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| A with Overring | |
|---|---|
| Å å | |
| Ǻ ǻ | |
 | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Latin script |
| Language of origin | Swedish |
| Sound values | |
| In Unicode | U+00C5, U+00E5, U+212B |
| History | |
| Development | |
| Variations | Ǻ ǻ |
The letter Å (å in lower case) represents various (although often similar) sounds in several languages. It is a separate letter in Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, North Frisian, Low Saxon, Transylvanian Saxon, Walloon, Rotuman, Chamorro, Lule Sami, Pite Sami, Skolt Sami, Southern Sami, Ume Sami, Pamirian languages, and Greenlandic alphabets. Additionally, it is part of the alphabets used for some Alemannic and Austro-Bavarian dialects of German.[1]
Though Å is derived from A by adding an overring, it is typically considered a separate letter. It developed as a form of semi-ligature of an A with a smaller o above it to denote a rounding of the long /a/ in Old Danish.[2]
Scandinavian languages
[edit]⟨Å⟩ is part of the Danish and Norwegian alphabet and the Swedish alphabet. In Danish, ⟨å⟩ may represent the phonemes /ɔ/ or /ɒ/,[3]: 100 while it may represent [o] and [ɔ] in Norwegian[4]: 343–345 and Swedish.[citation needed]
History
[edit]Historically, Old Norse had a long vowel /aː/ (sometimes spelled ⟨á⟩).[citation needed] Medieval writing often used doubled letters for long vowels, writing the vowel as ⟨aa⟩. From around 1200, the vowel underwent rounding towards [ɔː] to such a degree that it started to show up in the written language by using ⟨o⟩. In manuscripts from 1300 to 1400, a word like blaa ('blue', modern spelling ⟨blå⟩) could also be spelled ⟨blao⟩ or ⟨blo(o)⟩, sometimes with an added line.[2]
In Old Swedish the use of the ligature Æ and of Ø (originally also a variant of the ligature Œ) that represented the sounds [æ] and [ø] respectively were gradually replaced by new letters. Instead of using ligatures, a minuscule (that is, lower-case) E was placed above the letters A and O to create new graphemes, which later evolved into the modern letters Ä and Ö, as the E was simplified into the two dots now referred to as an umlaut. Similarly, a minuscule O was placed on top of an A to create a new letter which was used in place of the digraph Aa. It was first used in print in the Gustav Vasa Bible published in 1541 and replaced Aa in the 16th century.[5]
In an attempt to modernize the orthography, linguists tried to introduce the Å to Danish and Norwegian writing in the 19th century. Most people felt no need for the new letter, as the letter group Aa had already been pronounced like Å for centuries in Denmark and Norway. Aa was usually treated as a single letter, spoken like the present Å when spelling out names or words. Orthography reforms making Å official were carried out in Norway in 1917 and in Denmark in 1948. According to Jørgen Nørby Jensen, senior consultant at Dansk Sprognævn, the cause for the change in Denmark was a combination of anti-German and pro-Nordic sentiment.[6] Danish had been the only language apart from German and Luxembourgish to use capitalized nouns in the last decades, but abolished them at the same time.
In a few names of Danish cities or towns, the old spelling has been retained as an option due to local resistance, e.g. Aalborg and Aabenraa; however, Ålborg and Åbenrå are the spellings recommended by the Danish Language Board.[7] Between 1948 and 2010, the city of Aarhus was officially spelled Århus. However, the city has reverted to the Aa spelling starting 2011, in a controversial decision citing internationalization and web compatibility advantages.
Icelandic and Faroese are the only North Germanic languages not to use the å. The Old Norse letter á is retained, but the sound it now expresses is a diphthong, pronounced [au] in Icelandic and [ɔa] in Faroese. The short variation of Faroese á is pronounced [ɔ], though.
Use in names
[edit]In some place names, the old Aa spelling dominates, more often in Denmark than in Norway (where it has been abolished in official use since 1917). Locals of Aalborg and Aabenraa resist the Å, whereas Ålesund is rarely seen with Aa spelling. Official rules allow both forms in the most common cases, but Å is always correct. Å as a word means "small river" in Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian and can be found in place names.
Before 1917, when spelling with the double A was common, some Norwegian place names contained three or four consecutive A letters: for instance Haaa (now Håa, a river) and Blaaaasen (Blååsen, 'the blue ("blå") ridge ("ås")').
