Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Sound Correspondence Between Swedish and Danish/Norwegian

Many Swedish words with the letter å, a letter that is pronounced similarly to the letter o in English, correspond to words with the letter a in Danish and Norwegian. The letter å is also used in Danish and Norwegian and also appears in identical words. The following list of ten words illustrates the pattern:

ålder alder (age)
då/da (then)
fångst/fangst (catch)
gång/gang (time)
lång/lang (long)
långsam/langsom (slow)
många/mange (many)
sång/sang (song)
stång/stang (pole)
tång/tang (seaweed)

In many cases, the letters a and å appear in identical words in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Examples include far (father) and ål (eel). In the pair hand/hånd (hand), the Swedish word has a and the Danish/Norwegian word has å. The list provides ten words with different vowels, å in Swedish and a in Danish and Norwegian.


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