# Is it true that people don't realize that K makes atleast two sounds in Scandinavian languages? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 6, 2024, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187 "2024-02-06T15:13:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2024, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/21 "2024-02-06T20:33:00Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I mean, they’re not really a popular language for non-natives, so there’s no reason for the Average Human to care about their orthography and phonology. And as far as I know, unlike, say, German or French, we don’t have a whole lot of words or names from Scandanavian languages that have become common in English, so that it would be useful for knowing the pronunciation rules that apply to them in their language of origin. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2024, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/22 "2024-02-06T21:00:02Z")
> [@Jagraze1](#): > > Danes struggle to speak their language No. No they don’t. I don’t know a single Danish person who has to struggle to speak Danish. The rest of us Scandi people do have some problems understanding Danish, but that’s another issue. Swedish person here. I see that your avatar is “español,” @Jagraze1. You are aware, I trust, that Spanish consonants change how they are pronounced depending on the vowel that follows. C can be a theta sound or an S (depending on location) as well as a K sound. Same goes for G. But I’m sure you knew that. And take Italian. G followed by a vowel will change as well. The H in spaghetti is because of the e. Without the H, it’d be [spajetti]. And of course the same happens with the C. Add an H and you get a hard K sound. English does this as well. A car and a circle. The C sounds different. In fact, most European languages follow the same rules/logic, and it all depends on the vowels. AOU are ‘hard vowels’ so at the most basic level consonants that are followed by one of those will take on a hard sound (e.g. K for C). EI(Y) are soft vowels so the preceding consonant will be whatever the local variant of soft is. > [@pulykamell](#): > > I mean, they’re not really a popular language for non-natives, so there’s no reason for the Average Human to care about their orthography and phonology. Actually, they are. For a given value of popular. More kids in (German equivalent of) high school study Swedish, than there are Swedish high schoolers that study German. In both cases it’s for extra credit, not mandatory. I’ve met people who (to my amazement) study Swedish at uni level in Croatia. It’s a small-ish language, but there is some interest. > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > And as far as I know, unlike, say, German or French, we don’t have a whole lot of words or names from Scandanavian languages that have become common in English, so that it would be useful for knowing the pronunciation rules that apply to them in their language of origin. How far back do you want to go? Because the era of Danelaw sure contributed a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2024, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/23 "2024-02-06T21:12:37Z")
What about the word: Jonköping, a place in Sweden? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2024, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/24 "2024-02-06T21:18:22Z")
What about it? I’ve never encountered it or needed to knpow how it was pronounced. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2024, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/25 "2024-02-06T21:18:55Z")
> [@Jagraze1](#): > > Jonköping It’s pronounced: Yon-shop-ing ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2024, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/26 "2024-02-06T21:39:33Z")
If you want to learn to read a language, pronunciation doesn’t matter. If you want to learn to speak a language, you can still be understood with a number of mispronunciations. Even if you just don’t get the phonetics right, all it means is that you have an accent. I would have mispronounced the k in Jonköping. I bet Swedes encounter this all the time, and are used to it. I can’t even pronounce British English or Castilian Spanish correctly, since I learned to speak in California. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2024, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/27 "2024-02-06T22:14:12Z")
> [@Jagraze1](#): > > or is it the same palatalization thing (like with Latin g)? Yes. It’s exactly the same phenomenon as Latin “C” [k] becoming palatalised before front vowels and ending up as [tʃ] in Italian. For example cera (wax) would be ke:ra in Classical Latin and tʃe:ra in Italian. When did it happen? Probably after we borrowed Norse ki- and ski- words into English. We have “skin” and “kid” in English (not “shin” and “chid”). In a completely separate process, Germanic sk- words became sh- in German, Dutch and English but remained as sk- in Nordic languages (sko - shoe). Compare the Norse borrowing “skirt” and the native English word “shirt”. Edited to add: actually in Dutch it’s [sx], in English and German it’s [ʃ]. English/German ʃu:, Dutch sxu:n, Swedish sku: ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2024, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/28 "2024-02-07T04:26:24Z")
