 Swedish dialects have either 17 or 18 vowel phonemes , 9 long and 9 short . As in the other Germanic languages , including English , most long vowels are phonetically paired with one of the short vowels , and the pairs are such that the two vowels are of similar quality , but with the short vowel being slightly lower and slightly centralized . In most dialects , the short vowel sound pronounced [ ɛ ] or [ æ ] has merged with the short / e / ( transcribed 〈 ɛ 〉 in the chart below ) . 
