Jutlandic dialect

Jutlandic or Jutish (Danish: jysk;pronounced [jy

s ]) is the western dialect of Danish, spoken on
the peninsula of Jutland.
Generally, the eastern dialects are the closest to
Standard Danish, while the southern dialect
(Snderjysk) is the one that differs the most from
the others, therefore it is sometimes described as
a distinct dialect, thus Jutlandic is by that
definition actually two different dialects: general
Jutlandic (nrrejysk; further divided into western
and
eastern)
and
Southern
Jutlandic
(snderjysk). However, the linguistic variation is
considerably more complicated and well over 20
separate minor dialects can be easily found on
Jutland. This map shows 9 larger dialectal
regions which will be discussed in this article.
There are major phonological differences
between the dialects, but also very noteworthy
morphological, syntactic, and semantic variations.
Subdialects
The different subdialects of Jutlandic differ
somewhat from each other, and are generally
grouped in three main dialects.

These are the abbreviations seen in the map

linked above, which will be used throughout the
rest of the article: NJy: Northern Jysk, NVJy:
North Western Jysk, NJy: North Eastern
Jysk,MVJy: Mid Western Jysk, MJy: Mid
Eastern Jysk, Sy(d)Jy: Southern Jysk, SnJy:
South Jysk, Djurs: Djurs-dialect, Sslesv: South
Schleswig.
Snderjysk
Snderjysk is often seen as very difficult for
other speakers of Danish, even other Jysk
dialects to understand. Instead of the normal
Danish std, it has tonal accents like Swedish.
Many of the phonemes are also different,
including velar fricatives much like in German.
It also has the definite article before the noun,
as opposed to the standard Danish postclitic
article.
stjysk

stjysk is the closest to the standard of the

three jysk dialects, but still differs widely in the
pronunciation of vowels and the voiced stops
word initially or intervocallically. Some dialects
of stjysk also still have three genders, like the
majority of Swedish and Norwegian dialects.
Vestjysk

Vestjysk is also well known for this enclictic

article as well as a complete lack of gender
distinction. Phonetically, it is known for having
[w] for the phoneme /v~/ in all positions, as
opposed to only post-vocalically in standard
Danish. It also can exhibit the std in slightly
different environments from the standard.

Phonology
Consonants
Standard Danish phonology contains nasal,
aspirated voiceless and devoiced plosives (labial,
alveolar, and velar). Four voiceless fricatives, [f],
[s], [] and [h] are present, as well as
approximated voiced fricatives: [ ], [], [], and [ ].
There are also three regular and a lateral
approximate, [], [l], [j] and []. Below is a table
depicting the consonant inventory of Danish.
Phonemes that appear in standard Danish are in
black and phonemes which are only seen in the
dialects of Jutland (jysk) are in bold. This table
only includes phonemes and some allophones.
[4][5]

Uv
Bila Labio Alve Alveo Pal Ve
Glo
ula
bial dental olar palatal atal lar
ttal
r

Nasal

Plosive

p,
b

t, d -

k,

Fricativ

f, v

x,

Approx
imate

j;

; -

Lat.
Appr.

Velar
,
Coartic
w
ulation

The major phonological process in jysk

consonants is lenition. This is the weakening of
originally voiceless consonants in either the coda
of a syllable or word as well as intervocallically.
The weakening causes voicing as well as the fall
from a stop to a fricative and finally to a sonorant.
The final step of lenition is then complete
apocope.[6] This phenomenon can be seen in all

its stages in the jysk dialects, although it shows

considerably more variability in the alveolars. The
bilabials still have the approximant in one dialect,
but no null phoneme and the velars have no
sonorants, only a voiceless stop and fricative.
The stages of the lenition as well as which
dialects they occur in can be seen in the table
below. Multiple possibilities for the same stage
are shown separated by a semicolon. In
Maps 4.0 and 4.2 the spread of the pronunciation
of [d] and [g] are shown. The represents the null
or zero morpheme in the maps, the -j and -r are
[] and [ ] respectively and q is the devoiced velar
stop [ ] while ch stands for the fricative []. Vends
and Ls are regions usually belonging to the
NJy dialectal region whereas Fjolds is the border
region between Germany and Denmark, normally
considered part of Snderjysk.
Standar
-v
+v
d
Stop Stop
Lenitio
[t]
[d]
n[1]

Old

+ or
v
Approxi
fricati Flappi
mant [, zero
ve [s, ng []
j, r]
z, ,
]