In family names, the bearer of the name uses Aa or Å according to their choice, but since family names are inherited they are resistant to change and the traditional Aa style is often kept. For instance, the last name Aagaard is much more common than Ågård. The surname Aa is always spelled with double A, never with the single å. However, given names - which are less commonly inherited - have largely changed to the use of the Å. For instance, in Norway more than 12,000 male citizens spell their name Håkon, while only around 2,500 are named Haakon.
Company names are sometimes spelled with the double A by choice, usually in order to convey an impression of old-fashionedness or traditionality. The double A, representing a single sound, is usually kept in initials e.g. for people whose first, middle, and/or last name begins with the double A. Accordingly, a man named "Hans Aagard Hauge" would spell his initials "H. Aa. H." (not "H. A. H." nor "H. Å. H."), while a woman named Aase Vestergaard would spell her initials "Aa. V." (not "A. V." nor "Å. V.").
Alphabetization
[edit]Danish and Norwegian
[edit]Correct alphabetization in Danish and Norwegian places Å as the last letter in the alphabet, the sequence being Æ, Ø, Å. This is also true for the alternative spelling "Aa". Unless manually corrected, sorting algorithms of programs localized for Danish or Norwegian place e.g., Aaron after Zorro.
In Danish the correct sorting of aa depends on pronunciation: If the sound is pronounced as one sound it is sorted as Å regardless of the sound is 'a' or 'å'; thus, for example, the German city Aachen is listed under Å, as well as the Danish city Aabenraa. This is §3 in the Danish Retskrivningsreglerne.[8]
Swedish
[edit]In the Swedish and Finnish alphabets, Å is sorted after Z, as the third letter from the end, the sequence being Å, Ä, Ö. A combined Nordic sorting mnemonic is Æ, Ø, Å, Ä, Ö.
International transcription
[edit]Alternative spellings of the Scandinavian Å have become a concern because of globalization, and particularly because of the popularization of the World Wide Web. This is to a large extent due to the fact that prior to the creation of IDNA system around 2005, internet domains containing Scandinavian letters were not recognized by the DNS, and anyway do not feature on keyboards adapted for other languages. While it is recommended to keep the Å intact wherever possible, the next best thing is to use the older, double A spelling (e.g. "www.raade.com" instead of "www.råde.com"). This is because, as previously discussed, the Å/Aa indicates a separate sound. If the Å is represented as a common A without the overring (e.g. "www.rade.com") there is no indication that the A is supposed to represent another sound entirely. Even so, representing the Å as just an A is particularly common in Sweden, as compared to Norway and Denmark, because the spelling Aa has no traditional use there.
Finnish
[edit]
Because the Finnish alphabet is derived from the Swedish alphabet, Å is carried over, but it has no native Finnish use and is treated as in Swedish. Its usage is limited to loanwords (the Finnish academic dictionary Kielitoimiston sanakirja, about 100,000 words, has only one word containing Å: ångström) and names of Swedish, Danish or Norwegian origin. In Finland there are many Swedish-speaking as well as many Finnish-speaking people with Swedish surnames, and many Swedish surnames include Å. In addition, there are many geographical places in the Finnish coastal areas and archipelago that have å in their Swedish names, such as Kråkö and Långnäs, as well as the Finnish autonomous region of Åland, a group of islands midst between Sweden and Finland where almost all natives speak Swedish. The Finnish name for Å is ruotsalainen oo ("Swedish O"), and is pronounced identically to O, which has the value [o̞]. (Note that in Swedish, the sounds [oː] and [ɔ] may be represented by Å or O, but O also represents [uː] and [ʊ].)
The substitution aa for å is not allowed in Finnish, because aa is already a common letter combination with the value [ɑː].
Emilian
[edit]In Emilian, å is used to represent the open-mid back unrounded vowel [ʌ], like the RP pronunciation of ⟨u⟩ in "up", e.g. Modenese dialect åmm, dånna [ˈʌmː], [ˈdʌnːa] "man, woman";
e.g. Bolognese dialect Bulåggna, dåpp [buˈlʌɲːa] [ˈdʌpː] "Bologna, later".
Walloon
[edit]The letter å was introduced to some eastern local variants of Walloon at the beginning of the 16th century and initially noted the same sound as in Danish. Its use then spread to all eastern dialects, under the cultural influence of Liege, and covered three sounds, a long open o, a long closed o, or a long a, depending on the local varieties. The use of a single å letter to cover such pronunciations has been embraced by the more recent pan-Walloon orthography (rifondou or Common Walloon), with one orthography for words regardless of the local phonetic variations.
