Connected speech

The pronunciation of Norwegian is characterized by other features than just the speech sounds, long and short vowels, stress and tones. One issue that is important to master is how to produce connected speech.  What is typical of Norwegian is that one word is directly connected to the previous and the following word. This linking of words can be illustrated in the following way:

This sentence should sound like one continuous chain of sounds (bold letters indicate stressed syllables):

This sentence should sound like one continuous chain of sounds:

Some languages, German for example, do not connect words in this way. If a word starts with a vowel, a glottal stop sound («Knacklaut», IPA symbol <ʔ>) will be inserted in front of the vowel:

If this is introduced in Norwegian, it will lead to short frequent stops that will destroy the fluency which is expected.

Other languages, Spanish for example, do not accept words starting with /s/+another consonant (like /p, t, k/). In Spanish the /s/+consonant sequence must be preceded by a vowel, an /e/. If this is introduced in Norwegian, it will create new syllables that are not expected and which will destroy the expected fluency.

Other languages, Farsi for example, combine the two phenomena mentioned above. Here the /s/+consonant sequence also must be preceded by a vowel, which in its turn will be preceded by the glottal stop.

When speaking Norwegian, one should also pay attention to phenomena related to /r/ + /t, d, n, l, s/ which are mentioned earlier. If one word is ending in /r/ and the next is starting with /t, d, n, l, s/, the sounds will assimilate to / ʈ , ɖ , ɳ , ɭ , ʃ /.

This phenomenon contributes highly to connecting words to each other.

No pauses at all?

In earlier chapters we have underlined the importance of connected speech. In general Norwegian words are glued to each other so that one sound immediately follows the other as in:

In other cases a final /r/ sound merges with the following dental sound ( /t, d, n, l, s/) into a new sound /ʈ , ɖ , ɳ , ɭ , ʃ/ making a firm connection between the two words as in:

Are there no pauses in spoken Norwegian? Of course there are. In connected speech the pauses will occur where you find commas and full stops in a written text. There will also be stops when the speaker stops to think, is hesitating or rephrasing the utterance. But in general one can say that when you are speaking Norwegian, words should be closely connected with no intervening sounds or pauses.

By using connected speech and pauses correctly, you can make different patterns of the following five names and thus express whether you are talking about five, four or three persons.