Stand NVJy

MJy;

Ven

Dani ard
, NJy,
sh
Danis SydJy
h

Jysk
{t},
Alveol
[t]
ars

{d},
[d]

Stand
ard
Old Danis
Dani h,
sh
MJy
,
Fjolde

Jysk
{p}, {b},
Bilabia
[p] [b]
ls

[]

MVJy,
SnJy1

ds,
East
SnJ
y

[; ]

null

NordJ
y,
MJ
y;
Midtand
SydJy
,
North
SnJy
;
SnJy

Ls

[; v;
f]

[w]

Stand
ard
Danis
Old h,
Dani North SnJy
sh
ern
Jysk,
North
SnJy
Jysk
{k}, {g},
Velars [k] [ ]

[x]

e.g. In Southern Jutlandic, Scandinavian postvocalic p, k become [f, x] word-finally, whereas

Standard Danish has b, g, e.g. sge 'to
seek' [sx] =
Standard
Danish [s()], tabe 'lose'[tf] =
Standard
Danish [tb, t]. In the northern part of
Southern Jutland, these sounds are voiced
fricatives
between
vowels,
i.e. [v,
]:
e.g. sger 'seeks' [s] =
Standard
Danish [s], taber 'loses' [tv] =
Standard
Danish [tb, t ].
Vowels

Standard Danish has a large vowel inventory and

contrasts length on many vowels. Vowels can
also be glottalized where the so-called std is
present and many change their quality depending
on whether or not it is preceded or followed by an
/r/.

[7]

Centr
Front
Front Central
Back
Back
al
Unroun Roun Unroun
Unroun Roun
Roun
ded
ded
ded
ded
ded
ded

Clo
i, i:
se

y, y:

u, u:

Nea
r

Clo
se

Clo
se
e, e
Mi
d

, :

o, o:

Op , :
en

Mi
d
Nea
r
, :
Op
en

Op
a
en

, -

Jysk exhibits many diphthongs, which are not

present in standard Danish. The long stressed
mid vowels, /e:/, /:/, and /o:/ become /i/, /y/,
and /u/ respectively in central Jutland as well as
SSlesv,
e.g. ben [bin] =
Standard
Danish [ben] 'leg', bonde 'farmer' [bu] =
Standard Danish [bn] (< bndi). SnJy has the
same vowel quality for these vowels, but exhibits
a tonal distinction, which is present in place of the
Danish std. NJy raises them without
diphthonging them to /i:/, /y:/, and /u:/
respectively. In a small area of Mid Western
Jutland called Hards the vowels become
diphthonged with a glide, much like in English
and are pronounced as /ej/, /j/, and /ow/. In
Norther Jutland /i:/, /y:/, and /u:/ are also

diphthonged in two syllable words with a glide.

NJy always has the glide present (/ij/, /yj/, /uw/)
and NVJy tends towards the glide, but it is not
present for all speakers. Long a and have been
raised to [] and [o]respectively in northern
Jutlandic,
e.g. sagde 'said' [s] =
Standard
Danish [s()], g 'go, walk' [o] = Standard
Danish [ ]. Map 2.2 shows the different
possible pronunciations for the standard Danish
mid, stressed vowels which is further explained in
the following table.
Std.
MVJ MJ SydJ SnJ SSles
Danis NJy NVJy
y
y
y
y
v
h
/i:/ (2
[ij]
Sylb)

[i:]

[i:]

[i:]

[i:]

[i:]

/y:/ (2
[yj] [y(j)] [y:]
Sylb)

[y:]

[y:]

[y:]

[y:]

/u:/ (2 [uw [u(w)

[u:]
Sylb) ]
]

[u:]

[u:]

[u:]

[u:]

/e:/

[i]

[i]

[e:]

[i]

[i:]

[i(j)]

[i]

[ej]

/:/

[y:] [y]

[j]

[y]

[y]

[:]

[y]

/o:/

[u:] [u]

[ow] [u]

[u]

[o:]

[u]

//

[e:] []

[]

[]

[]

[]

[e]

//

[o:] [o:]

[o:]

[o:]

[o:]

[]

[o]

//

[o:] []

[]

[]

[]

[]

[]