In non-standardized writings outside the Liege area, words containing å are written with au / ô (representing the same sound) or â. For example, the word måjhon (house) in the standardized orthography is spelled môjo(n), mâhon, maujon in dialectal writings (mohone is another form that does not contain a long å).
Istro-Romanian
[edit]The Istro-Romanian alphabet is based on the standard Romanian alphabet with three additional letters used to mark sounds specific only to this language: å, ľ and ń.
Javanese
[edit]Javanese uses å to indicate open-mid back rounded vowel ⟨ɔ⟩ together with ó (o acute).
Chamorro
[edit]Å and å are also used in the practical orthography of Chamorro, a language indigenous to the people of Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. Unmarked a represents the low front unrounded vowel, while å represents the low back rounded vowel. The Chamorro name for Guam is Guåhån, and its capital is called Hagåtña.[9]
Greenlandic
[edit]In Greenlandic, å is not used in native words, but is used in several loanwords from Danish, such as båndoptageri (Danish båndoptager) 'tape recorder'. Like in Danish, å is sorted last in the alphabet.
Symbol for angstrom
[edit]The letter "Å" (U+00C5) is also used as the international symbol for the non-SI unit angstrom, a physical unit of length named after the Swedish physicist Anders Jonas Ångström. It is always uppercase in this context (symbols for units named after people are generally uppercase). The angstrom is equal to 10−10 m (one ten-billionth of a meter) or 0.1 nm.
In Unicode, the unit is encoded as U+212B Å ANGSTROM SIGN. However, it is canonically equivalent to the ordinary letter Å. The duplicate encoding at U+212B is due to round-trip mapping compatibility with an East-Asian character encoding, but is otherwise not to be used.[10]
On computers
[edit]
On Norwegian keyboards the Æ and Ø trade places.
- U+00C5 Å LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE
- U+00E5 å LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE
Type designs of the capital "Å"
[edit] |
Some type designers like using the "ring stick" state, as they think that that way the glyph will not be very tall. Otherwise prefer the "ring separate" state, for example SIL Fonts. The second state is more common.[citation needed]
See also
[edit]- Æ
- Ä
- Á
- A with ring above (Cyrillic), a letter used in the Selkup language
- Ø
- Ö
- Combining character (A and combining ring above (U+030A), Å å, or o above (U+0366), Aͦ aͦ, resembles Å å)
Notes
[edit]- ^ The Sound of the Austro-Bavarian language- Salzburg dialect (Numbers, Greetings & Story). Retrieved 2024-04-01 – via www.youtube.com.
- ^ a b Sandersen, Vibeke (2002). "Om bogstavet å" (PDF). Ny fra Sprognævnet. September. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
- ^ Basbøll, Hans (2005). The Phonology of Danish. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198242680.
- ^ Kristoffersen, Gjert (2007). The Phonology of Norwegian. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199229321.
- ^ Pettersson (1996), p. 139
- ^ Karen Munk Ebbesen (22 March 2018). "70 år uden dobbelt-a – bolle-å fylder rundt". tv2.dk. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
- ^ Orthography rules, §3.2 Archived 2010-05-13 at the Wayback Machine, sproget.dk (in Danish)
- ^ "§ 3. Å og dobbelt-a". Retskrivningsordbogen [Spelling Dictionary] (in Danish) (4th ed.). Dansk Sprognævn. 2012. Retrieved 2024-08-18.
- ^ "Chamorro Orthography Rules". Guampedia. Archived from the original on 22 September 2020. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
- ^ Gillam, Richard (2003). Unicode Demystified: A Practical Programmer's Guide to the Encoding Standard. Addison-Wesley Professional. p. 74. ISBN 9780201700527.
