Swedish orthography

Swedish orthography is the system used to write the Swedish language. It uses a 29-letter alphabet based on the modern 26-letter basic Latin alphabet plus 3 other letters: 'å', 'ä' and 'ö', sorted after the letter 'z'.

Alphabet

The 29-letter form of the alphabet has been in use for many decades, with the 26-letter modern Latin alphabet, and the 3 added letters 'å', 'ä' and 'ö', which come after the letter 'z'; hence words beginning with those letters would be found near the end of a typical Swedish dictionary. The use of the letters 'q' and 'w' is very rare, and up to 2006, the 'v' and 'w' were often combined in the collating sequence under 'v'. Before the 19th century, 'w' used to be interchangeable with 'v' ('w' was used in Fraktur, 'v' in Antiqua). Official orthographic standards since 1801 use only 'v', except in names and foreign words. The letter 'q' was commonly used in ordinary words before 1889, when its replacement by 'k' was allowed; since 1900, only the forms with 'k' are listed in dictionaries. Some loan words have 'q' as discussed below. Many family names still use 'q' and 'w'.

Letter Name
A a /ɑː/
B b /beː/
C c /seː/
D d /deː/
E e /eː/
F f /ɛf/
G g /ɡeː/
H h /hoː/
I i /iː/
J j /jiː/
K k /kʰoː/
L l /ɛl/
M m /ɛm/
N n /ɛn/
O o /uː/
P p /pʰeː/
Q q /kʰʉː/
R r /ær/; in Scania /æʁ/
S s /ɛs/
T t /tʰeː/
U u /ʉː/
V v /veː/
W w /ˈdɵbːəlˈveː/
X x /ɛkʰs/
Y y /yː/
Z z /ˈsɛːˈta/
Å å /oː/
Ä ä /ɛː/
Ö ö /øː/

Until the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens ordlista (The Swedish Academy's Orthographic Dictionary) in 2006, the letters 'v' and 'w' were collated together.[1][2][3][4][5]

In addition to the basic twenty-six letters, 'a'-'z', the Swedish alphabet includes three letters in the final positions: 'å', 'ä' and 'ö'. These are distinct letters in Swedish and are sorted after 'z' as shown above. Since they do not mark grammatical variation, as the umlaut can in the German alphabet, or separate syllables, as does the diaeresis, it is not correct to call them umlauts, despite the lack of a better term in English. The umlauted 'ü' is recognised, but is only used in names of German origin, as well as the loanword müsli. It is otherwise treated as a variant of 'y' and is called a "German Y". In Swedish, 'y' is a vowel, and is pronounced as a consonant only in certain loanwords as a variant of 'j'.

The characters 'à' (which is used only in the loanword à, from French) and 'é' (used in some integrated loan words like idé and armé, and in some surnames such as Rosén or Lofvén) are regarded simply as variants of 'a' and 'e', respectively.

The letter 'q' is only used for a few loanwords, like queer, quisling, squash and quilting, student terms such as gasque in Swedish, or for family names, and foreign geographic names, like Qatar. The letters 'w' and 'z' are used for names, and also for a few loanwords such as "zon" which means "zone". á is a Swedish (old-fashioned) word, while 'à' is used in a few rare non-integrated loanwords. For Swedish native personal names, 'ü' and 'è' and others are also used. For foreign names, 'ç', 'ë', 'í', 'õ', 'ñ' and many others might be used, but are usually converted to 'e', 'i', 'o', etc.

Swedish newspapers and magazines have a tendency only to use letters available on the keyboard. 'à', 'ë', 'í', 'ñ', etc. are available on Swedish keyboards with a little effort, but usually not 'æ' and 'ø' (used in Danish and Norwegian), so they are usually substituted by 'ae' or 'ä', and 'ö'. The news agency TT follows this usage since some newspapers have no technical support for 'æ' and 'ø',[6] although there is a recommendation to use 'æ' and 'ø'.

The national population register has traditionally only used the letters 'a'~'z', 'å', 'ä', 'ö', 'ü', 'é', so immigrants with other Latin letters in their names have had their diacritic marks stripped (and æ/ø converted to ä/ö), although recently more diacritics have been allowed.[7]

The difference between the Danish/Norwegian and the Swedish alphabet is that Danish/Norwegian uses the variant Æ instead of Ä, and the variant Ø instead of Ö. Also, the collating order for these three letters is different: Æ, Ø, Å.

Sound–spelling correspondences

Vowels
Letter Pronunciation (IPA) Notes
Long Short
a /ɑː/ /a/
e /eː/ /ɛ/ Some words exceptionally have ⟨e⟩ for /ɛ/, among them words with ⟨ej⟩, numerals, proper names and their derivations, and loanwords. Before 1889, ⟨e⟩ for /ɛ/ and /ɛː/ was also used for many other words, in particular words with ⟨je⟩ now spelled ⟨jä⟩. Many Swedes merge /ɛ/ and /e/.

The sound /eː/ at the end of loanwords and in the last syllable of Swedish surnames is represented by ⟨é⟩.

i /iː/ /ɪ/
o /uː/ /ʊ/, /ɔ/ The phoneme /ʊ/ is relatively infrequent; short ⟨o⟩ more often represents /ɔ/. In a few words, long ⟨o⟩ represents /oː/.
u /ʉː/ /ɵ/
y /yː/ /ʏ/
å /oː/ /ɔ/ Most words with /ɔ/ and some words with /oː/ are spelled with ⟨o⟩.
ä /ɛː/ /ɛ/ Some words with /ɛ/ are spelled with ⟨e⟩.
ö /øː/ /œ/

Short vowels are followed by two or more consonants; long vowels are followed by a single consonant, by a vowel or are word-final.

