The Danish andNorwegian alphabet is the set of symbols, forming a variant of theLatin alphabet, used for writing the Danish and Norwegian languages. It has consisted of the following 29 letters since 1917 (Norwegian) and 1948 (Danish):

The letters⟨c⟩,⟨q⟩,⟨w⟩,⟨x⟩ and⟨z⟩ are not used in the spelling of indigenous words. They are rarely used in Norwegian, whereloan words routinely have their orthography adapted to the native sound system. Conversely, Danish has a greater tendency to preserve loan words' original spellings. In particular, a⟨c⟩ that represents/s/ is almost never normalized to⟨s⟩ in Danish, as would most often happen in Norwegian. Many words originally derived fromLatin roots retain⟨c⟩ in their Danish spelling, for example Norwegiansentrum vs Danishcentrum.

The "foreign" letters also sometimes appear in the spelling of otherwise-indigenous family names. For example, many of the Danish families that use the surnameSkov (meaning 'forest') spell itSchou.

The difference between the Dano-Norwegian and the Swedish alphabet is that Swedish uses the variant⟨ä⟩ instead of⟨æ⟩, and the variant⟨ö⟩ instead of⟨ø⟩, similarly toGerman. Also, thecollating order for these three letters is different in Swedish:Å, Ä, Ö.⟨æ⟩ and⟨ä⟩ are sorted together in all Scandinavian languages, as well as Finnish, and so are⟨ø⟩ and⟨ö⟩.

The below pronunciations of the names of the letters do not necessarily represent how the letters are used to represent sounds. The list includes the number of each letter when following official ordering.

When sorting in alphabetical order in Danish, the numbers provided in the list above is used. Some peculiarities exist, however.

• The digraph⟨aa⟩ is sorted as if it was⟨å⟩ if it represents one vowel sound. This means it is sorted like two adjacent cases of⟨a⟩ when it represents two syllables, e.g. as a result of a compound (e.g.klimaanlæg 'air conditioner'). It does not matter which vowel sound is represented, meaning that words likeafrikaans 'Afrikaans' andkanaanæer 'Canaanite' should be sorted as if they have an⟨å⟩ despite not containing any sounds commonly represented by⟨å⟩. If two entries contain exactly the same letters except⟨å⟩ and⟨aa⟩, the form with⟨å⟩ comes first.
• If two entries only differ in capitalization, but otherwise contain precisely the same letters, the word with capitalization comes first.
• Accents are not taken into account, except when it is the only difference, in which case the form without an accent comes first.
• In foreign proper names, the letters⟨ä, ö, ü, þ, ð⟩ are sorted as⟨æ, ø, y, th, d⟩ respectively. In the case of a Danish vs. non-Danish letter being the only difference in the names, the name with a Danish letter comes first.
• For expressions of multiple words (e.g.a cappella), one can choose between ignoring the space or sorting the space, the lack of any letter, first.^[1]

Danish orthography has no compulsory diacritics, but allows the use of anacute accent (accent aigu) for disambiguation. Most often, an accent on⟨e⟩ marks a stressed syllable in one of a pair ofhomographs that have different stresses, for exampleen dreng 'a boy' versusén dreng 'one boy', oralle 'all, every, everyone' versusallé 'avenue'. Less often, any vowel including⟨å⟩ (where it is however recommended to avoid diacritics) may be accented to indicate stress on the word, as this can disambiguate the meaning of the sentence or ease the reading otherwise. For example:jeg stód op 'I was standing' versusjeg stod óp 'I got out of bed' (i.e. unit accentuation). Alternatively, some of these distinctions can be made using typographical emphasis (italics, underlining). TheRetskrivningsordbogen dictionary explicitly allows the use of further diacritics when quoting names from other languages.^[2] This also means that the ring above⟨å⟩ and the strike through⟨ø⟩ are not regarded as diacritics, as these are separate letters.

Nynorsk uses several letters withdiacritic signs:⟨é⟩,⟨è⟩,⟨ê⟩,⟨ó⟩,⟨ò⟩,⟨ô⟩, and⟨ù⟩. The diacritic signs are not compulsory,^[3] but can be added to clarify the meaning of words (homonyms) that would otherwise be identical. One example isein gut ("a boy") versuséin gut ("one boy"). Loanwords may be spelled with other diacritics, most notably⟨ü⟩,⟨á⟩,⟨à⟩ and⟨é⟩,^{[citation needed]} following the conventions of the original language. The Norwegian vowels⟨æ⟩,⟨ø⟩ and⟨å⟩ never take diacritics.