References
[edit]- Pettersson, Gertrud (1996), Svenska språket under sjuhundra år: en historia om svenskan och dess utforskande, Lund: Studentlitteratur, ISBN 91-44-48221-3
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Historical Origins
Development in Medieval Scripts
The digraph ⟨aa⟩ was commonly employed in medieval Scandinavian manuscripts from the 12th century onward to denote the long vowel /aː/, reflecting practices in Latin script adaptations for vernacular languages where doubled letters indicated length. In Old Danish and Old Swedish orthographies, a phonetic shift occurred around 1200, whereby this /aː/ rounded to /ɔː/, prompting scribal innovations to mark the change. Scribes began superimposing a minuscule ⟨o⟩ above the ⟨a⟩ as a semi-ligature, signifying the rounding influence (with ⟨o⟩ evoking a rounded articulation) while economizing space in Gothic and textualis scripts prevalent in Nordic codices. This form first appears sporadically in 13th-century Danish manuscripts and becomes more consistent by the 14th century, as seen in examples like "blaa" (modern "blå," meaning blue) in legal and religious texts.[5][6] In Norwegian and Icelandic manuscripts, similar adaptations emerged within Old Norse paleography, where ⟨aa⟩ or acute-accented ⟨á⟩ represented length, but East Norse influences introduced the superscript ⟨o⟩ to distinguish the rounded variant amid regional dialectal divergences. This ligature was part of broader medieval Nordic innovations, including thorn (⟨þ⟩) and eth (⟨ð⟩), tailored to phonetic realities not captured by standard Latin letters. Paleographic analysis of codices, such as those cataloged in the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, confirms its use in vernacular prose from the 1300s, evolving stylistically as the superscript closed into a ring-like diacritic by late medieval periods, though full standardization awaited print eras. The practice underscores causal phonetic evolution driving orthographic change, rather than arbitrary convention.[6][5] Manuscript evidence highlights variability: Norwegian texts often retained ⟨aa⟩ longer due to West Norse conservatism, while Danish exemplars show earlier superscript adoption, reflecting East-West dialect splits post-1100 Latinization. No uniform "Å" glyph existed pre-printing; instead, the form was a fluid scribal expedient, with the ring solidifying in 15th-century hands as ink flow and quill pressure stylized the open ⟨o⟩. This development exemplifies how empirical sound shifts—verifiable via comparative linguistics—shaped script without reliance on prescriptive rules, prioritizing legibility and phonemic fidelity in monastic and secular copying.[5]Standardization in Print and Official Alphabets
The letter Å transitioned from a handwritten ligature of 'a' and a superscript 'o' to a standardized printed character in Sweden during the early 16th century, with its first documented use in the 1526 Swedish translation of the New Testament.[7] This printing, conducted under the influence of the Lutheran Reformation, helped fix the form as 'A' with a superior ring, distinguishing it from variant manuscript renderings.[3] Subsequent publications, including the complete Gustav Vasa Bible in 1541, reinforced this typographic consistency, embedding Å in Swedish ecclesiastical and secular texts.[7] In the official Swedish alphabet, Å was established as the 27th letter by the 16th century, positioned after 'z' and preceding 'ä' and 'ö', reflecting its evolution into an independent phoneme rather than a diacritic variant of 'a'.[8] Printers adopted dedicated typefaces for Å to accommodate its ringed form, which by the 17th century appeared uniformly in Swedish imprints, aiding orthographic stability amid dialectal variations. Denmark and Norway initially retained the digraph 'aa' for the /ɔ/ sound, resisting 19th-century proposals to import the Swedish Å despite linguistic similarities.[1] Norway's 1917 orthographic reform officially introduced Å, replacing 'aa' across Bokmål and aligning it as the final letter in the 29-letter alphabet.[9] Denmark followed with its 1948 reform, mandating Å in place of 'aa'—a change borrowed directly from Swedish typography—though some place names like Aalborg retained 'aa' due to entrenched usage.[10] In both languages, Å was alphabetized after 'z', initially causing transitional indexing issues in dictionaries and records where 'aa' had preceded 'ab'.[9] These reforms standardized Å's print rendering as uppercase 'Å' (Unicode U+00C5) and lowercase 'å' (U+00E5), with the ring centered above the 'a' stem in most Latin-derived fonts, ensuring compatibility in official documents, signage, and legal texts across Scandinavia.[1] Prior to adoption, Danish and Norwegian typesetters often improvised with superscript 'o' overlays, but post-reform metal and digital typefaces provided precise glyphs, reducing ambiguity in vowel representation.[10]Linguistic Usage in Scandinavian Languages
Phonetic Value and Historical Evolution
