Talk:Swedish alphabet

Headline text

Moved off main page:

	Swedish	British English	American English
A	Adam	Alfred	Alfa
B	Bertil	Benjamin	Bravo
C	Cesar	Charles	Charlie
D	David	David	Delta
E	Erik	Edward	Echo
F	Filip	Frederick	Foxtrot
G	Gustav	George	Golf
H	Helge	Harry	Hotel
I	Ivar	Isaac	India
J	Johan	Jack	Juliett
K	Kalle	King	Kilo
L	Ludvig	London	Lima
M	Martin	Mary	Mike
N	Niklas	Nellie	November
O	Olof	Oliver	Oscar
P	Petter	Peter	Papa
Q	Quintus	Queen	Quebec
R	Rudolf	Robert	Romeo
S	Sigurd	Samuel	Sierra
T	Tore	Tommy	Tango
U	Urban	Uncle	Uniform
V	Viktor	Victor	Victor
W	Wilhelm	William	Whiskey
X	Xerxes	X-ray	X-ray
Y	Yngve	Yellow	Yankee
Z	Zäta	Zebra	Zulu
Å	Åke	Alfred Oliver	Alfa Oscar
Ä	Ärlig	Alfred Edward	Alfa Echo
Ö	Östen	Edward Oliver	Echo

I did originally put it on the main page, but I think that there is a better place for itfor somewhere else. Feel free to move it to another article. -- Mic

Looks like a phonetic alphabet. There are various, separate, phonetic alphabet articles on wikipedia. We could make of collection of these and add this one to it. Kosebamse 13:33 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

The international one is at NATO phonetic alphabet -- Egil 13:49 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

Do all of these names need to be linked? I don't care much either way; I run across this list every now and then while disambiguating, and I don't imagine someone looking at phonetic alphabets would need to jump to Zulu. (Then again, maybe it would pique their interest.) Catherine

The list should serve as reference and I don't feel that it needs to be linked. -- Mic

It seems that there is something missing in the American English column for the last item (Ö). Also, what prevents a misunderstanding of the last three between AO/Å, AE/Ä, and EO(?)/Ö when actually spoken? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.107.104.235 (talk) 09:54, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

W

I am NOT supporting the addition of w to the swedish alphabet because it would only be used in foreign loans and could be replaced with v or l quite easily 86.144.110.47 19:18, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Why are you taking this up here? Complain at the Swedish Academy. @_@ (By the way, "l"?) 惑乱 分からん 16:31, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

It should be noted that the Swedish Academy is not the regulatory body of the Swedish language, even though its opinions are generally influential. We'll have to wait and see whether other dictionaries will follow the SAOL. --Salleman 13:58, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if that's a swedish letter, but if is aletter are only using in foreign words. --Michael Peter Fustumum 10:55, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

W has been used the Swedish language, so has Q. 85.225.241.200 (talk) 22:00, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

My question

Hello, everybody, I want to ask a question. Can we replace the 3 Swedish alphabets å, ä, and ö with aa (like Ståhlberg to Staahlberg), ae (like Vänern to Vaenern), and oe (like Öst to Oest)? Thx. --AFP 13:16, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean, replace? Moving Wikipedia articles? I definitively say moving articles is a bad idea, we have redirects for that. 惑乱 分からん 22:51, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Swedish shall be written with å,ä,ö. To replace them with something like aa,ae,oe or a,a,o or something else is not good swedish, considered ugly and wrong. Sometimes Swedes visit other countries and write into internet guestbooks using foreign keyboards using these replacements, it does not look very nice. -- BIL (talk) 19:46, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Depends; å, Å, ä, Ä, ö & Ö most be written as å, Å, ä, Ä, ö & Ö, but sometimes there are problems, if the height of Å, Ä & Ö exceeds the height of the label it is printed on to lower case (å, ä & ö) is sometimes used (in which case I recommend bigger labels). Sometimes (yes, again on labels... always labels) å, ä, ö, ü, é & à cannot be printed do to lack of support of umlauts (non-Swedish printing device.), in this case it is standard to write aa for å, ae for ä, oe for ö and I believe ue or y for u. É and À are diacritics and is written as E and A. If it is possible to write å, ä & ö, å, ä & ö should be written, it might be hard to read longer texts otherwise. 85.225.241.200 (talk) 22:14, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I must say that we Swedes never write "aa" instead of "å", "ae" instead of "ä" or "oe" instead of "ö"! Never! But we can write Staahlberg and other names if. 15:30 29 October 2013 (CEST) in Sweden ;) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.227.211.69 (talk) 14:30, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Alphabetical order

