shape Danish were so enamoured of this letter, but once you get used to it, it\u2019s actually not that hard\u2026 \ud83d\ude42 You see, the D is often used to distinguish between words<\/a> that sound a bit similar but are not identical (oh, Danish!): gul <\/b>(yellow) <\/b> \u2013 guld<\/b> (gold); at spille<\/b> (to play) \u2013 at spilde <\/b>(to spill).<\/p>\n

Lots of common words are written with an extra consonant that used to be pronounced back in the day, for example s\u00f8lv<\/b> (s\u00f8l\u2019<\/b>, silver), gulv<\/b> (gul\u2019<\/b>, floor), god morgen<\/b> (go\u2019 mor\u2019en<\/b>, good morning), jeg siger<\/b> [ya see-or] (je\u2019 si\u2019er<\/b>, I say). Once again, these \u201dextra\u201d letters are useful to tell the words apart from other words\u2026<\/p>\n

Sometimes a silent letter can be \u201dunmuted\u201d in special contexts. For example hvad<\/b> (what) often turns out as [va] \u2013 but if you don\u2019t hear what somebody is saying, you might turn it into a full-blown hvad?<\/b> [vath<\/i>]. Ogs\u00e5<\/b> (too) is usually pronounced [osse], but in formal settings the complete [owsaw] appears, too.<\/p>\n

There are probably many silent letters in Danish that I have overlooked, but here at least you have an intro to get past the worst hurdles when reading Danish aloud\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Ever thought about all the letters we don\u2019t say out loud \u2013 like the h in \u2019hour\u2019? Just like English, Danish is notorious for its strange relationship between pronunciation and spelling, including a bunch of stumme bogstaver (silent letters, literally \u201dmute letters\u201d). Hvem, hvad, hvor og hvorn\u00e5r? (Who, what, where and when?) The H of…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":1730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[89879,58,510658,510657],"class_list":["post-1729","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-d","tag-dialect","tag-h","tag-northern-jutland"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t