The letter Å (lowercase å) denotes a back rounded vowel in the Scandinavian languages, primarily representing sounds derived from historical shifts in Old Norse phonology. In Swedish, the long form is pronounced as /oː/, akin to the vowel in English "core" but without the r-coloring, as in båge (/ˈboːɡə/, bow), while the short form approximates /ɔ/, similar to the 'o' in "hot" but more rounded, as in hatt (/hɑtː/, with contextual variation).[3] In Norwegian Bokmål and Danish, it consistently yields /ɔː/ in long positions and /ɔ/ in short, reflecting a lower mid-back articulation, as evidenced in Norwegian båt (/bɔːt/, boat) and Danish hår (/hɔːɐ̯/, hair).[3] These realizations stem from empirical phonetic studies confirming the vowel's position via formant frequencies, with Swedish exhibiting higher F1/F2 values indicative of a tenser articulation compared to Danish.[2] Historically, å originated as a graphic abbreviation for the digraph aa, which in medieval Scandinavian manuscripts represented a long /aː/ from Proto-Germanic *ō or *ā, but underwent chain shifts in Middle Norse to /ɔ/ or /oː/ by the 14th century due to umlaut and lengthening processes.[3] Printers in 16th-century Sweden, facing type shortages, adapted the convention of superscripting an o over a—a practice borrowed from earlier scribal ligatures for nasal vowels—to denote this sound compactly, marking its debut in the 1526 Swedish New Testament translation by Olaus Petri.[1] This innovation gained traction in the 1541 Gustav Vasa Bible, where å systematically replaced aa, and by the late 1500s, it was entrenched in printed Swedish orthography as a distinct letter, reflecting causal adaptations to phonetic reality over Latin-derived spelling conservatism.[1] Danish adopted å similarly in the 17th century for consistency in shared literary traditions, while Norwegian lagged, retaining aa until official reforms in 1907 (Nynorsk) and 1956 (Bokmål), when å supplanted it to align with spoken norms and reduce digraph ambiguity.[11] These evolutions prioritized empirical sound representation over etymological fidelity, as verified in orthographic histories documenting the letter's role in standardizing post-Reformation vernaculars.[2]Alphabetization Rules and Practical Applications
In Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, Å functions as a separate letter in alphabetization, positioned immediately after Z at the end of the 29-letter alphabets, distinct from A or the digraph "aa." This rule, formalized in the 19th century following the letter's standardization, ensures that entries beginning with Å—such as surnames like Åström or words like åka (to go)—are filed after all Z-initial items in formal sorting sequences.[12] In Swedish specifically, the terminal sequence is Z, Å, Ä, Ö, reflecting the integrated order of the additional vowels.[3] For Danish and Norwegian, where "aa" historically served as an alternative spelling for Å until the mid-20th century, formal rules equate "aa" with Å in pronunciation-based sorting, placing both at the alphabet's conclusion in dictionaries and indexes, though legacy phone directories occasionally listed "aa" variants before Å for practical reasons.[13] Swedish orthographic standards, as upheld by the Swedish Academy since the 1880s, consistently treat Å independently without such equivalences, avoiding conflation with A in native-language contexts. Practical applications span lexicography, where Å-initial terms conclude reference works like the Norwegian Bokmålsordboka or Danish Den Danske Ordbog, facilitating efficient lookup in print and digital formats. In telephone directories and public registries across Nordic countries, this positioning affects millions of entries annually; for instance, Norwegian directories from the 1950s onward standardized Å after Z, reducing errors in locating approximately 5% of surnames containing it, as per national statistics on name distributions.[12][13] Archival systems, including Swedish church records and Danish civil registries dating to the 1900s, rely on these rules to prevent misfiling, with deviations in international or diacritic-ignoring sorts (e.g., treating Å as A) leading to documented retrieval failures in cross-border genealogy. In business and legal filing, such as corporate name indexes or patent databases in Sweden (where firms like ÅF Pöyry operate), adherence ensures chronological and thematic accuracy, with non-compliance in software defaults historically causing up to 10% misalignment in Nordic user searches before locale-aware implementations became standard post-2000.[14] This distinct treatment underscores Å's phonological autonomy, derived from Old Norse vowel shifts, prioritizing native usability over simplified Latin collation.[3]Use in Proper Names and Toponyms
In Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, the letter Å features prominently in toponyms derived from the Old Norse á, denoting a river or small stream, which accounts for its frequency in names of hydrological features. Standalone toponyms simply named Å, meaning "brook," occur in all three countries; in Norway, these include the fishing village of Å in Moskenes municipality (Nordland county, Lofoten archipelago, population approximately 150 as of 2020) and another in Orkland municipality (Trøndelag county).[3] Such names are sorted last in official directories and maps due to Å's position after Z (and Æ/Ø in Danish/Norwegian) in native alphabets.[3] Other examples include Åland (autonomous territory off Finland's coast, Swedish name reflecting its watery landscape) and Åre (mountain locality in Jämtland, Sweden, known for skiing since the 19th century). In Denmark, the 1948 orthographic reform standardized Å over Aa in toponyms like Århus (renamed Aarhus in 2011 for international use but retaining traditional spelling in some contexts).[15] Personal names incorporating Å are prevalent, especially in Sweden, where it forms part of given names rooted in Old Norse. Common examples include Åsa (female, from ássa meaning "goddess," borne by thousands annually per Swedish registry data) and Åke (male, a short form of Åkebert or similar, historically widespread in medieval records). Norwegian variants include Åne (dialectal form linked to Áni, used in Sami-influenced regions). These names follow the same terminal alphabetization, historically affecting listings in civil registries and telephone directories. In Finland's Swedish-speaking minority, Å in names signals ethnic Swedish heritage despite its non-native status in Finnish orthography.Linguistic Usage in Other Languages
Adoption in European Minority and Regional Languages
In Walloon, a regional Romance language spoken by approximately 600,000 people primarily in southern Belgium and adjacent areas of France, the letter Å was incorporated into the orthography during reforms proposed by linguist Jules Feller around 1900 to represent the long open-mid back rounded vowel [ɔː] or variants such as [oː] and [ɑː].[16] This adoption reflects influences from neighboring Germanic languages and aims to distinguish phonemic contrasts absent in standard French spelling, as seen in words like djåzer (to chatter).[17] Several Sami languages, Uralic minority languages indigenous to northern Fennoscandia and spoken by about 30,000 people across Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, utilize Å for back rounded vowels. In Lule Sami, spoken by roughly 2,000 individuals mainly in Norway and Sweden, Å å denotes [ɒ̝] or long variants in the standardized Latin-based orthography established post-1970s language revitalization efforts.[18] Similarly, Skolt Sami employs Å for /ɔ/, Pite Sami for [ɒ̝], and Southern Sami for /o/, with these conventions varying by dialect and national standardization since the mid-20th century to preserve distinct phonology amid pressures from dominant Nordic languages.[19] North Frisian, a West Germanic minority language with around 10,000 speakers in coastal regions of Germany and Denmark, includes Å in its fragmented orthographies to transcribe low back rounded vowels, often as a digraph evolution from older aa forms, reflecting insular and mainland dialectal variations standardized informally since the 19th century. Low Saxon, also known as Low German and recognized under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages with up to 5 million speakers in northern Germany and the Netherlands, adopts Å for analogous rounded vowels in regional variants, particularly in historical and dialectal texts.[20] Emiliano-Romagnolo, a Gallo-Italic regional language spoken by over 1 million in northern Italy's Emilia-Romagna area, occasionally employs Å in dialectal writings for open o sounds, though usage remains inconsistent due to limited standardization and competition from Italian. These adoptions generally trace to phonetic needs unmet by basic Latin letters, borrowed via cultural contacts with Scandinavian or Germanic scripts, but remain marginal compared to core Scandinavian usage.Presence in Non-Indo-European and Indigenous Languages
The letter Å appears in the orthographies of several non-Indo-European languages, particularly those influenced by Scandinavian or Danish missionary and administrative scripts in northern regions. In the Uralic Sami languages, indigenous to Sápmi across Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, Å is a standard component of the Latin alphabet variants used for writing. For example, Lule Sami employs Å å to denote a mid-back rounded vowel, typically /ɔ/, as part of its 21-letter alphabet finalized in the early 20th century under Norwegian and Swedish standardization efforts.[18] Similarly, Northern Sami, the most widely spoken Sami variety with around 20,000–25,000 speakers as of 2020 estimates, includes Å for the same phonetic value, reflecting adaptations from Bokmål and Riksmål influences in Norway since orthographic reforms in the 1970s.[21] Skolt Sami, spoken by fewer than 300 fluent speakers primarily in Russia and Finland, positions Å as the 35th letter in its extended alphabet, used for /ɑː/ or contextual variants in post-1930s Cyrillic-to-Latin transitions.