pronounced as /notice/The Swedish alphabet (Swedish: Svenska alfabetet) is a basic element of the Latin writing system used for the Swedish language. The 29 letters of this alphabet are the modern 26-letter basic Latin alphabet (to) plus,, and, in that order. It contains 20 consonants and 9 vowels . The Latin alphabet was brought to Sweden along with the Christianization of the population, although runes continued in use throughout the first centuries of Christianity, even for ecclesiastic purposes, despite their traditional relation to the Old Norse religion. The runes underwent partial "latinization" in the Middle Ages, when the Latin alphabet was completely accepted as the Swedish script system, but runes still occurred, especially in the countryside, until the 18th century, and were used decoratively until mid 19th century.[1]
The pronunciation of the names of the letters (that does not necessarily coincide with the sounds the letters represent) is as follows:
| Letter | Name | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| A | a | in Swedish pronounced as /ɑː/ | |
| B | b | in Swedish pronounced as /beː/ | |
| C | c | in Swedish pronounced as /seː/ | |
| D | d | in Swedish pronounced as /deː/ | |
| E | e | in Swedish pronounced as /eː/ | |
| F | f | in Swedish pronounced as /ɛfː/ | |
| Letter | Name | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| G | g | in Swedish pronounced as /ɡeː/ | |
| H | h | in Swedish pronounced as /hoː/ | |
| I | i | in Swedish pronounced as /iː/ | |
| J | j | in Swedish pronounced as /jiː/ | |
| K | k | in Swedish pronounced as /koː/ | |
| L | l | in Swedish pronounced as /ɛlː/ | |
| Letter | Name | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| M | m | in Swedish pronounced as /ɛmː/ | |
| N | n | in Swedish pronounced as /ɛnː/ | |
| O | o | in Swedish pronounced as /uː/ | |
| P | p | in Swedish pronounced as /peː/ | |
| Q | q | in Swedish pronounced as /kʉː/ | |
| R | r | in Swedish pronounced as /ærː/ | |
| Letter | Name | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| S | s | in Swedish pronounced as /ɛsː/ | |
| T | t | in Swedish pronounced as /teː/ | |
| U | u | in Swedish pronounced as /ʉː/ | |
| V | v | in Swedish pronounced as /veː/ | |
| W | w | in Swedish pronounced as /ˈdɵ̂bːɛlˌveː/ | |
| X | x | in Swedish pronounced as /ɛks/ | |
| Letter | Name | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Y | y | in Swedish pronounced as /yː/ | |
| Z | z | in Swedish pronounced as /ˈsɛ̂ːta/ | |
| Å | å | in Swedish pronounced as /oː/ | |
| Ä | ä | in Swedish pronounced as /ɛː/ | |
| Ö | ö | in Swedish pronounced as /øː/ | |
In addition to the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet, A through Z, the Swedish alphabet includes Å, Ä, and Ö at the end. They are distinct letters in Swedish and are sorted after .[2]
The letter is rare. was common in ordinary words before 1889, when its replacement by was allowed.[3] Since 1900, only the forms with are listed in dictionaries.[4] Some proper names kept their despite the change to common words: Qvist, Quist, Husqvarna, Quenby, Quinby, Quintus, Quirin and Quirinus. Other uses include some loanwords that retained, including queer, quisling, squash, and quilting; student terms such as gasque; and foreign geographic names like Qatar.
The letter is rare. Before the 19th century, was interchangeable with (was used in Fraktur, in Antiqua). Official orthographic standards since 1801 use only for common words. Many family names kept their despite the change to common words. Foreign words and names bring in uses of, particularly combinations with webb for (World Wide) Web. Swedish sorting traditionally and officially treated and as equivalent, so that users would not have to guess whether the word, or name, they were seeking was spelled with a or a . The two letters were often combined in the collating sequence as if they were all or all, until 2006 when the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens ordlista (The Swedish Academy's Orthographic Dictionary) declared a change.[5] [6] [7] [8] [9] was given its own section in the dictionary, and the = sorting rule was deprecated.[10] This means Swedish books printed before 2006 would group with in the index, and most Swedish software published before 2006 would treat the two as variations of a single character when sorting text.
The letter is rare, used in names and a few loanwords such as Swedish: zon "zone". historically represented pronounced as //ts//. By 1700, this had merged with pronounced as //s//. As a result, was replaced by in 1700. was instead used in loanwords for historical pronounced as //z//. is the second least used letter in Swedish, before .[11]
The characters (which is used only in a few rare non-integrated loanwords such as Swedish: à, from French) and (used in some integrated loanwords like Swedish: idé and Swedish: armé, and in some surnames such as Swedish: Rosén or Swedish: Löfvén) are recognised but regarded as variants of and, respectively.
The umlauted is recognised but is only used in names of German origin, and in German loanwords such as Swedish: müsli. It is otherwise treated as a variant of and is called "German ".
For foreign names, and many others might be used, but are usually converted to, etc.
The letters and, used in Danish and Norwegian, are considered variants of and, and are collated as such. Unlike letters with diacritics like,,, etc. and are not easily available on Swedish keyboards, and are thus often replaced with and . The news agency TT follows this usage because some newspapers have no technical support for and,[12] although there is a recommendation to use and . The letter was used in earlier Swedish script systems, when there was in general more similarity between the Scandinavian languages.
