Pronunciation of First Person Singular Pronoun in German

The first person singular pronoun in German is ich. It is the pronoun that is used in Standard German. The consonant is a voiceless palatal fricative. However, other pronunciations also exist.

In northern Germany and in Berlin, the pronoun is often pronounced with a /k/. This pronunciation is identical to the pronunciation of the pronoun in Dutch. In Dutch, it is ik.

In Switzerland the pronoun is often pronounced with a velar fricative. In Standard German the velar fricative occurs after back vowels. However, in Swiss German, it also occurs after front vowels.

The pronoun is often pronounced with an alveopalatal fricative in cities such as Cologne and Frankfurt. In this part of Germany, the alveopalatal fricative is often used instead of the palatal fricative. 

Another variant is used in southern Germany and Austria. It is the combination of a glottal stop and high front unrounded vowel. This variant has no word-final consonant.

Though the pronoun ich is used in all of Germany and is considered standard, other variants are used. They are rarely used in written German but are common in spoken German. The variants are especially common in informal situations.

Negative Imperative of Danish and Norwegian

Danish and Norwegian are both Germanic languages, and they share many similarities. However, they also have a number of differences. Let us illustrate with the negative imperative.

The imperative with the negative ikke (not) has a different word order in the two languages. Norwegian places the word ikke at the beginning of the sentence, but Danish places it at the end. Compare the following examples:

Ikke kom! (Don't come!)

Kom ikke! (Don't come!)

Ikke gå! (Don't go!)

Gå ikke! (Don't go!)

Ikke skynd deg! (Don't hurry!)

Skynd dig ikke! (Don't hurry!)

Ikke stopp! (Don't stop!)

Stop ikke! (Don't stop!)

Ikke glem! (Don't forget!)

Glem ikke! (Don't forget!)

Though Danish and Norwegian are related languages, they use different word orders for the negative imperative. Danish places the negative adverb ikke at the end of the imperative, but Norwegian places it at the beginning. This is an important distinction between the two languages.

Hedda Gabler

Hedda Gabler is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It is about the experiences of Hedda, the daughter of a general, who is trapped in a house and a marriage that she does not want. Hedda's married name is Hedda Tesman, and Hedda Gabler is her maiden name.

The play begins with Hedda's return to her villa in Olso from her honeymoon. Her husband is Jørgen Tesman, who continued his research during the honeymoon. It is clear that Hedda is not in love with him.

Eilert Løvborg is Jørgen Tesman's academic rival, a writer who just published a bestseller. In a relationship with Hedda's old schoolmate, Thea Elvsted, he shows signs of rehabilitation from his alcoholism. When Hedda and Eilert speak together privately, it becomes clear that they are former lovers.

Eilert is a competitor for the university position Jørgen has been expecting. Jørgen and Hedda have financial problems, and Jørgen tells Hedda that he cannot provide her with a regular housekeeper. When they meet Eilert, they learn he has no intention of competing for the university position, but he has spent years working on his masterpiece, the continuation of his recently published work.

Jealous of Thea's relationship with Eilert, Hedda hopes to come between them. Despite his drinking problem, she encourages him to accompany Jørgen and Jørgen's friend Judge Brack to a party. Jørgen returns from the party and reveals that he found the complete manuscript of Eilert's masterpiece, which Eilert lost while he was drunk.

Jørgen later visits his aunt, and the manuscript is in Hedda's possession. When Eilert sees Hedda and Thea, he tells them that he deliberately destroyed the manuscript. Thea is horrified, and the reader learns that the work was a collaborative effort by Eilert and herself. Hedda says nothing to them. After Eilert leaves, Hedda encourages Eilert to commit suicide, and she gives him a gun that was her father's. Then she burns the manuscript and tells Jørgen she destroyed it to secure their future.

With the news that Eilert killed himself, Jørgen and Thea try to reconstruct the manuscript from Eilert's notes, which Thea kept. Hedda is shocked to learn that Eilert's death was in a brothel, and probably accidental. His painful death contrasts with the beautiful one she had imagined. Another problem is that Judge Brack knows the origins of the pistol. He tells her that if he reveals what he knows, there will probably be a scandal. 

She realizes that he is in a position of power over her.  Hedda then decides to go to a small room and shoot herself in the head. The others assume that Hedda is just firing shots and decide to investigate. The play ends with Jørgen, Thea and Judge Brack discovering her body.

Henrik Ibsen's play explores mental illness. Hedda Gabler, a neurotic woman, is very manipulative. However, the moment Judge Brack assumes a position of power over her, she cannot accept her new circumstances and takes her own life.

Speakers of Six Swedish Dialects

Swedish has many dialects. Many linguists divide the language into six. They are Central Swedish, Western Swedish, Southern Swedish, Northern Swedish, Eastern Swedish and Gotlandic. Gotlandic is spoken on the island of Gotland, and Eastern Swedish is spoken in Finland.

Here are the six dialects with the approximate percentage of speakers:

Central Swedish 39%

Western Swedish 28%

Southern Swedish 18%

Northern Swedish 11%

Eastern Swedish 3%

Gotlandic 1%

Central Swedish is the dialect with the most speakers. It is spoken in the capital city of Stockholm and also in Uppsala. Western Swedish is spoken in Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden, and Southern Swedish is spoken in Malmo, the third largest city.

Northern Swedish is spoken in an area that covers more than half of Sweden, but it has a relatively small population. Eastern Swedish is spoken by approximately 5% of the population of Finland, and Gotlandic is spoken by less than 1% of Swedish speakers. The Gotlandic dialect has been influenced by Gutian, a language that is now extinct.

The Central and Western dialects are spoken by more than half of all Swedish speakers. It is important to note that many Swedish speakers use a standard form of the language but retain traces of their dialect in their pronunciation and vocabulary. Though most Swedes speak a variety of Swedish that is close to Standard Swedish, the language can be classified into six main dialects.

Florianopolitan Dialect

The Florianopolitan dialect of Brazilian Portuguese is spoken in the city of Florianopolis. It originated with immigrants from the Azores. Their isolation made the dialect distinct from other varieties of Brazilian Portuguese.

The dialect is not uniform. For example, many older speakers use an alveolar trill for the post-vocalic r, but younger speakers mostly use the glottal fricative /h/. However, the r can also be a uvular trill, velar fricative or uvular fricative.

Unlike in most varieties of Brazilian Portuguese, the s is a voiceless alveopalatal fricative in words such as dois (two), festa (party) and mas (but). The d and t are always plosives and not affricatives before the vowel /i/, as is the case in most of Brazil. Also, word-final l is a velarized lateral and never vocalized, the same as in Portugal.

The r in words such as arte (art), forno (oven) and porta (door) is a glottal fricative for most speakers. In word-final position, it is usually deleted. The exception is if the next word is spoken without a pause and begins with a vowel. The word mar (sea) is pronounced without the r, but in the phrase o mar e o sol (the sea and the sun), the r is pronounced.

The dialect spoken in Florianopolis differs significantly from other varieties of Brazilian Portuguese. Features of the dialect include the velarized lateral, the pronunciation of the s before consonants and at the end of words, and the lack of affrication of the d and t. It is one of the most distinctive dialects of Brazilian Portuguese.