MovieChat Forums > Wallander (2005) Discussion > Swedish dialect and accent features in W...

Swedish dialect and accent features in Wallander?

posted 14 years ago by lucinda-19
4 replies | jump to latest

I wondered if the Swedish dialect and accent features used by speakers in Wallander were especially distinctive to speakers from other areas of Sweden? I'm no expert on Swedish, but I'm interested in western European languages, having learnt a few.

My impression was that Danish could sound a bit slurred and indistinct to foreigners' ears, having been told this by a Norwegian speaker. I know that Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are NOT interchangeable, but that there are SOME similarities between them - especially Danish and Norwegian. I wondered if the Swedish varieties spoken in Wallander were influenced by the proximity of Denmark, as Ystad is in southern Sweden. I'd be really interested to hear about this. Mange tack!

[–] czechhero 14 years ago

I can try to find out for you Lucinda.

I am currently attending evening classes in Swedish here in London and can ask my tutor,assuming that she has seen the series. I'm sure she'll be able to tell me anyway.

If I am able to get a definitive answer, I'll post it here.

[–] akerman 14 years ago

The Swedish spoken in the Ystad area (and other parts of Scania) does have some similarities to Danish and can indeed be perceived as "slurred and indistinct" by some Swedish-speakers rarely exposed to the accent. These days, the dialect spoken by most people in Scania is close to standard Swedish and only retains a few regional differences, but natives of the region almost exclusively speak with a relatively pronounced accent that shares some features with Danish.

However, hardly any of the actors in the Wallander series are from Ystad or the Scania region and only a few extras speak with a local accent. I would not be surprised if there are several episodes where not a single word is uttered with a Scanian accent.

[–] annathedub 13 years ago

However, hardly any of the actors in the Wallander series are from Ystad or the Scania region and only a few extras speak with a local accent. I would not be surprised if there are several episodes where not a single word is uttered with a Scanian accent.

--------------------------

A Swedish friend told me the same, he said that most of the accents of the Wallander actors are Stockholm, with a few from Malmo.

[–] ppstegman 13 years ago

Definitely! In one of the episodes a female specialist has come over from Skane and you can really check out that her Swedish sounds very different from the rest, almost like Danish.