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The letter Å in Scandinavian alphabet represents two sounds, one short and one long.

The short version represents IPA /ɔ/.
In Swedish, the long version represents IPA /oː/. In Danish andNorwegian, the long version is pronounced IPA /ɔː/.
[edit] OriginIn historical linguistics, the Å-sound originally had the same origin as the long /aː/ sound in German Aal and Haar (Scandinavian ål, hår,English eel, hair).

Historically, the letter Å derives from the Old Norse vowel á. This was a long /aː/ sound, but over time, the vowel developed to an [ɔ] sound. Medieval writing often used doubledletters for long vowels, and the vowel continued to be written Aa. In Old Swedish the use of the ligatures Æ and Œ that represented the sounds [æ] and [ø] respectively were gradually replaced by newletters. Instead of using ligatures, a minuscule E was placed above the letters A and O to create new graphemes. They later evolved into the modern letters Ä and Ö, where the E was simplified into twodots. This construction was also applied to construct a new grapheme where an "aa" previously had been used. A minuscule O was placed on top of an A to create a new letter. It was first used in printin the Gustav Vasa Bible that was published in 1541 and replaced Aa in the 16th century.[1]

In an attempt to modernize the orthography, linguists tried to introduce the Å to Danish and Norwegianwriting in the 19th century. Most people felt no need for the new letter, although the letter group Aa had already been pronounced like Å for centuries all over Scandinavia. Aa was usually treated as asingle 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. It has been argued that the Åonly made its way to official Danish spelling due to anti-German and pro-Scandinavian sentiment after World War II. Danish had been the only language apart from German to use capitalized nouns in...