pronounced as /notice/
The phonology of Danish is similar to that of the other closely related Scandinavian languages, Swedish and Norwegian, but it also has distinct features setting it apart. For example, Danish has a suprasegmental feature known as stød which is a kind of laryngeal phonation that is used phonemically. It also exhibits extensive lenition of plosives, which is noticeably more common than in the neighboring languages. Because of these and a few other features, spoken Danish can be challenging for Norwegians and Swedes to understand without training, although they can easily read written Danish.
Danish has at least 17 consonant phonemes:
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Plosive | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Approximant | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Lateral | pronounced as /link/ |
| Phoneme | Morphophoneme | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Syllable- initial | Syllable- final | |||
| pronounced as /[m]/ | pronounced as //m// | pronounced as /m/ | ||
| pronounced as /[n]/ | pronounced as //n// | pronounced as /n/ | ||
| pronounced as /[ŋ]/ | pronounced as //ŋ// | pronounced as /nɡ/, pronounced as /ŋ/, pronounced as /n/ | ||
| pronounced as /[pʰ]/ | pronounced as //p// | pronounced as /p/ | ||
| pronounced as /[tsʰ]/ | pronounced as //t// | pronounced as /t/ | ||
| pronounced as /[kʰ]/ | pronounced as //k// | pronounced as /k/ | ||
| pronounced as /[p]/ | pronounced as //b// | pronounced as /b/ | pronounced as /p, b/ | |
| pronounced as /[t]/ | pronounced as //d// | pronounced as /d/ | pronounced as /t/ | |
| pronounced as /[k]/ | pronounced as //ɡ// | pronounced as /ɡ/ | pronounced as /k/ | |
| pronounced as /[f]/ | pronounced as //f// | pronounced as /f/ | ||
| pronounced as /[s]/ | pronounced as //s// | pronounced as /s/ | ||
| pronounced as /[ɕ]/ | pronounced as //sj// | pronounced as /sj/ | ||
| pronounced as /[h]/ | pronounced as //h// | pronounced as /h/ | ||
| pronounced as /[ʋ]/ | pronounced as //v// | pronounced as /v/ | ||
| pronounced as /[ð]/ | pronounced as //ð// | pronounced as /d/ | ||
| pronounced as /[j]/ | pronounced as //j// | pronounced as /j/ | pronounced as /j, ɡ/ | |
| pronounced as /[w]/ | pronounced as //v// | pronounced as /v, ɡ/ | ||
| pronounced as /[ʁ]/ | pronounced as //r// | pronounced as /r/ | ||
| pronounced as /[ɐ̯]/ | pronounced as //r// | pronounced as /r/ | ||
| pronounced as /[l]/ | pronounced as //l// | pronounced as /l/ | ||
pronounced as //p, t, k, h// occur only syllable-initially and pronounced as /[ŋ, ð, w]/ only syllable-finally. pronounced as /[ɕ]/ is phonemically pronounced as //sj// and pronounced as /[w]/ is the syllable-final allophone of pronounced as //v//. pronounced as /[w]/ also occurs syllable-initially in English loans, along with pronounced as /link/, but syllable-initial pronounced as /[w]/ is in free variation with pronounced as /[v]/ and these are not considered part of the phonological inventory of Danish.
pronounced as //ŋ// occurs only before short vowels and stems morphophonologically, in native words, from pronounced as /nɡ/ or pronounced as /n/ preceding pronounced as /k/ and, in French loans, from a distinct pronounced as /ŋ/. Beyond morphological boundaries, pronounced as /[ŋ]/ may also appear as the result of an optional assimilation of pronounced as //n// before pronounced as //k, ɡ//.
pronounced as //n, t, d, s, l// are apical alveolar pronounced as /[n̺, t̺s̺ʰ, t̺, s̺, l̺]/, although some speakers realize pronounced as //s// dentally (pronounced as /link/).
pronounced as //p, t, k// are voiceless aspirated, with pronounced as //t// also affricated: pronounced as /[pʰ, tsʰ, kʰ]/. The affricate pronounced as /[tsʰ]/ is often transcribed with (IPA|tˢ). In some varieties of standard Danish (but not the Copenhagen dialect), pronounced as //t// is just aspirated, without the affrication.
pronounced as //b, d, ɡ// are voiceless unaspirated pronounced as /[p, t, k]/. In syllable codas, weak, partial voicing may accompany them especially when between voiced sounds. In spontaneous speech recorded in 1996, 38% of intervocalic pronounced as //b, d, ɡ// were voiced. In that environment, pronounced as //d// may be realized as a flap pronounced as /link/, as in nordisk pronounced as /[ˈnoɐ̯ɾisk]/ 'Nordic'. Utterance-final pronounced as //b, d, ɡ// may be realized as pronounced as /[pʰ, t(s)ʰ, kʰ]/, particularly in distinct speech.
pronounced as //h// is only weakly fricated. Between vowels, it is often voiced pronounced as /link/.
pronounced as //v// can be a voiced fricative pronounced as /link/, but is most often a voiced approximant pronounced as /link/.
pronounced as //ð// – the so-called "soft d" (Danish: blødt d) – is a velarized laminal alveolar approximant pronounced as /link/. It is acoustically similar to the cardinal vowels pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/. It is commonly perceived by non-native speakers of Danish as pronounced as /link/. Very rarely, pronounced as //ð// can be realized as a fricative.
