Proceedings Fonetik 2009 - Institutionen för lingvistik

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Proceedings, FONETIK 2009, Dept. of Linguistics, Stockholm UniversityThe acoustics of Estonian Swedish long close vowelsas compared to Central Swedish and Finland SwedishEva Liina Asu 1 , Susanne Schötz 2 and Frank Kügler 31 Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics, University of Tartu2 Department of Linguistics and Phonetics, Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University3 Department of Linguistics, Potsdam UniversityAbstractThis pilot study investigates the phonetic realisationof Estonian Swedish long close vowelscomparing them with Central Swedish and FinlandSwedish counterparts. It appears that inthe Rickul variety of Estonian Swedish there isa distinction between only three long closevowels. The analysed vowels of Estonian Swedishare more similar to those of Central Swedishthan Finland Swedish, as measured by theEuclidean distance. Further research withmore data is needed to establish the exactvowel space and phonetic characteristics of EstonianSwedish dialects.IntroductionThis study is a first step in documenting thephonetic characteristics of Estonian Swedish(ES), a highly endangered variety of Swedishspoken historically on the islands and westerncoast of Estonia. Despite its once flourishingstatus, ES is at present on the verge of extinction.Most of the Estonian Swedish communityfled to Sweden during WWII. Today only ahandful of elderly native ES speakers remain inEstonia, and about a hundred in Sweden.ES has received surprisingly little attentionand was not, for instance, included in theSweDia 2000 project (Bruce et al., 1999) becausethere were no speakers from youngergenerations. To our knowledge, ES has notbeen analysed acoustically before; all the existingwork on its sound system has been conductedin the descriptive framework of dialectresearch (e.g. E. Lagman, 1979). Therefore, theaim of this study is to carry out the first acousticanalysis of ES by examining the quality ofclose vowels. In this pilot study we will focuson ES long close vowels comparing them tothose of Finland Swedish (FS) and CentralSwedish (CS), the two varieties of Swedish thathave had most influence on ES in recent times.Swedish is unique among world’s languagesbecause of a number of phonologically distinctcontrasts in the inventory of close vowels (cf.Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996). It has beenshown, however, that there is considerablevariation in the realisation of these contrastsdepending on the variety of Swedish (Elert,2000, Kuronen, 2001). Thus, the study of closevowels seems like a good place where to startthe acoustic analysis of ES sound system.General Characteristics of EstonianSwedishSwedish settlers started arriving in Estonia inthe Middle Ages. During several centuries, theycontinued coming from various parts in Swedenand Finland bringing different dialects whichinfluenced the development of separate ES varieties.ES dialects are usually divided into fourdialect areas on the basis of their sound systemand vocabulary (see Figure 1).Figure 1. The main dialect areas of Estonian Swedishin the 1930s (from E. Lagman 1979: 2).54
Proceedings, FONETIK 2009, Dept. of Linguistics, Stockholm UniversityThe largest area is the Nuckö-Rickul-Ormsöarea (including Dagö) followed by the Rågö-Korkis-Vippal area. Separate dialect areas areformed by the Island of Runö and the Island ofNargö. E. Lagman (1979: 5) claims that connectionsbetween the different dialect areaswere not particularly lively which made it possiblefor the separate dialects to retain theircharacteristic traits up to modern times.Another factor which has shaped ES is thefact that until the 20th century, ES dialectswere almost completely isolated from varietiesof Swedish in Sweden, and therefore did notparticipate in several linguistic changes that occurredfor instance in Standard Swedish (Tiberg,1962: 13, Haugen, 1976), e.g. the GreatQuantity shift that took place in most Scandinavianvarieties between 1250 and 