Outside of these diphthongs arising from changes

in pronunciation from standard Danish long
vowels, there are also the following diphthongs:
[ow], [w], [ej], [j] [w] [iw]/[yw], [ew]/[w] and
[w]/[w]. [ow] and [w] are both present in
Vends, NVJy and MVJy but only one occurs in
stjysk, SnJy and SydJy. There is a tendency
towards [w], but in MJy [ow] can be found
instead. The same sort of alternation is also seen
with [ej] and [j]. In MVJy, NJy and NVJy both
diphthongs exist. In MJy there is an alternation
between the two, but each speaker only has one.
In SydJy and SnJy only [j] is found. [w] is
present as a diphthong in all of Jutland with the
exception of the island of Fan (off of South
western Jutland), but has different pronunciations

depending on length of the segments. The

remaining diphthongs show a distribution based
on rounding. In the majority of Jutland the
unrounded diphthong is rounded. In South
Eastern Jutland the rounded one is unrounded
and only in certain parts of Snderjylland are both
diphthongs preserved. Map 2.7 shows the
rounding alternation for the front, close diphthong
[iw]/[yw]. An interesting phenomenon in West
SnJy and MVJy, NVJy as well as NJy is the socalled klusilspring. The klusilspring can be seen
as a modified std that only occurs on high
vowels (/i:/, /y:/, and /u:/). These long vowels are
shortened and then followed by a klusil, or
plosive, or in some cases a spirant. [8] (See
Map 2.1) In Vends (NJy) and west Snderjysk the
three pronunciations become: [itj], [ytj], and [uk]
and they have the same pronouciation but
followed by a schwa if not in the coda. An area in
NVJy designated on the map as Him-V has
instead [ikj], [ykj] and [uk] and in MVJy it is similar
with the /u:/ also containing a glide [ukw] and in
all three cases a schwa is inserted if it is not in
the coda of the syllable. The rest of NVJy along
the coast has the schwa as well but a fricative
instead of a stop, so the sounds are [i], [y], and
[u]. In the rest of the jysk dialects the vowel
quality is overall the same, with gliding in NVJy

(Han-V and Han-) on the map and only

unrounded front vowels in Djurs.
Std
As mentioned earlier, the klusilspring is an
alternate of the std that occurs only with high
vowels. In the other mainland Scandinavian
languages as well as SnJy, there are two
different tonemes which distinguish between
words that were originally one or two syllables.
Tone 1 is a simple rising then falling tone in most
dialects and tone 2 is more complex,
e.g. hus 'house'[hs] =
Standard
Danish [hus] ~ huse 'houses' [hs] = Standard
Danish [hus]. In standard Danish as well as
jysk, tone 1 is replaced with a nonsegmental
glottalization and tone 2 disappears entirely.
Glottalization can only occur on vowels or
sonorants and only in one or two-syllable words
and is realized in transcription as a [']. However,
in two-syllable words the second syllable must be
a derivational morpheme as the historical
environment of tone 1 was one-syllable words
and tone 2 only occurred on two-syllable words.
Due to apocope and the morphology, both tones
and the std can now be found on one- and twosyllable words. There can be multiple std
segments per word, if the word is a compound,

which separates its phonetically from the

tonemes of Swedish, Norwegian and Snderjysk,
which can only occur once over the whole word.
However, in contrast to the standard Danish std,
the jysk std does not usually occur in
monosyllabic words with a sonorant + voiceless
consonant. Only Djurs and the city dialect of
Aarhus have the std in this environment. As
mentioned before, most of north west Jutland
does not have a std after short high vowels, and
instead has the klusilspring. The std is still
present on sonorants and mid and low vowels in
the proper environment. Western jysk also has a
std on the vowel in originally two-syllable words
with a geminate voiceless consonant such as {tt},
{kk}, or {pp} e.g. katte 'cats' [kat] = Standard
Danish [kd]; ikke'not' [e(t)] =
Standard
Danish [e ].
Other phonological characteristics

Jysk also exhibits a strong tendency towards

apocope, i.e. skipping the e [] often found in
unstressed syllables, which is itself a
weakening of an original North Germanic -i, -a
or -u, which causes many words to be
distinguished based purely on vowel length or
the presence of the std. Most unstressed
syllables are dropped and in some cases final

