Norwegian and Swedish except Finland-Swedish are among the few modern European languages which have a melodic accent, even though we presume that the Indo-European proto-language was melodically accented. Others are Lithuanian and Serbo-Croatian.
Scandinavian languages (Norwegian and Swedish)
The way this melodic accent is expressed varies quite a lot between different dialects of the language, but the dichotomy exists everywhere. It's important for differentiating words that are identically spelled, but derived from different roots.
Words with one syllable, words stressed on the end, and short words with an unstressed suffix, usually have what could be called "one syllable accent". It's rarely marked, but then by acute accent. Words derived from the two-syllable roots usually have an almost equal stress on both syllables - a "two syllable accent". For example, in Swedish, and·en pronounced with the one-syllable accent means "the duck", while ande·n with the two syllable accent means "the spirit/soul".
English speakers can replicate the one and two-syllable accent by listening to how they pronounce the two versions of wetsuit in this sentence: "It wasn't a wetsuit, it was a wet suit!".
In South Swedish dialects the "one-syllable accent" is expressed as a falling tone of voice on the first syllable, while the "two-syllable accent" is expressed as a rise and a fall of the tone on the first syllable.
Questions are expressed by using a rising tone on the second syllable.
In most Danish dialects (and some Scanian too) this melody accent has been replaced by a glottal stop (stød) in place of the "one-syllable accents".
See also