> [@Jagraze1](#): > > Maybe it’s because, the Scandi languages are not a widely spoken? Not only are they not widly spoken, they aren’t widely studied in English speaking countries. Poking around online, it looks like about 20% of K12 US students learn a foreign language, and that Spanish is the most widely taught. Scandi languages didn’t make the (top?) 20 included in [this study](https://www.americancouncils.org/sites/default/files/FLE-report.pdf), which even included, for example, Turkish: > [@](#): > > Turkish: > We identified 16 schools in 11 states that offer Turkish language classes, with 600 total students. Most of these students > are located in Ohio, with 47% of students, and California with 25%, and where we have two and three schools, > respectively For people of my generation, the only exposure to a Nordic language was learning that _A Møøse once bit my sister_ ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2024, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/29 "2024-02-07T04:30:28Z")
That’s in the Iraqi dialect, which has nothing to do with the name of Qatar. In standard Arabic, k is /k/ and q is /q/. Two different sounds. K is a velar stop and q is a uvular stop. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2024, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/30 "2024-02-07T08:31:40Z")
> [@Jagraze1](#): > > It’s pronounced: > Yon-shop-ing Yes. And ? ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2024, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/31 "2024-02-07T14:00:43Z")
I only know 2 words in Swedish, “Dansk jevlar” (Danish scum), and that’s only because that’s what the Swedish character Stig Helmer shouts at the top of his lungs in Lars von Trier’s TV series Riget (The Kingdom). While one of those words does have the _K_ referenced in the OP, unfortunately it is in a context/usage (_sk_) entirely familiar to English speakers. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2024, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/32 "2024-02-07T14:56:51Z")
It’s a loanword from Swedish ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2024, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/33 "2024-02-07T17:14:14Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > I only know 2 words in Swedish, “Dansk jevlar” (Danish scum), and that’s only because that’s what the Swedish character Stig Helmer shouts at the top of his lungs in Lars von Trier’s TV series Riget (The Kingdom) That should be Danskdjävlar. Djävlar doesn’t mean scum. Djävel (sing) is cognate of devil, I’d translate that as “Wretched Danes.” If someone translated Riget to The Kingdom, they did a poor job. _Rige_ is cognate to _Reich_ in German and _Rike_ in Swedish. I’d say _realm_ is the closest in English. However, _Riget_ is the colloquial name for _Rigshospitalet_, so that’d be Hospital of the Realm. It functions as the sort of ‘main’ hospital i Denmark. The most important research, the most difficult cases ASF. > [@Jagraze1](#): > > It’s a loanword from Swedish What is? Jönköping is the name of a town and a county in the center south of Sweden. I’m not aware of it being used in any other way. M-W lists it as a geographical name. OED doesn’t list it. There is a city in Turkey called [Batman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman,_Turkey) (Pop. 450K). Do you think the comic character was named for that City? ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2024, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/34 "2024-02-07T17:19:47Z")
> [@Charlie\_Tan](#): > > That should be Danskdjävlar. Djävlar doesn’t mean scum. Djävel (sing) is cognate of devil, I’d translate that as “Wretched Danes.” If someone translated Riget to The Kingdom, they did a poor job. I should’ve remembered the umlaut, but _jävlar_ seems to be the word part? > **[Swedish: danskjävlar](https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/swedish-danskj%C3%A4vlar.2198864/)** > > The main character in the "Riget" TV mini-series is a very surly Swede working in Denmark. > > Every episode he retreats to somewhere he can be alone, goes into a tantrum, and utters insults at Denmark and the Danish people, always including the... ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2024, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/35 "2024-02-07T22:57:40Z")
I did realize it because I knew someone who grew up near the Norwegian town of Kirkenes, which he pronounced something like Sheer-kuh-ness. Note the two Ks have different values, although both i and e are front vowels. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2024, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/36 "2024-02-07T23:15:35Z")
Finally, someone realized this. Yeah you’re right, K in Norwegian indeed does take a soft value if it occurs before letters I, J and Y and probably also the clusters Ei and Øy. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2024, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/37 "2024-02-07T23:46:11Z")
[Moderating] Whatever this is, it’s not a Factual Question. Moving to MPSIMS. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2024, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/38 "2024-02-07T23:46:28Z")
All I know is that I feel like a fool for wearing this shirt for so long. [![](https://i.postimg.cc/fbZDhBtX/1c09d24e-cfbd-4ca0-8b4e-c25836012815.jpg) ](https://i.postimg.cc/fbZDhBtX/1c09d24e-cfbd-4ca0-8b4e-c25836012815.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2024, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/39 "2024-02-08T00:08:24Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > All I know is that I feel like a fool Are you upset because you realized you were wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2024, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187/40 "2024-02-08T00:38:38Z")
Maybe cause Scandinavia is mis-spelled or because it came from K-mart.😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-people-dont-realize-that-k-makes-atleast-two-sounds-in-scandinavian-languages/997187.md?page=3)