Syllable-initially, pronounced as //r// is a voiced uvular fricative pronounced as /link/ or, more commonly, an approximant pronounced as /link/. According to Nina Grønnum, the fricative variant is voiceless pronounced as /link/. Its precise place of articulation has been described as pharyngeal, or more broadly, as "supra-pharyngeal". When emphasizing a word, word-initial pronounced as //r// may be realized as a voiced uvular fricative trill pronounced as /link/. In syllable-final position, pronounced as //r// is realized as pronounced as /[ɐ̯]/.
The alveolar realization pronounced as /link/ of pronounced as //r// is very rare. According to, it occurs in some varieties of Jutlandic dialect, and only for some speakers (mostly the elderly). The alveolar realization is considered non-standard, even in classical opera singing – it is probably the only European language in which this is the case. According to, it occurs (or used to occur until recently) in very old forms of certain conservative dialects in Northern Jutland and Bornholm.
pronounced as //l, j, r// are voiceless pronounced as /[{{IPAplink|l̥}}, {{IPAplink|ç}}~{{IPAplink|ɕ}}, {{IPAplink|χ}}]/ after pronounced as //p, t, k//, where the aspiration is realized as devoicing of the following consonant, so that pronounced as //tj// is normally realized as an alveolo-palatal affricate pronounced as /link/.
A voiced velar continuant pronounced as /link/ occurred distinctively in older Standard Danish. Some older speakers still use it in high register, most often as an approximant pronounced as /link/. It corresponds to pronounced as /[w]/, after back vowels and pronounced as //r//, and to pronounced as //j//, after front vowels and pronounced as //l//, in contemporary Standard Danish.
pronounced as //j// is elided after pronounced as //iː, yː//, and possibly also after pronounced as //eː, øː//, and less commonly after pronounced as //ɛː, aː//. Similarly, pronounced as //v// is elided after pronounced as //uː//, and possibly also after pronounced as //oː//, and less commonly after pronounced as //ɔː//.
Modern Standard Danish has around 20 different vowel qualities. These vowels are shown below in a narrow transcription.
pronounced as //ə// and pronounced as //ɐ// occur only in unstressed syllables and thus can only be short. Long vowels may have stød, thus making it possible to distinguish 30 different vowels in stressed syllables. However, vowel length and stød are most likely features of the syllable rather than of the vowel.
The 26 vowel phonemes of Standard Danish (14 short and 12 long) correspond to 21 morphophonemes (11 short and 10 long).
| Front | Central | Back | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Close-mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Open-mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Open | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Tautosyllabic environment | Phoneme | Phone | Narrow tran- scription | Example | Note | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| After | Before | ||||||
| pronounced as /i/ | pronounced as //i// | pronounced as /[i]/ | pronounced as /[i]/ | mis | |||
| pronounced as /iː/ | pronounced as //iː// | pronounced as /[iː]/ | pronounced as /[iː]/ | mile | |||
| pronounced as /e/ | pronounced as //e// | pronounced as /[e̝]/ | pronounced as /[e̝]/ | list | |||
| pronounced as /r/ | pronounced as /[ɛ̝]/ | pronounced as /[ɛ̝]/ | brist | ||||
| pronounced as /eː/ | pronounced as //eː// | pronounced as /[e̝ː]/ | pronounced as /[e̝ː]/ | mele | |||
| pronounced as /r/ | pronounced as //ɛː// | pronounced as /[ɛ̝ː]/ | pronounced as /[ɛ̝ː~ɛ̝j]/ | grene | |||
| pronounced as /ɛ/ | pronounced as //ɛ// | pronounced as /[e]/ | pronounced as /[e]/ | læst | |||
| pronounced as /r/ | pronounced as /[ɛ]/ | pronounced as /[ɛ]/ | bær | ||||
| pronounced as /r/ | pronounced as /, / | pronounced as //ɛ// or pronounced as //ɑ// | pronounced as /[æ~ɑ]/ | pronounced as /[a~ɑ̈]/ | række | pronounced as /[ɑ]/ in innovative varieties. | |
| pronounced as //ɑ// | pronounced as /[ɑ]/ | pronounced as /[ɑ̈]/ | kræft | ||||
| pronounced as /ɛː/ | pronounced as //ɛː// | pronounced as /[eː]/ | pronounced as /[eː]/ | mæle | |||
| pronounced as /r/ | pronounced as /[eː~ɛː]/ | pronounced as /[eː~ɛː]/ | bære | pronounced as /[ɛː]/ in innovative varieties. | |||
| pronounced as /r/ | pronounced as /[ɛ̝ː]/ | pronounced as /[ɛ̝ː~ɛ̝j]/ | kræse | ||||
| pronounced as /d/ | pronounced as //aː// or pronounced as //ɑː// | pronounced as /[æː~ɑː]/ | pronounced as /[æː~ɑ̈ː]/ | græde | pronounced as /[ɑː]/ in innovative varieties. | ||
| pronounced as /a/ | ≠ pronounced as /r/ | pronounced as // | pronounced as //a// | pronounced as /[æ]/ | pronounced as /[æ]/ | malle | |
| pronounced as //ɑ// | pronounced as /[ɑ]/ | pronounced as /[ɑ̈]/ | takke | ||||
| pronounced as /ar/ | pronounced as // |