1550. ES, asopposed to Standard Swedish, has retained thearchaic ‘falling’ diphthongs, e.g. stain ‘sten’(stone), haim ‘hem’ (home) (E. Lagman, 1979:47). Starting from the end of the 19th century,however, ES came gradually in closer contactwith above all Stockholm Swedish and FinlandSwedish. It was also around that time that theso called ‘high’ variety of ES (den estlandssvenskahögspråksvarianten) appeared inconnection with the development of the educationsystem. This was the regional standard thatwas used as a common language within the EScommunity.According to E. Lagman (1979: 5) the mainfeatures of ES dialects resemble most those ofthe variety of Swedish spoken in Nyland inSouth Finland. Lexically and semantically, theES dialects have been found to agree with FinlandSwedish and North Swedish (Norrbotten)dialects on the one hand, and with dialects inEast Central (Uppland) and West (Götaland)Sweden and the Island of Gotland on the otherhand (Bleckert, 1986: 91). It has been claimedthat the influence of Estonian on the sound systemof ES is quite extensive (Danell, 1905-34,ref. in H. Lagman, 1971: 13) although it has tobe noted that the degree of language contactwith Estonian varied considerably dependingon the dialect area (E. Lagman, 1979: 4).Swedish long close vowelsOf the three varieties of Swedish included inthe present study, it is the CS close vowels thathave been subject to most extensive acousticand articulatory analyses. Considerably less isknown about FS vowels, and no acoustic data isso far available for ES vowels.CS exhibits a phonological four way contrastin close vowels /iː – yː – ʉː – uː/ where /iː/, / yː/ and /ʉː/ are front vowels with manysimilar articulatory and acoustic features, and/uː/ is a back vowel (Riad, 1997). While /iː/ isconsidered an unrounded vowel and /yː/ itsrounded counterpart, /ʉː/ has been referred toas: (1) a labialised palatal vowel with a tongueposition similar (but slightly higher) to [ø:], butwith a difference in lip closure (Malmberg,1966: 99-100), (2) a close rounded front vowel,more open than [iː] and [yː] (Elert, 2000: 28;31; 49), (3) a further back vowel pronouncedwith pursed lips (hopsnörpning) rather than lipprotrusion as is the case with /yː/ (Kuronen,2000: 32), and (4) a protruded (framskjuten)central rounded vowel (Engstrand, 2004: 113).The two vowels /iː/ and /yː/ display similarF1 and F2 values (Fant, 1969), and can be separatedonly by F3, which is lower for /y:/.Malmberg (1966: 101) argues that the onlyrelevant phonetic difference between /ʉ:/ and/y:/ can be seen in the F2 and F3 values.An additional characteristic of long closevowels in CS is that they tend to be diphthongised.Lowering of the first three formants at theend of the diphthongised vowels /ʉː/ and /uː/has been reported by e.g. Kuronen (2000: 81-82), while the diphthongisation of /iː/ and /yː/results in a higher F1 and lower F2 at the end ofthe vowel (Kuronen, 2000: 88).In FS, the close vowels differ somewhatfrom the CS ones, except /u:/ that is rather similarin both varieties. FS /iː/ and /yː/ are pronouncedmore open and further front than theirCS counterparts. Acoustically, these vowels arerealised with lower F1 and higher F2 valuesthan in CS (Kuronen, 2000: 59). In FS, theclose central /ʉː/ is pronounced further backthan in CS (Kuronen, 2000: 60; 177). There issome debate over as to whether the characteristicsof FS are a result of language contact withFinnish (Kuronen, 2000: 60) or an independentdialectal development (Niemi, 1981).The quality of the rounded front vowel /yː/in the ‘high’ variety of ES is more open than inStandard Swedish (Lagman, 1979: 9). Therounded front vowel /yː/ is said to be missing inES dialects (Tiberg, 1962: 45, E. Lagman,1979: 53) and the word by (village) is pronouncedwith an /iː/. It seems, though, that theexact realisation of the vowel is heavily dependenton its segmental context and the dialect,and most probably also historical soundchanges. Thus, in addition to [iː] /yː/ can be realisedas [eː], [ɛː], or [ʉː] or as a diphthong55
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