segments, often {r} e.g. kaste 'throw' [kasd] =

Standard Danish [ksd] (Swedish [kasta]).
Jysk is further known for lacking the diphthong
in the first person nominative pronoun: jeg. It is
pronounced in the majority of Jutland as [] but
in SnJy and NVJy as []. The difference goes
back to different forms in Proto-Norse,
namely ek and eka, both found in early Runic
inscriptions. The latter form has a regular
breaking of e to ja before an a in the following
syllable. The short form, without breaking, is
also found in Norwegian, Faroese andIcelandic.
In
Northern
Jutlandic v is
a labiovelar
approximant before back
vowels (in
the
northernmost dialects also before front vowels),
whereas it is a Labiodental approximant in
Standard Danish, e.g. vaske 'wash' [was] =
Standard Danish [s ]. The same dialects
have voiceless variants of v and j in the initial
combinations hj and hv,
e.g. hvem 'who' [m] =
Standard
Danish [m], hjerte 'heart' [a d,
d] =
Standard Danish [ja d].
In most parts of Jutland, nd becomes [] (in the
northernmost dialects [] with or without
nasalisation), e.g. finde 'find' [fe] = Standard
Danish [fen].

Grammar

The distribution of one, two, and three

grammatical genders in Danish dialects. In
Zealand the transition from three to two genders
has happened fairly recently. West of the red line
the definite article goes before the word as in
English or German; east of the line it takes the
form of a suffix.
One of the hallmarks of the Scandinavian
languages is the postclitic definite marker. For
example: en mand 'a man', mand-en 'the man'. In
standard Danish this postclitic marker is only
used when there is no adjective present, but if
there is an adjective, a definite article is used
instead: den store mand 'the big man'. Further,
standard Danish has a two gender system,
distinguishing between the neuter (intetkn, -et)
and "other" (flleskn, -en) genders. In Jutland,
however, very few dialects match the standard in

these two aspects. There are dialects with one,

two and three genders, as well as dialects lacking
the postclitic definite marker entirely.
Gender
Originally the Scandinavian languages, like
modern German as well as Icelandic, had three
genders. These three genders, masculine,
feminine, and neuter are still present in many
dialects, notably most dialects of Norwegian.
However, in all standard versions of the mainland
Scandinavian languages, there are only two
genders (Norwegian has three genders, but in
Bokml one of two written standards feminine
nouns may be inflected like the masculine nouns,
making it possible to use only two genders). The
masculine and feminine fell together, taking the
feminine article and the neuter stayed separate.
Three genders remain in northern Jutland and far
in the east, which could potentially be explained
through dialect contact with both Norwegian and
Swedish dialects which preserve all three
genders. The loss of all gender distinction in the
west, though, is unique to Jysk.
3 Genders 2 Genders

1 Gender

Vends,
Djurs

Region

East
Jutland,
SnJy

West Jutland

masculine 'a
i(n) mand
man'
feminine
woman'

'a

n kone

common
gender
neuter
house'

n kone, n n kone, n
mand
mand, n hus
'a

t hus

t hus

Article
The definite marker is also not consistent in the
jysk dialects. In the west, where only one gender
is present, as well as all of SydJy and SnJy the
definite marker is a free morpheme that comes
before the noun. It is not, however, the same as
the free morpheme found in standard Danish
when an adjective precedes a noun. It is
phonetically realised as [].

West
and East
and
North
South Jutland Jutland, Standard
masculine 'the
mand
man'

manden

neuter
house'

'the

hus

huset

feminine
woman'

'the

kone

konen

plural 'the men' mnd

mndene

There are also small areas in Jutland where

predicate adjectives as well as adjectives in
indefinite noun phrases have gender congruence
in the neuter form. In SSlesv, easternmost Djurs
and on the island of Sams, adjectives take a -t
ending which patterns with standard Danish: for
example, et grnt glas and glasset er grnt. [t
gnt glas; glas.t gnt] 'a green glass; the
glass is green' In Vends (NJy) there is no
congruence on adjectives in indefinite noun
phrases, but the -t is still present in predicate
adjectives. The variability in the examples also

reflects differences between number of genders,

postclitic versus enclitic article and apocope. [
gn' glas; glast gnt] (same gloss) In the
rest of Jutland, as a result of apocope, the -t
disappears completely. [ t (n) gn' glas;
glas.(t) ( glas) gn'] (same gloss)
Semantics
The presence of a separate free morpheme
definite marker in the western Jysk dialects []
has come to cause a contrastive semantic
meaning difference with the standard Danish
dem. Nouns that can be analyzed as mass
nouns, as opposed to count nouns can take the
[] article before an adjective. If the noun is,
however, meant to be a count noun it uses the
standard Danish plural article dem. An example
of this would be dem sm kartofler versus sm
kartofler 'the
small
potatoes'. dem
sm
kartofler refers to the small potatoes in a set, i.e.
those 5 small potatoes on the table. sm
kartofler refers instead to a mass noun, meaning
potatoes that are generally small. It is like saying
"the yellow potatoes" in English. It can either
mean yellow potatoes as a whole, a mass noun
or the yellow potatoes sitting on the table, as
opposed to the red ones.

