The Yngling and the Circle of Power



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PRONUNCIATION GUIDE FOR NEOVIKING NAMES AND
WORDS

For those who are interested, here are descriptions of how
Neoviking words and names are pronounced. There are dialectal
irregularities, particularly between tribes, but taking the
Scandinavian peninsula as a whole, those irregularities are
modest.

Consonants—Most of the consonants are
pronounced more or less as in Anglic, with the following
exceptions: The letter G is almost always pronounced hard, as in
go; the exceptions to this can be ignored here. J is
pronounced like the y in yes. If you wish to go a
step further in refinment, R is trilled in stressed
syllables, but not in unstressed.

In most dialects, the two-letter consonant kj is
pronounced like the ch in “chair,” and we
recommend this. In other dialects it is pronounced as sh,
or intermediate between ch and sh. The sound
of another two-letter consonant, sj, is more difficult to
describe. For simplicity, we recommend that you pronounce it like
sh. Actually, in some Jytska dialects it is pronounced
somewhat like wh, but with the lips more or less
compressed, giving the wh somewhat the sound of
fwh. The other dialects vary somewhat, pronouncing
sj more or less like the familiar Anglic sh, but
mostly with the lips more rounded and the tongue-tip raised.

Vowels—The following are approximations:
A is pronounced aw or ah, depending on
the letters which follow, and varying with the dialect, but
aw more often than ah. The pronunciation of
e resembles ay in “pay,” or the
e in “yet,” but ay more often than
not. I is pronounced ee or ih, but
ee more often than not. O is pronounced like
oo in “boot,” or (more or less) as short
oh, but oo more often than not. U is
pronounced rather like “yew,” or as similar to the
u in “put,” but “yew” more often
than not. Y is always a vowel, and can be approximated by saying
ee with the lips rounded. Å is pronounced as
“oh.” Ä is rather like the ai in
“air,” or sometimes as eh. The doubled vowel
ad is simply a longer a, rather like ai
in a drawled “air,” the second a marking the
dropping of a soft r in older Scandinavian, and is found
before a v and sometimes before an n. Ö and Ø are
pronounced rather like the ur in “fur,” but
with the r only suggested, not fully sounded.

There are no diphthongs in the Neoviking dialects, except for
ei (pronounced “eye”) and au
(pronounced “ow’) in some proper nouns.

Thus “lagman” is pronounced “lawg-mahn”;
“Isbjørn” is “ees-byurn ; and
“Järnhann” is “Yairn-hahn.”

If one wishes, of course, one can go further than the above in
approaching actual Neoviking pronunciations. For example, the
sounds tend to be articulated with lips and tongue-tip, rather than
farther back in the mouth, and usually the stress is on the first
syllable.

In 29th century Neoviking, all the dialects are tonal. In some
the tonality is moderate. In others it is as extreme as in the
dialects—the so-called sjungande svenska, “singing
Swedish”—spoken on the Ostrobothnian coast during the
technological era. Unfortunately, tonality can only be learned by
listening.



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