The article shows the last seven letters of the alphabet are "W, X, Y, Z, Å, Ä, Ö". I don't think this is right. I believe that W was placed at the end, so the sequence should be "X, Y, Z, Å, Ä, Ö, W". I'm not sure where to verify that.  Randall Bart   Talk  11:26, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The article uses SAOL order. Who places the W at the end of the alphabet? --Futhark|Talk 12:05, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Thw Swedish alphabet shall end with "W, X, Y, Z, Å, Ä, Ö". This is the only offical order. I grew up in Sweden. -- BIL (talk) 18:28, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

When you grew up, "W" was an alternate form of "V", now it's a separate letter. I recall reading about two years ago when "W" was promoted that it would go at the end after "Ö". It appears that's not the case, but that's what I thought.  Randall Bart   Talk  04:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

W was often included after V, often excluded, never placed last. Who has written that 'W' shall be sorted in last position?? Are you Swedish? -- BIL (talk) 14:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah i have always learnt W after V (yes even more than 10 years ago). But it would be fun to read it where they said it would go last. -Kaddkaka (talk) 16:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

"Gästgiveri"

When is this word pronounced with the sje-sound? It's like impossible to say :P I would definitely say it as "st" (as in "gäst") and "j" (as "g" in "giveri"/"giva"/"ge"). -Kaddkaka (talk) 16:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't ask me who pronounces it that way - I certainly don't - but it's given as an alternate pronunciation in Nationalencyklopedins ordbok, which I'd consider pretty reliable. Orcoteuthis (talk) 17:59, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

To pronounce stg as a sje-sound is a dilectal form used in smaller part of the swedish population. I am familiar with this pronounciation of these word, but I would not use it when talking 'standard-swedish' with an 'average swede'. The same can be said about 'västgöte' and 'östgöte'. It's not the standard-rule for an average swede to pronounce these words in this way, but SAOL accepts it. Innocent bystander 17:43, 3 August 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.17.16.159 (talk)

By the way, SAOL can be reached online at http://www.svenskaakademien.se/web/Ordlista.aspx if anyone want to check. //Scouten (talk) 22:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I pronounce it with a sje-sound (not quite like gäst-skiveri – "guest slicery", but further back in the mouth, like the sje-sound in sjö – lake), and I think many in this part of Sweden (Dalarna with surroundings) do the same. Vivo (talk) 23:52, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know, the pronounciation with an sj-sound is as standard as the pronounciation of "station" or "mänska". SAOL lists the sj-pronounciation first, and lists a second pronounciation without the sj-sound. SAOB also lists the sj-pronounciation first, and adds that it also may be pronounced without the sj-sound, "in particularly refined language". Now, asking people in general how they would pronounce "gästgiveri" is like asking someone who just learnt the language how they would pronounce "kristianstad" — they probably don't have the word in their vocabulary in the first place, so what's the point? — Knyȝt (talk) 19:07, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

'rs' and 'á'

First, I removed 'rs' from the list of spellings - while I'm sure somebody somewhere merges it with the sj-sound, it's most commonly pronounced as [ʂ] (voiceless retroflex fricative), quite different from the velar or velarized sj.

Second, can someone tell me what, if anything, 'á' means? Neither I nor my dictionary recognizes the word. Orcoteuthis (talk) 18:09, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

If you mean "à" (wrong accent), it means "(pris) per styck". It's used in price lists and on receipts, though I've seen it less and less often. For example, "5 kakor à 8 kronor" = "5 kakor, där var och kostar 8 kronor." Mike (talk) 18:17, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Q

The only word I have heard of these in swedish is squash. I have never heard quesadilla and have no idea what it means... -Kaddkaka (talk) 17:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Quesadilla is a type of Mexican food, since it denotes a specific type of food, the word was loaned. (Another example could be "queer", and possibly "quarterback", althpugh american football isn't a very popular sport in Sweden.) 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * (talk) 23:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

pleace wait —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.132.94.10 (talk) 07:25, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Alphabet table

The table for the alphabet is broken.

