"Å", or "å", is a letter, representing a vowel, in the Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, Walloon and Chamorro alphabets. Other alphabets are Greenlandic, Lule Sámi, Skolt Sámi and South Sámi alphabet. This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... This article is about letter, a written message from one party to another. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... Walloon (Walon) is a regional Romance language spoken in Belgium. ... Chamorro, or Chamoru, is the native language used in Guam and Northern Mariana Islands. ... An alphabet is a complete standardized set of letters—basic written symbols—each of which roughly represents a phoneme of a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it may have been in the past. ...

The letter "Å" is often perceived as an "A" with a ring, interpreting the ring as a diacritic mark. However, the ring is not a diacritic. Rather, the letter developed as a form of semi-ligature of an "A" with a small "a" above it to denote the changed sound value, similar to how the umlaut mark "¨" is developed from a small "E" written above the letter in question. The letter A is the first letter in the Latin alphabet. ... In punctuation, the term ring is usually reserved for the ring above diacritic mark ˚ (looks similar to °). The ring may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets. ... A diacritic mark or accent mark is an additional mark added to a basic letter. ... In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more letterforms are written or printed as a unit. ... Ä ä Ö ö Ü ü The term umlaut is used for two closely related notions: a special kind of vowel modification and a particular diacritic mark. ...

Scandinavian languages

The letter Å in Nordic alphabets represents two sounds, a short and a long.

• The short version (IPA /ɔ/) is similar to the vowels in General American English home, or Received Pronunciation hall.
• The long version (IPA /oː/) is like the 'o' in bored.

According to historical linguistics Å-sound has the same origin as the long /aː/ sound in German Aachen and Haar (Scandinavian hår, English "hair"). The International Phonetic Alphabet is a phonetic alphabet used by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) the human vocal apparatus can produce. ... American English or U.S. English is the diverse form of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. ... Received Pronunciation (RP) is a form of pronunciation of the English language, usually defined as the educated spoken English of southeastern England. This is a prescriptivist point-of-view — it is quite possible for an intelligent, educated individual to use a non-standard dialect. ... The International Phonetic Alphabet is a phonetic alphabet used by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) the human vocal apparatus can produce. ... Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time, by means of examining languages which are recognizably related through similarities such as vocabulary, word formation, and syntax, as well as the surviving records of ancient languages. ... Map of Germany showing Aachen Aachen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, on the border with Belgium and the Netherlands, 65 km to the west of Cologne, and the westernmost city in Germany, at 50°46 N, 6°6 E. Population: 256,605 (2003). ... The Scandinavian languages are the three mutually intelligible North Germanic languages spoken in Scandinavia: Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

The letter has been used in Scandinavian languages since medieval times when the futhark was exchanged for the Latin alphabet and it is remnant of Odal-rune. Although it was abandoned in Danish and Norwegian due to German influence, it was retained in Swedish. The letter was re-introduced in Norwegian in 1917 and in Danish in 1948. The Scandinavian languages are the three mutually intelligible North Germanic languages spoken in Scandinavia: Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world, the standard script of the English language and most of the languages of western and central Europe, and of those areas settled by Europeans. ... 1917 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... 1948 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ...

In Danish and Norwegian languages, "Aa" is considered equivalent to "Å", in as much as "Aa" is the old spelling, and a fully functional transcription for "Å" when using a foreign typewriter. In surnames, and occasionally in names of geographical places, the old spelling with "Aa" is retained. Correct alphabetisation in Danish and Norwegian places "Aa" along with "Å" as the last letter in the alphabet. A family name, or surname, is that part of a persons name that indicates to what family he or she belongs. ...

In the Swedish alphabet, "Å" is sorted immediately after "Z", as the third letter from the end. (The sequence after "Z" is "Å, Ä, Ö".) In the Finnish alphabet, the letter is treated just as in Swedish, but its usage is limited to names of Swedish origin. In Norwegian and Danish, "Z" is followed by the sequence "Æ, Ø, Å". The Swedish alphabet consists of the following 28 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, X, Y, Z, Å, Ä, Ö The main feature separating it from the Latin alphabet are the three additional vowels, Å, Ä and Ö. The... Z is the twenty-sixth and last letter of the English alphabet. ... Ä - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... Ö, or ö, is a glyph which represents either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, the letter O with umlaut, or a letter O with diaeresis. ... Æ æ For the article on Æ, the Irish writer, see: George William Russell Æ, or æ, is a vowel and a grapheme used in the Icelandic, Danish, Faroese, and Norwegian alphabets. ... Ø ø Ø, ø is a vowel and a letter used in the Danish, Faroese and Norwegian alphabets. ...

