{"id":5060,"date":"2012-02-06T12:03:56","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T12:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=5060"},"modified":"2012-02-06T12:03:56","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T12:03:56","slug":"the-great-swedish-vowel-shift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/the-great-swedish-vowel-shift\/","title":{"rendered":"The great Swedish vowel shift"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, I continued my series on the three special Swedish letters, \u00e5<\/em>, \u00e4<\/em> and \u00f6<\/em>. Now I’m here to explain how the letter \u00e5<\/em> even came to be at all.<\/p>\n

As I explained last time, the letter \u00e5<\/em> in writing came to be like so: first as a double-a<\/em> (aa<\/em>), then as an a<\/em> with another, smaller a<\/em> written over it, and finally a simplified \u00e5<\/em>. But why exactly was there a double-a<\/em> at all?<\/p>\n

The double-a<\/em> was used to indicate a long a<\/em>-sound, which eventually, over time, began to sound much like the long o<\/em>-sound of that time (similar to today’s \u00e5<\/em>); in other words, the long a<\/em> became orally more closed. And while the long a<\/em> became more and more like the long o<\/em>, the long o<\/em> became itself more closed, becoming closer and closer to the long u<\/em>-sound of that time. And with that, the long u<\/em>-sound became even more closed, evolving into a new sound: the Swedish long u<\/em> we know and love today.<\/p>\n

In a more graphical form, the vowel shift looked like this:
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

And that’s why today’s Swedish vowels are so different from the vowels of many other European languages although they are spellt the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Last week, I continued my series on the three special Swedish letters, \u00e5, \u00e4 and \u00f6. Now I’m here to explain how the letter \u00e5 even came to be at all. As I explained last time, the letter \u00e5 in writing came to be like so: first as a double-a (aa), then as an a…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":5064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3079],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5060","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-swedish-language"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\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