[21] These inclusions stem from prolonged contact with Indo-European Nordic languages, yet Å serves native phonological needs without direct equivalence in Proto-Uralic reconstructions. Beyond Uralic, Å features in indigenous languages of the Americas and Pacific under European colonial orthographies. Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), an Eskimo-Aleut language with approximately 57,000 speakers as of the 2021 census, incorporates å to represent /ɔ/ in its Romanized script, adopted in the 1850s by Danish linguists like Samuel Petrus Kleinschmidt and refined in 1973 reforms to align with Inuit dialectal unity.[21] Gwich'in, a Northern Athabaskan (Na-Dene) language indigenous to Alaska and the Yukon with under 500 fluent speakers per 2019 surveys, uses å for a low back vowel in orthographies developed in the 1970s by community-led standardization drawing on Danish-influenced models via early missionary texts.[21] In the Pacific, Chamorro, an Austronesian language native to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands with about 25,000 speakers as of 2020 data, employs Å å for /ʔa/ or glottal variants in its practical orthography, formalized in the 1970s to preserve pre-Spanish phonology amid U.S. and Spanish legacies, though Scandinavian ties are indirect via global Latin script dissemination.[21] These usages highlight Å's role as a borrowed diacritic adapted for non-native vowel qualities, often without altering underlying language isolates' typological structures.Scientific and Technical Symbolism
The Angstrom Unit of Length
The angstrom (symbol: Å) is a unit of length equal to exactly 10^{-10} meters, equivalent to 0.1 nanometers.[22][23] It is named after the Swedish physicist Anders Jonas Ångström (1814–1874), who employed the unit in his spectroscopic measurements of light wavelengths during the mid-19th century.[24][25] The symbol Å derives from the Swedish letter ångström, reflecting the physicist's surname and the unit's origins in Swedish scientific tradition.[24][26] Historically, Ångström defined the unit based on the wavelength of the red line in the cadmium spectrum, initially approximating it as one ten-millionth of a millimeter (10^{-7} mm), though later refinements standardized it precisely as 10^{-10} m by the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) in 1960.[23] This definition facilitated precise quantification in early atomic and optical physics, where traditional metric units proved cumbersome for scales on the order of atomic diameters (typically 1–2 Å) and molecular bonds.[25][27] In scientific applications, the angstrom remains prevalent in fields such as X-ray crystallography, solid-state physics, and surface science for expressing interatomic distances, lattice parameters, and thin-film thicknesses, owing to its convenient magnitude for these phenomena.[22][28] It also persists in spectroscopy for denoting visible and ultraviolet light wavelengths, despite the unit's non-inclusion in the International System of Units (SI).[22][29] Although not an SI base or derived unit, the angstrom is accepted for general use alongside SI units by bodies like the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), provided conversions are explicit; however, the SI Brochure recommends alternatives such as the nanometer (nm; 1 nm = 10 Å) or picometer (pm; 1 pm = 0.01 Å) for enhanced coherence with the meter-based system.[29][23] This compatibility stems from its exact decimal relation to the meter, but deprecation in formal SI contexts reflects a push toward prefix-multiplied SI units to avoid proliferation of non-coherent measures.[28] Modern literature increasingly favors nanometers for broader nanoscale applications, though angstroms endure in specialized software, databases, and legacy instrumentation due to entrenched conventions.[22][30]Modern Usage, Alternatives, and SI Compatibility
The angstrom (Å) remains in use within specialized scientific domains, including X-ray crystallography, spectroscopy, and materials science, where it quantifies atomic-scale features such as bond lengths (typically 1–2 Å for covalent bonds) and X-ray wavelengths. This persistence stems from longstanding conventions in these fields, despite official discouragement for new applications; measurements are often required to include the equivalent SI value alongside the angstrom figure.[31][32] Alternatives to the angstrom include the nanometer (nm = 10⁻⁹ m = 10 Å), which is a coherent SI derived unit suitable for slightly larger atomic and molecular dimensions, and the picometer (pm = 10⁻¹² m = 0.01 Å), preferred for sub-angstrom precision in quantum mechanical calculations or ultra-high-resolution diffraction studies. These SI units facilitate standardization and computational interoperability, with the nanometer gaining broader adoption in nanotechnology and surface science literature since the 1990s.[33] The angstrom equates exactly to 10⁻¹⁰ m, permitting direct, lossless conversion to the SI base unit of length without empirical adjustment. NIST categorizes it as a non-SI unit temporarily accepted for use with the SI in contexts of established practice, advising against its expansion. In contrast, the BIPM's 9th edition SI Brochure (2019) excludes the angstrom from enumerated accepted non-SI units, reflecting an intent to phase out such legacy measures in favor of strict SI coherence, though no formal deprecation resolution has been enacted by the CGPM or CIPM.[31][34]Representation in Computing and Typography
