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it sounds like tthe normal speed play pronounces "SHvenska". but the slow play pronounces "svenska". so, is this possibly a dialect difference in pronunciation?
It’s because of the -r in ”talar”. The letter combination <rs> is in most Swedish dialects pronounced roughly as the English sh-sound. Listen to this recording of personlig for example. In rapid/fluent speech, this also happens across word boundaries, so that ”talar svenska” is pronounced ”tala shvenska”.
That phrase probably explains why in Russian the first sound in such words as Sweden, Swedish, Swedes etc. is "sh", not "s".
I’m sure that has to do with a phonological rule in Russian, rather than in Swedish. It’s also Schweden in German for example, because ”sw-” does not exist in German.
Then I think it came from German into Russian, since in Russian sw is possible. By the way, in old Russian another word was used, which sounds as 'svey' - a Swede
According to Wiktionary Швеция stems from the Medival Latin word Suecia. Also, while I agree "Schw-" seems much more natural in German, there are borrowed words like Swahili and Swastika which kept their original "Sw-" sound.
Exactly, im from Hungary, and we dont capitalize the names of languages.
Don't you have to write languages with a capital letter? So Svenska instead of svenska?
Nope. Nationalities and languages do not take capital letters in Swedish.