Can someone please fix it?

Posted by User:PK2. (7:26 AM)

Bad examples (prestige and garage)

Garage and prestige is, as far as I know, almost only pronounced with the "tje"-sound. Moberg (talk) 19:05, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Not by me... :o Mike (talk) 13:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Me neither, although there's probably variation around the country. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:13, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

28 or 29 letters

Does the Swedish alphabet consist of 28 or 29 letters? A recent revert of this article to 29 letters claims in the edit summary that "28 letters" in the Swedish language version of the article is a POV assertion.

In a coconut shell: That appears to be true. The sources I have been able to find supports that the Swedish alphabet has 29 letters, not just 28 letters. Citations have been added to the article. I invite other editors to add sources or contest

In a smaller nutshell: I made a good faith reversal in the article based on the information available in the current Swedish language version of the article that says (roughly translated)

The Swedish alphabet [...] consists of 28 letters [...] W was generally regarded as a variation of V until 2006 when the Swedish Academy in the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens ordlista started sorting W as a separate letter. The Swedish Academy does not have authority to change the Swedish alphabet, so it still consists of 28 letters. The Swedish Language Council considers that the sorting of the letters V and W is to be avoided.

The Swedish language version of the article seems to be polemic in itself judging from its History page and several of the main statements are not supported by the citations. Accept my apology! MarB4 •ɯɒɹ• 20:08, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

As the discussion of whether W is a separate letter in Swedish, or only a variety of V, will probably live for some years, it should at least be mentioned in the article. Now it's only mentioned in some of the notes, and those notes are in Swedish. Probably the reason for this, is that most readers of this page are bilingual, but it should, of course, still be written in English. I might do something myself, but would like to encourage others too... Fomalhaut76 (talk) 15:22, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Fomalhaut and welcome. As you can see from my above message, I took the bait in the first round, and after having used a couple of hours had to admit my mistake: there are 29 letters in the Swedish alphabet. This is very well supported in the references I have added both here and on se.wiki. Your recent edit in the article "if W is regarded a separate letter and not only a variety of V" is conditional and rather than clarifying the confusion, it leaves a door open to a discussion that ought to have been closed. (That is easy for me to say, I am not Swedish.) There are AFAICT no reliable sources that points to any doubt about the matter at all. If you find otherwise, please bring them here to the talk page, and we'll talk about. I will edit the article accordingly. Thanks. MarB4 •ɯɒɹ• 18:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, my first point was that the W question should be mentioned. Now nothing is said of the W dispute or history, and it should of course be mentioned in an encyclopedia. Moreover, the Swedish Language Council states in a note on their web page that 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. That is, they recommend that the number of letters of the alphabet should be stated as "the Swedish alphabet has 29 letters (if w is counted as a letter with its own place in the alphabet" (my translation).

In English Wikipedia, the council is presented with the following words: The Swedish Language Council (Swedish: Språkrådet) is the primary regulatory body for the advancement and cultivation of the Swedish language. The council is partially funded by the Swedish government and has semi-official status. That should make the Council and the link above, a reliable source.

With respect to this, I cannot see why there should be nothing said on the issue in this article. Fomalhaut76 (talk) 21:25, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

The Swedish alphabet has a content of 29 official letters. However "W" and "Q" are only used in names and a few imported words. Especially "W" does not really counts as "a letter of its own, just aversion of V". In a schoolbook for the first year in school the letter is not even mentioned (from late 1960's). But kids do still today learn that after "V" follows "X". The letter "Z" is about "to die" as it is used in far less words today compared with a century or 50 years ago. F.i. sebra, horisont, senit (eng. "zebra", "horizon" and "zenith") were preaviously spelled zebra, horizont and zenith. Boeing720 (talk) 21:54, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Horisont is correct, but zenit is spelled with Z (according to SAOL online), and zebra/sebra may be spelled either way. Burzuchius (talk) 12:08, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Missing information

