AboutRoy Helge Rasmussen Expertise I live in the southern part of norway and can find my way around most of the country. I will answer questions about social life, culture, language and politics to the best of my knowledge. I am not so good at travel tips outside the south-eastern parts, although I will try to answer.
Experience I live here and have been guiding members of my family around when they visit from abroad for years.
Question Hello
I have tried to find websites and tried to find the pronounciations for some of the Norwegian Surnames. I wanted to ask a Norwegian person. I did get some answers from AllExperts, it was from a Polish answerer she was helpful although I need the tonation, high,low, strength of stress in the pronounciation. I hope you can help.
The names are:
Myklebust ( as far as I am aware its Mey-KLe-Bust (short UU))
Gjertsen ( as far as I am aware, YERT-sehn) ( High tonation in Capitals)
Kristiansen ( as far as I am aware, Krist-ee-AHN-sehn)
Soerensen ( as far as I am aware, SIII--RN- sehn)
Martin ( as a first name, Mar-TEEN) ( soft a)
Am I correct in these pronounciations??
Many Thanks, Mange Takk!!
Martin
P/s.. tell me about the accent.. is there a difference between Oslo accent and the Bergen accent...I learn that its a singing accent! is that right...
Answer Tonation is difficult. Especially in norwegian. We carry rather more meaning with tonation that does many other languages. And the tonation is so natural to us that it takes an effort to explain it to speakers of other tongues.
Some ground rules:
R - is pronounced like the spanish rolling R, or like french throatclearing-R if you prefer. Both are valid pronounciations in different dialects. The prior is the standard spoken sound in east-norwegian dialects. No R is ever pronounced like in english.
L - This is another difficult one. Most people have trouble with this one. There are more than 8 ways of pronouncing this letter depending on role, part of the word and meaning. But for the sake of simplicity I'll explain the two most common here as good as I can:
L1 - is the sound used mainly in the beginning of words and when we want to be specific. When pronouncing a normal english L, curl your tounge up so that the tip of the tounge touches just behind your teeth. That would be close.
L2 - Is the sound used mainly in the latter part of a word, second syllable etc. Prouncounced in the same way as an american L, but with the tip of your tounge held behind your teeth so that the sound is leaning towards L1
Americans seem to have great trouble with the wovels of norwegian. Particiluarily the diphtonization is difficult for them to put away. Here are the basic vowel sounds, all sounds can be long or short:
A - is pronounced like english "bath"
E - is pronounced like english "Bed" or german "feder".
I = Like english "Free", french "Brie"
O = This sound is not used in english. Sounds like when you sing "youuuuuuuuuuuu" and pull your tounge back to the rear of the mouth, approximately.
U = Pretty much like english "booth" or the last sound in "you"
Y = Close to I, but with your lips pursed as if in a mock kiss
Æ = Close to the wovel in english "Bad", "Sad"
Ø = Close to the wovel in english "Bird", "heard", "herd"
Å = Not so different from english "Flog", "Log" or "staunch"
In the following when I talk about norwegian vowels I will use capital letters (AEIOUYRL) and when I mean american sounds I will use lowercase letters (aeiouyrl)
Other sounds of notice would be the RN, RT and NG, but those are basically the same as in english. I see you allready have them covered. In these sounds the N is modified with the other sound to make a new sound. Just like english: Barn-Ban, Bart-Bat, Bang-Ban. In these cirkumstances the norwegian rolling R is silent and incorporated in the changed N, just like in english. Sometimes I will put such a sound in parenthesis just to make certain that I am talking about a single sound.
In my own phonetic writing I will notate a long vowel with a trailing underscore, while a short vowel is written with just the letter itself like this (u short, u_ long).
Your pronounciations are quite good. But with the new sounds explained above I would suggest the following pronounciations:
Myklebust
mYk L1e_ bUst
high-low-high tone
heavy-light-heavy pressure
Or mick-L1eh-bUst (with short-long-short vowels)
Gjertsen
Much as you have suggested:
Ye(RT) sEn
Down Up tonation
heavy-light
with sEn pronounced like "ZEN" with normal S in the beginning.
SØRENSEN
the standard colloquial pronounciation of this name is pretty much as you tried to write. When articulating we would normally spell out each letter. But let us concentrate on the normal spoken pronounciation:
sØ_ RN sEn
high low high
heavy light heavy
MARTIN
mA(RT) In
down up
heavy light
About dialects:
Yes there is a significant difference between dialects in norway. A dialect is the natural regional variation of a language. Accents are the inevitable similarities in pronounciation and grammatical preferences shared by people raised with one language when speaking another language.
West coast dialects, including the particular Bergen dialect differ substantially from east-norwegian (oslo dialect) in grammar, pronounciation and choice of words. The west coast dialects south of Bergen including Bergen will use french R, while the west coast north of berge will use spanish rolling R.
A good indicator on dialectic differences is the personal pronoun for "I- me" which is pronounced in at least 10 different variations in norway: "YÆI_, YÆ_, Æ_, E_, E_g, I_, EIG" and a few other variations in tonation and pressure.