Consonants
Grapheme Sound (IPA) Notes
b /b/
c /k/, /s/ /s/ before front vowels ⟨e i y ä ö⟩, otherwise /k/. The letter ⟨c⟩ alone is used only in loanwords (usually in the /s/ value) and proper names, but ⟨ck⟩ is a normal representation for /k/ after a short vowel (as in English and German).
ch /ɧ/, /ɕ/ In loanwords. The conjunction 'och' (and) is pronounced /ɔk/ or /ɔ/.
d /d/
dj /j/
f /f/
g /ɡ/, /j/ /j/ before front vowels ⟨e i y ä ö⟩, otherwise /ɡ/
gj /j/
gn /ɡn/, /ŋn/ /ɡn/ word-initially; /ŋn/ elsewhere
h /h/
hj /j/
j /j/
k /k/, /ɕ/ /ɕ/ before front vowels ⟨e i y ä ö⟩, otherwise /k/
kj /ɕ/
l /l/
lj /j/
m /m/
n /n/
ng /ŋ/
p /p/
r /r/
s /s/
sj /ɧ/
sk /sk/, /ɧ/ /ɧ/ before front vowels ⟨e i y ä ö⟩, otherwise /sk/
skj /ɧ/
stj /ɧ/
t /t/
tj /ɕ/
v /v/ Before 1906, ⟨fv, hv⟩ and final ⟨f⟩ were also used for /v/. Now these spellings are used in some proper names.
w /v/ Rarely used (loanwords, proper names). In loanwords from English may be pronounced /w/.
x /ks/
z /s/ Used in loanwords and proper names.

The combinations ⟨rd rl rn rs rt⟩ are pronounced [ɖ ɭ ɳ ʂ ʈ] respectively.

Spellings for the sje-phoneme /ɧ/

Due to several phonetic combinations coalescing over recent centuries, the spelling of the Swedish sje-sound is very eclectic. Some estimates claim that there are over 50 possible different spellings of the sound, though this figure is disputed. Garlén (1988) gives a list of 22 spellings ('ch', 'che', 'g', 'ge', 'gi', 'ige', 'j', 'je', 'sc', 'sch', 'sh', 'shi', 'si', 'sj', 'sk', 'skj', 'ssi', 'ssj', 'stg', 'sti', 'stj', 'ti'), but many of them are confined to only a few words, often loanwords, and all of them can correspond to other sounds or sound sequences as well. Some spellings of the sje-sound are as follows:

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Svenska Akademiens ordbok – Trettonde upplagan av SAOL" (in Swedish). Swedish Academy. Retrieved 2011-06-21. Trettonde upplagan inför slutligen något så ovanligt som ytterligare en självständig bokstav, nämligen w (”dubbel-v”) som inte längre sorteras in under enkelt v utan – som i många andra språk, även nordiska – blir en bokstav med egen placering efter bokstaven v.
  2. ↑ Svenska Akademien (2006-04-10). Sven-Goran Malmgren, ed. Svenska Akademiens ordlista över svenska språket (in Swedish). Stockholm: Norstedts Akademiska Förlag. pp. IX. ISBN 978-91-7227-419-8. Retrieved 2011-06-21. Trettonde upplagan inför slutligen något så ovanligt som ytterligare en självständig bokstav, nämligen w (”dubbel-v”) som inte längre sorteras in under enkelt v utan – som i många andra språk, även nordiska – blir en bokstav med egen placering efter bokstaven v.
  3. ↑ Boldemann, Marcus (2006-04-21). "Alfabetet blir längre – växer med W". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). Retrieved 2011-06-21. Alfabetet består inte längre av 28 bokstäver, utan 29. Det betyder att ett stort antal läroböcker måste skrivas om. Att det blivit så här beror på att Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL) i sin nya upplaga särskiljer W från enkelt V. Äntligen – för det är internationell praxis.
  4. ↑ "Veckans språkråd". Veckans språkråd 2006 v. 28 (in Swedish). Språkrådet Swedish Language Council. 2006-07-10. Retrieved 2011-06-21. Om särsortering av v och w slår igenom i fler sammanhang, t.ex. i ordböcker, innebär det att det svenska alfabetet kan sägas ha 29 bokstäver, inte som tidigare bara 28. Behöver man ange denna uppgift, bör man tills vidare ge en förklaring i stil med: "det svenska alfabetet har 29 bokstäver (om man räknar w som en bokstav med egen plats i alfabetet)". Har man inte plats för sådana nyanserade tillägg, är det säkrast att uppge antalet till 29.
  5. ↑ Aniansson, Eva (2010-01-11). "3 mars 2011 — bokstaven ’W’ 6 år: HURRA!". E-mail: Subject: Bokstaven W (in Swedish). linkli.st. Retrieved 2011-06-21. Den rimligaste ’födelsedagen’ är nog 3 mars 2005. Då fattade nämligen Svenska Akademiens sitt beslut att föra in W som bokstav i alfabetet. Den direkta anledningen var, som du själv påpekar, att den kommande upplagan av SAOL skulle sära på V och W. Själva bokstaven har ju funnits i långliga tider, men det var alltså i SAOL13, som kom ut våren 2006, närmare bestämt den 10 april 2006, som Akademiens ordlista för första gången hade W som ’en bokstav med egen placering efter bokstaven V’.
  6. ↑ http://www.tt.se/ttsprak/skrivregler/previewPage.aspx?chapter=12&page=0&xml=ttspraket.xml&template=ttspraket.inc
  7. ↑ http://www.ratsit.se has a copy of the national population and tax register and there all diacritics incl æ,ç,ñ,ø are stripped except that å,ä,ö,ü,é are kept, except for a few people. There are for example 580 people named Francois and 20 named François.

References

External links