One of the major things one wants to know about a writing system is the relationship between the letters and the sounds of the language. This information is missing from this article and is not found in the writing system section of the article on the language either. Some special cases are discussed, but the topic is not discussed in general.Bill (talk) 19:36, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Xky

⟨xj⟩ for the sequence /kɧ/ occurs only in the place-name Växjö; ⟨sti⟩ occurs only in the place-name Kristianstad;

However, there is also a village with a sje-phoneme called Spraxkya a few miles from the city Borlänge. But I don't know if it's notable enough to include in this article. Vivo (talk) 20:27, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I think it's still argued about what the name originally meant. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:57, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): ECardwell.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:33, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Strange signs

On my computer this article is almost unreadable due to a strange sign (looks chinese). I havn't seen anything like it on any other Wikipedia article. Can theese signs be removed (or must I install all languages, I use XP pro.) ??? Boeing720 (talk) 21:39, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like you have the wrong encoding. Check out the settings on your browser and choose "Unicode". 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:36, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Probably a font issue - the chosen character is unavailable in most fonts. Notably the stock Windows fonts don't have it, whilst whatever the default is on this Linux machine renders it correctly. I reverted it to using plain old single quotes, but this is not the ideal situation because 1. it was the correct symbol and 2. other pages discussing orthography use the same one. I haven't altered any other pages in a similar fashion. Wikipedia:IPA says to use ‹angle brackets›, which have wider font support, however there are other conventions including italics a::nd single quotes. Having edited the page and then looked at the other conventions, I find myself with a mild preference for italics. Angle brackets seem overly technical (not being used in the Wikipedia:IPA page; italics are used instead) and poorly supported, whilst italics seem more appropriate for the web to suit a perhaps non-technical audience. Fish-Face (talk) 01:03, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I might have misunderstood the last query. I remember, at least earlier, there used to be conflicts between Swedish and Japanese character encodings, since various combinations with special Swedish characters, such as "ör", "åm", "ål", "än" etc were interpreted as various kanji, and I believed something similar was at play here. After the spread and standardization of Unicode, I believe these problems have decreased. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 07:49, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Bad links in Citations

What is the practice here for fixing citation links which are broken due to link rot? I am personally interested in typing behaviors of language users due to keyboard alternations or ease of access via keyboards. The link in Note number 6 http://www.tt.se/ttsprak/skrivregler/previewPage.aspx?chapter=12&page=0&xml=ttspraket.xml&template=ttspraket.inc is broken and not resolving. Should the note be removed? is there another way to support these claims? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hugh Paterson III (talk • contribs) 04:40, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

New Swedish Orthography Page

I've translated the existing Swedish version of the Swedish Orthography page, which contains much more history/general information. It's currently at Draft:Swedish Orthography. I'd like to either merge it with this page or rename this page "Swedish Alphabet" or something similar. Thoughts? EAR47 (talk) 06:55, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Good work. Don't see a probem with an expansion. Orthographies and alphabets are distinct topics, though.

It would be preferable if the new content got at least a few citations.

Peter ^Isotalo 02:35, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Sounds like you're recommending a merge with this page then? I can do that, or you can feel free to carry it out yourself if you like. As for the citations, is it alright to simply add in those from the Swedish article (they're in Swedish obviously), or shall I search for English ones? Thanks for helping out a less experienced editor.

EAR47 (talk) 06:32, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Please be bold. Expansions are always welcome.

Oh, by all means, keep the references. They should be considered part of the translation. If an addition is supported by a source, it should always be kept. It's just as valid here as on Swedish Wikipedia. English-language references are always preferable, but for certain topic it might be difficult to find.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:55, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Combine duplicative sections on 'V' and 'W'

The current article discusses the V/W issue in two separate places: in the Introduction, and under Letters. The introduction gives a whole lengthy paragraph to discussion of this issue. But an introduction is intended to be an overview, an introduction, and should not go into details such as this. There is already a section under "Letters" which discusses the 'V' / 'W' issue, and it's unnecessary to discuss it in two separate places in the article. I've combined the two sections by removing the text from the introduction, and merging the V/W discussion into a single place under "Letters", with slight revisions to avoid unnecessary duplication and overlap. Omc (talk) 14:48, 4 November 2016 (UTC)