The ligature, used in Latin as a variant of, is used in some Swedish surnames. It is then considered equivalent with and collated accordingly. However, sometimes it is collated as : in the 14th edition of the Svenska Akademiens ordlista, the words Swedish: læstadian, læstadianer, læstadianism (from the surname Læstadius) are sorted between Swedish: lästa and Swedish: lästeknik.
The Swedish traditional handwritten alphabet is the same as the ordinary Latin cursive alphabet, but the letters and are written by connecting the dots with a curved line, identical to a tilde, hence looking like and . In text the dots should be clearly separated, but in handwriting writers frequently replace them with a macron :, .
| Letter | Pronunciation (IPA) | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Long | Short | |||
| a | pronounced as //ɑː// | pronounced as //a// | ||
| e | pronounced as //eː// | pronounced as //ɛ// | Some speakers distinguish two short sounds: pronounced as //ɛ// and pronounced as //e//. The former sound is usually spelled, but some words exceptionally have, among them words with, numerals, proper names and their derivations, and loanwords. Before 1889, for pronounced as //ɛ// and pronounced as //ɛː// was also used for many other words, in particular words with now spelled . The sound pronounced as //eː// at the end of loanwords and in the last syllable of Swedish surnames is represented by . | |
| i | pronounced as //iː// | pronounced as //ɪ// | ||
| o | pronounced as //uː//, pronounced as //oː// | pronounced as //ɔ//, pronounced as //ʊ// | The phoneme pronounced as //ʊ// is relatively infrequent; short more often represents pronounced as //ɔ//. Long usually represents pronounced as //uː// in native words. | |
| u | pronounced as //ʉː// | pronounced as //ɵ// | ||
| y | pronounced as //yː// | pronounced as //ʏ// | ||
| å | pronounced as //oː// | pronounced as //ɔ// | Most words with pronounced as //ɔ// and some words with pronounced as //oː// are spelled with . | |
| ä | pronounced as //ɛː// | pronounced as //ɛ// | Some words with pronounced as //ɛ// are spelled with . | |
| ö | pronounced as //øː// | pronounced as //œ// | The short is, in some dialects, pronounced as pronounced as //ɵ//. | |
Short vowels are followed by two or more consonants; long vowels are followed by a single consonant, by a vowel or are word-final.
| Grapheme | Sound (IPA) | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| b | pronounced as //b// | ||
| c | pronounced as //k//, pronounced as //s// | pronounced as //s// before front vowels (not used before), otherwise pronounced as //k// (not used before). The letter alone is used only in loanwords (usually in the pronounced as //s// value) and proper names, but is a normal representation for pronounced as //kː// after a short vowel (as in English and German). | |
| ch | pronounced as //ɧ//, pronounced as //ɕ// | In loanwords. The conjunction Swedish: och (and) is pronounced pronounced as //ɔkː// or pronounced as //ɔ//. | |
| d | pronounced as //d// | ||
| dj | pronounced as //j// | ||
| f | pronounced as //f// | ||
| g | pronounced as //ɡ//, pronounced as //j// | pronounced as //j// before front vowels, otherwise pronounced as //ɡ// | |
| gj | pronounced as //j// | ||
| gn | pronounced as //ɡn//, pronounced as //ŋn// | pronounced as //ɡn// word-initially; pronounced as //ŋn// elsewhere | |
| h | pronounced as //h// | ||
| hj | pronounced as //j// | ||
| j | pronounced as //j// | ||
| k | pronounced as //k//, pronounced as //ɕ// | pronounced as //ɕ// before front vowels except for a Swedish: kör, otherwise pronounced as //k// | |
| kj | pronounced as //ɕ// | ||
| l | pronounced as //l// | ||
| lj | pronounced as //j// | ||
| m | pronounced as //m// | ||
| n | pronounced as //n// | ||
| ng | pronounced as //ŋ/, /ŋɡ/, /ng// | ||
| p | pronounced as //p// | ||
| r | pronounced as //r// | Is pronounced as pronounced as /[ɾ]/ in some words. Considerable dialectal variation, often pronounced as an approximant pronounced as /[ɹ]/ or fricative pronounced as /[ʐ]/. Southern dialects are noted for their uvular realization of pronounced as //r//; that is, a uvular trill pronounced as /[ʀ]/, a fricative pronounced as /[ʁ]/ or pronounced as /[χ]/, or an approximant pronounced as /[ʁ̞]/. | |
| rd | pronounced as //ɖ// | ||
| rl | pronounced as //ɭ// | ||
| rn | pronounced as //ɳ// | ||
| rs | pronounced as //ʂ// | ||
| rt | pronounced as //ʈ// | ||
| s | pronounced as //s// | ||
| sj | pronounced as //ɧ// | ||
| sk | pronounced as //sk//, pronounced as //ɧ// | pronounced as //ɧ// before front vowels and in the words Swedish: människa and Swedish: marskalk, otherwise pronounced as //sk// | |
| skj | pronounced as //ɧ// | ||
| stj | pronounced as //ɧ// | ||
| t | pronounced as //t// | ||
| tj | pronounced as //ɕ// | ||
| v | pronounced as //v// | Before 1906, and final were also used for pronounced as //v//. Now these spellings are used in some proper names. | |
| w | pronounced as //v// | Rarely used (loanwords, proper names). In loanwords from English, may represent pronounced as //w//. | |
| x | pronounced as //ks// | ||
| z | pronounced as //s// | Only used in loanwords and proper names. |
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, 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: