The Dalecarlian alphabet consists of 32 letters, 25 derived from the
Swedish alphabet
The Swedish alphabet ( sv, 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 (A through Z) plus Å, Ä, and Ö, in t ...
, and seven additional letters:
vowels
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
with an
ogonek
The (; Polish: , "little tail", diminutive of ) is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet used in several European languages, and directly under a vowel in several Native American languages. It i ...
diacritic, denoting nasality: (''Ąą'', ''Ęę'', ''Įį'', ''Ųų'', ''Y̨y̨'', and ''Ą̊ą̊'') as well as the consonant ''Ðð'' (eð), denoting
voiced dental fricative
The voiced dental fricative is a consonant sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the ''th'' sound in ''father''. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is eth, or and was taken from the Old Engli ...
, as 'th' in 'father'. The letters ''Cc'', ''Qq'', ''Xx'' and ''Zz'' are only used in names and foreign words. The alphabet is used for
Elfdalian
Elfdalian or Övdalian ( or , pronounced in Elfdalian, or in Swedish) is a North Germanic language spoken by up to 3,000 people who live or have grown up in the locality of Älvdalen ('), which is located in the southeastern part of Älvdalen ...
and for other
Dalecarlian dialects
Dalecarlian (''dalmål'' in Swedish) is a group of East and West Scandinavian languages, and their respective dialects spoken in Dalarna County, Sweden. Some Dalecarlian varieties can be regarded as part of the Swedish dialect group in Gästrik ...
. The language up until recently and on a small scale today is written with
Dalecarlian runes
The Dalecarlian runes, or dalrunes, was a late version of the runic script that was in use in the Swedish province of Dalarna until the 20th century. The province has consequently been called the "last stronghold of the Germanic script".
Histor ...
.
Description
All except Ą̊ and ą̊ are available as characters in the
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
standard. Ą̊ and ą̊ can be produced by Ą or ą and a
combining mark "Ring Above" (U+030A)
References
Älvdalsk ortografi2015-07-10.
2015-07-10.
External links
Älvdalskt tangentbordElfdalian Keyboard (in Swedish)
See also
*
Old Norse alphabet
The orthography of the Old Norse language was diverse, being written in both Runic and Latin alphabets, with many spelling conventions, variant letterforms, and unique letters and signs. In modern times, scholars established a standardized spellin ...
*
Dalecarlian runes
The Dalecarlian runes, or dalrunes, was a late version of the runic script that was in use in the Swedish province of Dalarna until the 20th century. The province has consequently been called the "last stronghold of the Germanic script".
Histor ...
Latin alphabets
North Germanic languages
Languages of Sweden
{{Latin-script-stub
sv:Älvdalska#Det älvdalska alfabetet