Page:A simplified grammar of the Swedish language.djvu/24

6 orthography wherever the root of the word pointed to an Old Northern derivation that warranted the adoption of this form of the vowel a. Thus while one writer gives tjenare, another will give tjänare, 'servant.' In older Swedish MSS. of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the ä (or æ) is found in all words in which the vowel has the sound of a long e, as äftär, 'after,' which is now written efter, and the object aimed at in this, as in other proposed changes of spelling, is to revert—as already observed—as far as circumstances admit, to the use of the letter which best represents the vowel-sound of the Old Northern. Similarly, it is proposed to exchange o for å, where the short sound of the latter has led to a deviation from the older Northern form, as in boll used for the more correct båll, 'ball.'

The vowel-sounds differ so widely with the varying degrees of stress and accentuation on the word, that a prolonged acquaintance with the spoken speech is absolutely necessary to enable a foreigner to know when the vowel should be long or short.

It must, moreover, be borne in mind that intonation, apart from the length or shortness of the vowel, constitutes an important element in the pronunciation of Swedish. According to Mr. Henry Sweet, who is one of the highest authorities on the sounds and intonation of spoken Swedish, there is in every word a simple and a compound tone. The simple tone he characterizes as "a rising modulation, as in asking a question in English," while in the compound tone he recognizes "a falling tone (as in answering a question) on the stress-syllable with an upward leap of the voice,