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Å
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.
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.
⟨Å⟩ is part of the Danish and Norwegian alphabet and the Swedish alphabet. In Danish, ⟨å⟩ may represent the phonemes /ɔ/ or /ɒ/, while it may represent [o] and [ɔ] in Norwegian and Swedish.[citation needed]
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.
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.
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. 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. 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.
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Å
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.
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.
⟨Å⟩ is part of the Danish and Norwegian alphabet and the Swedish alphabet. In Danish, ⟨å⟩ may represent the phonemes /ɔ/ or /ɒ/, while it may represent [o] and [ɔ] in Norwegian and Swedish.[citation needed]
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.
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.
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. 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. 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.