Swedish Dialect of Scanian

Scanian is a Swedish dialect that is spoken in Scania. It is the southernmost province of Sweden. Scanian differs in many ways from Standard Swedish. Aside from differences in vocabulary, the phonology is also different.

In Scanian words such as tre (three) and bro (bridge) have a uvular trill or uvular fricative. This is different from Standard Swedish which uses an alveolar trill, tap or approximant.  The uvular trill or approximant is also used in words such as hjärta (heart) and torsk  (cod), words which have a retroflex articulation in Standard Swedish.

Many Swedish words with the plosives /k/, /p/ and /t/ become voiced after a long vowel in Scanian. For example, the words kaka (cake), skåp (cupboard) and vit (white) are pronounced with voiced plosives. These voiced plosives also occur in Danish. To compare, the same words are kage, skab and hvid in Danish.

Scanian is also known for the use of diphthongs in words which have monophthongs in Standard Swedish. The words bok (book) fred (peace) kniv (knife) and tå (toe) have monophthongs in Standard Swedish. In Scanian, however, they have diphthongs.

Words such as mig, (me) dig (you) and nej (no) have diphthongs in both Standard Swedish and Scanian. In Scanian, however, the diphthong is different. It is /aI/ rather than /eI/.

The Swedish language has many dialects. One of the most distinct is Scanian, a dialect spoken in the south of Swedish. Its phonology is characterized by many diphthongs, voiced plosives after long vowels and a uvular trill or approximant.