There is also a tendency to use hans or hendes

instead of the "correct" sin when referring to the
subject of the sentence. This means there is no
longer a distinction between whether the
possessive pronoun refers to the subject of the
sentence or a third person, however, use of a
word like egen/t 'own' can paraphrastically
accomplish the same thing.
Han ser sin
Standard hund 'He sees
Danish his
(own)
dog'

Han ser hans

hund 'He sees
his (another
person's) dog'

Hans
hund
ser ham 'His
dog sees him'
(ambiguous)

Han ser hans

hund 'He sees
his
dog'
(ambiguous)

Han ser hans

hund 'He sees
his
dog'
(ambiguous)

Hans
hund
ser ham 'His
dog sees him'
(ambiguous)

Jysk

Jutlandic regiolects
Sociolinguistic
Today the old dialects, tied as they were to the
rural districts, are yielding to new regional
standards based on Standard Danish. Several
factors have contributed to this process: The
dialects especially in the northernmost,
western and southern regions are often hard to

understand for people originating outside Jutland.

The dialects enjoy little prestige both nationally
(the population of Zealand like to believe that the
Jutlanders are slower not only in speech, but also
in thought) and regionally (the dialect is
associated with rural life). The Danish cultural,
media and business life is centered around
Copenhagen, and Jutland has only in recent
decades seen substantial economic growth.
Through the 20th century dialects were usually
suppressed by media, state institutions and
schools. In recent decades a more liberal attitude
towards dialects has emerged, but since the
number of speakers has decreased, and almost
all of the remaining dialect speakers master a
regional form of Standard Danish as well, dialects
are now rather being ignored.
Descriptions
The new Jutlandic "regiolects" are identical to the
Copenhagen variety in most aspects and differs
from it primarily with a distinct accent. Typical
features are:
1. a higher tendency of apocope of
unstressed [] (cf. above).
2. a higher pitch towards the end of a stressed
syllable.

3. a slightly different distribution of std,

e.g. vej 'way' [a] =
Standard
Danish [a];hammer 'hammer' [hm] =
Standard Danish [hm].
4. the
ending -et (definite article or passive
participle) is pronounced [-()d] instead of [], e.g. hented 'fetched' [hndd] = Standard
Danish [hnd]; meget 'very, much' [mad]=
Standard Danish [ma, m]
5. postvocalic d is
pronounced [] or,
before i, [d] in certain varieties of the
regiolect, e.g.bade 'bath' [b] = Standard
Danish b], stadig 'still' [sddi] =
Standard Danish[sdi]. This pronunciation
is not favoured by the younger speakers.
6. or is
pronounced [] in
words
where
Standard
Danish
has [o ] (in
closed
syllables), e.g.torn 'thorn' [tn] = Standard
Danish [to n]. On the other hand, one also
hearshypercorrect pronunciations
like trn 'tower' [to n] =
Standard
Danish [tn].
7. the strong
verbs have -en in
the past
participle, not only in adjectival use (as in
Standard Danish), but also in the
compound perfect, e.g. han har funden =

SD han har fundet den. These forms belong

to the low register of the Jutlandic regiolects.
8. a frequent use of hans, hendes 'his, her'
instead of the reflexive pronoun sin when
referring to the subject of the sentence,
e.g. han kyssede hans kone 'he kissed his
wife' = Standard Danish han kyssede sin
kone (the other sentence would mean that he
kissed somebody else's wife).
9. a
lack
of
distinction
between transitive and intransitive forms
of
certain related verbs likeligge ~ lgge 'lie,
lay', e.g. han lagde i sengen 'he lay in the
bed'
=
Standard
Danish han
l
i
sengen (eastern speakers don't distinguish
the present and the infinitive of these verbs
either).
10. remnants of a regional vocabulary; in
Eastern
Jutland
these
words
include trls [tls]'annoying'
(~
SD irriterende [i( )te n]), og [] 'too'
(~
SD ogs [s]), ikke og [e ]or, in higher
style, ikke ogs [e s] 'isn't it' (~ SD ikke,
ikke sandt [e (), e snd]).