In the Norwegian, Danish and Swedish languages, å is even a word all in itself, meaning a rivulet, a stream or a small river, like the rivers Aa, Au and Aue on the European continent. In Norwegian it is also the mark for infinitive; "å ta" = "to take". For the Second World War frigate class, see River class frigate The Murray River in Australia A waterfall on the Ova da Fedoz, Switzerland A river is a large natural waterway. ... Aa is the name of a large number of small European rivers. ... The abbreviation Au or AU may refer to: Computing the . ... In grammar, the infinitive is the form of a verb that has no inflection to indicate person, number, mood or tense. ...

Walloon writing

Å was introduced to some local variants of eastern-Walloon dialect at the beginning of the 20th century, initially to note the same sound as in Danish. Its use quickly spread to all the eastern-Walloon dialects, through the cultural influence of the city of Liège, and covered three different sounds, a long open o, a long closed o, or a long a, depending on the local varieties. The use of a single å letter to cover those different pronunciations has been embraced by the new pan-Walloon orthography, that systemizes a unique orthography for words that are the same, regardless of the local phonetic variations. (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... Liège ( Dutch: Luik, German: Lüttich) is a major city located in the Belgian province of Liège, of which it is the capital. ... The orthography of a language is the set of rules of how to write correctly in the writing system of a language. ...

In non-standardized writings outside the Liege area, words containing the å letter are written with au, â or ô depending on the pronunciation. For example the word måjhon (house) in standardized orthography is written môjo, mâhon, mohone, maujon in dialectal writings.

Symbol for angstrom

The letter "Å" is also used throughout the world as the international symbol for the non-SI unit angstrom, a physical unit of length named after the Swedish physicist Anders Jonas Ångström. It is always upper case in this context. Unicode also allows code 8491 (U+212B in hexadecimal) when the letter is used specifically as a symbol for the angstrom, giving the sign Å. SI (disambiguation). ... An angstrom or ångström (Å) is a non-SI unit of length equal to 10−10 metres, 0. ... In physics and metrology, units are standards for measurement of physical quantities that need clear definitions to be useful. ... In general English usage, length (symbol: l) is but one particular instance of distance – an objects length is how long the object is – but in the physical sciences and engineering, the word length is in some contexts used synonymously with distance. Height is vertical distance; width (or breadth) is... The word physicist should not be confused with physician, which means medical doctor. ... Anders Jonas Ångström Anders Jonas Ångström (August 13, 1814 – June 21, 1874) was a physicist in Sweden, one of the founders of the science of spectroscopy. ... Majuscules or capital letters (in the Roman alphabet: A, B, C, ...) are one type of case in a writing system. ...

On computers

For computers, when using the ISO 8859-1 or Unicode sets, the codes for "Å" and "å" are respectively 197 and 229, or C5 and E5 in hexadecimal. In HTML character entity references, required in cases where the letter is not available by ordinary coding, the codes are Åand å. The tower of a personal computer (specifically a Power Mac G5). ... ISO 8859-1, more formally cited as ISO/IEC 8859-1 or less formally as Latin-1, is part 1 of ISO/IEC 8859, a standard character encoding defined by ISO. It encodes what it refers to as Latin alphabet no. ... In computing, Unicode is the international standard whose goal is to provide the means to encode the text of every document people want to store in computers. ... In mathematics, hexadecimal or simply hex is a numeral system with a radix or base of 16 usually written using the symbols 0–9 and A–F or a–f. ... HTML has been in use since 1991 (note that the W3C international standard is now XHTML), but the first standardized version with a reasonably complete treatment of international characters was version 4. ...

To type "Å" on Microsoft Windows computers, hold the Alt key and type 197 or 0197 on the numeric keypad. To type "å" on Microsoft Windows computers, hold the Alt key and type 229 or 0229 on the keypad. Microsoft Windows is a range of commercial operating environments for personal computers. ... The Alt key on a IBM PC keyboard is either of two keys located next to the Space bar, used to change the function of a key pressed. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

On computers using the US-International keyboard layout, the å can be produced with the right-Alt and the "w" key, and the Å in the same way with the addition of the "shift" key. Computers and other typing devices offer many different keyboard layouts, for people to be able to input data in different languages. ...

See also

• Ring (diacritic)

In punctuation, the term ring is usually reserved for the ring above diacritic mark ˚ (looks similar to °). The ring may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets. ...

External links

• The Nordic graphemes FAQ (http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/scn/faq18.html)