Episode 53

This week, bass Ketil Hugaas talks us through the consonants and consonant clusters in Norwegian, through two songs by Edvard Grieg, "Sang til juletræet" and "En svane". The retroflex phonetic symbols that we talk about are RD [ɖ ], RL [ɭ], RN [ɳ] , RS [ʂ] and RT [ʈ], all with tails flaring off to the right. We also come across NG [ŋ] and GN [ŋn] as well as KJ and TJ [ç] (which I want to research more!). "Sang til juletræet" is a Christmas song, with a text by Johan Krohn. The text was also published set to a folk melody in the Norwegian First  Reading Book for Elementary School back in 1892. "En svane" is a poem by Henrik Ibsen, one of the founders of modernism in theater. There are many recordings of En svane--on YouTube, I found Håkan Hagegård and Warren Jones and a live performance of Jussi Björling with Frederick Schauwecker along with many others. As always, please feel free to contact me with questions, comments or suggestions here, at the Facebook page, on Twitter (@dictionpolice) or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com