Friday, April 20, 2018

Danish Glottal Stop

The Danish glottal stop can also be realized as creaky voice. Unique among languages, this feature is phonemic in Danish. Here is a list of Danish words which are distinguised by the glottal stop alone. The word on the right has the glottal stop:

hej (hi) haj (shark)
mor (mother) mord (murder)
hun (she) hund (dog)
maler (painter) maler (verb-paint/paints)
man (one-impersonal pronoun) mand (man)

The Danish glottal stop, also known as creaky voice, is phonemic. This is illustrated in the five minimal pairs. Though Norwegian and Swedish are related languages, they lack this feature of the Danish language.


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