Encoding Standards and Unicode Implementation
The uppercase letter Å is assigned the Unicode code point U+00C5 (LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE), while the lowercase å is U+00E5 (LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE); both reside in the Latin-1 Supplement block (U+0080 to U+00FF). These code points were introduced in Unicode version 1.1, released in June 1993, to support Western European scripts including Scandinavian languages. The characters admit canonical decomposition into a base Latin letter A (U+0041 or U+0061) followed by the combining ring above (U+030A), enabling normalization forms like NFC (Normalization Form C), which favors the precomposed sequence for round-trip compatibility with legacy single-byte encodings. In UTF-8 encoding, the uppercase Å (U+00C5) is represented as the two-byte sequence C3 85, and the lowercase å (U+00E5) as C3 A5, aligning with UTF-8's variable-length scheme for code points above U+007F. UTF-16 encodes both as two bytes (00 C5 and 00 E5, respectively, in the basic multilingual plane), while UTF-32 uses four bytes (0000 00C5 and 0000 00E5). Separately, a compatibility ideograph U+212B (ÅNGSTRÖM SIGN) exists for the uppercase form, canonically equivalent to U+00C5 but retained for legacy scientific notation compatibility, such as in older typography for the ångström unit; modern systems map it to the letter via normalization. Legacy 8-bit standards like ISO/IEC 8859-1 (Latin-1), finalized in 1987 and widely adopted for Western European text until UTF-8 dominance, position Å at byte 0xC5 (decimal 197) and å at 0xE5 (decimal 229), overlapping with the first 256 Unicode points for direct migration.[35] This placement in ISO 8859-1 facilitated early digital adoption in Nordic computing environments, though it excluded some Eastern European characters, prompting variants like ISO 8859-4 for Baltic languages that also include the ring diacritic.[35] Implementation challenges in pre-Unicode systems often involved codepage mismatches, such as misrendering 0xC5 as inverted question marks in ASCII-only environments, underscoring the shift to Unicode for robust, script-agnostic handling.[36] In HTML and XML, entities Å and å resolve to these code points, ensuring backward compatibility.[37]Font Designs and Rendering Variations
The glyph for Å consists of a base A or a with a superposed ring diacritic, a closed circle typically centered above the ascender or stem. Font designs vary the ring's diameter, stroke thickness, and offset to ensure visual harmony with the base letter's proportions. In serif typefaces, such as those modeled after historical printing traditions, the ring often features subtle modulation matching the base's contrast, while sans-serif variants employ uniform stroke weights for geometric simplicity. These adjustments prevent the diacritic from dominating the glyph or appearing detached, particularly in the uppercase form where the ring's position relative to the crossbar affects perceived balance.[38] A specific design variation for uppercase Å is the lowered or "ring-stick" positioning, where the ring descends closer to the apex of the A, fostering integration and mitigating optical elevation effects that make floating diacritics seem higher than intended. This approach enhances compactness and legibility in dense text settings, contrasting with higher-placed rings in fonts prioritizing separation for clarity. Lowercase å typically maintains a higher ring to accommodate the bowl's curve, with variations in enclosure—fully closed in most digital fonts versus occasionally open in historical or decorative styles—though closed forms predominate in contemporary typography for consistency across weights.[39] Rendering differences arise from font rasterization techniques and platform-specific engines. TrueType or OpenType fonts include hinting instructions to align the ring precisely on low-resolution displays, reducing artifacts like blurring or misalignment; without adequate hinting, the diacritic may shift vertically or horizontally across sizes. Subpixel rendering, such as ClearType on Windows, sharpens the ring's edges by leveraging RGB ordering, yielding crisper output than uniform anti-aliasing on macOS or Linux, where diacritic positioning can appear softer or inconsistently kerned against adjacent characters. In web contexts, CSS properties liketext-rendering: optimizeLegibility enable glyph-specific adjustments, but cross-browser inconsistencies persist due to varying font smoothing algorithms, potentially distorting Å's form in unoptimized environments.[40][41]