Bokmål is mostly spelled withoutdiacritic signs. The only exception is one word of Norwegian origin, namelyfôr, to be distinguished fromfor (see below) as well as any subsequent compound words, egkåpefôr (coat lining) anddyrefôr (animal feed). There are also a small number of words in Norwegian which use the acute accent. The words areallé (avenue),diaré (diarrhea),kafé (cafe),idé (idea),entré (entrance),komité (committee),kupé (compartment),moské (mosque),supé (supper),trofé (trophy) anddiskré (discreet).^[3] An acute accent can also be used to differentiateen/ei (a) fromén/éi (one) eg.én gutt (one boy)en gutt (a boy).

The diacritic signs in use include theacute accent,grave accent and thecircumflex. A common example of how the diacritics change the meaning of a word, isfor:

• for (preposition.for orto),pronounced[ˈfɔrː]
• fór (verb.went, in the senseleft),pronounced[ˈfuːr]
• fòr (noun.furrow, only Nynorsk),pronounced[ˈfɔːr]
• fôr (noun.fodder),pronounced[ˈfuːr], the circumflex indicating the elision of the edh from the Norse spelling (foðr →fôr;veðr →vêr)
• fôr (nounlining, as in a garment)

Also used is the cedille, but only on a⟨c⟩ in loanwords, when pronounced like⟨s⟩.^[4]

• Françoise
• provençalsk
• Curaçao

The letter⟨å⟩ (HTML å) was introduced in Norwegian in 1917, replacing⟨aa⟩. The new letter came from theSwedish alphabet, where it has been in official use since the 16th century.^[5] Similarly, the letter⟨å⟩ was introduced in Danish in 1948, but the final decision on its place in the alphabet was not made. The initial proposal was to place it first, before⟨a⟩. Its place as the last letter of the alphabet, as in Norwegian, was decided in 1955.^[6] The formerdigraph⟨aa⟩ still occurs in personal names, and in Danish geographical names. In Norway, geographical names tend to follow the current orthography, meaning that the letter⟨å⟩ will be used. Family names may not follow modern orthography, and therefore retain the digraph⟨aa⟩ where⟨å⟩ would be used today.⟨aa⟩ remains in use as a transliteration, if the letter is not available for technical reasons.⟨aa⟩ is treated like⟨å⟩ inalphabetical sorting, not like two adjacent letters⟨a⟩, meaning that while⟨a⟩ is the first letter of the alphabet,⟨aa⟩ is the last. In Norwegian (but not in Danish), this rule does not apply to non-Scandinavian names, so a modern atlas would list the German city ofAachen under⟨a⟩, but list the Danish town ofAabenraa under⟨å⟩. In Danish, the⟨aa⟩ rule is applied, as long as it denotes one sound, for example German Aachen or Dutch kraal, but if it denotes 2 sounds like inekstraarbejde (extra work), the two⟨a⟩s are sorted as two.

In current Danish and Norwegian,⟨w⟩ is recognized as a separate letter from⟨v⟩. In Danish, the transition was made in 1980^{[citation needed]}; before that, the⟨w⟩ was merely considered to be a variation of the letter⟨v⟩ and words using it were sometimes alphabetized accordingly (e.g.,Wandel, Vandstad, Wanscher, Varberg inDansk Biografisk Leksikon, 1904).^[7] The Danish version of theAlphabet song still states that the alphabet has 28 letters; the last line readsotte-og-tyve skal der stå ("that makes twenty-eight"). However, today, the letter⟨w⟩ is considered an official letter.

Incomputing, several different coding standards have existed for this alphabet:

• DS 2089 (Danish) andNS 4551-1 (Norwegian), later established in international standardISO 646
• IBM PCcode page 865
• ISO 8859-1
• Unicode

• Danish orthography
• Danish Braille
• Danish phonology
• Futhark, the Germanic runes used formerly
• Icelandic orthography
• Norwegian Braille
• Norwegian orthography
• Norwegian phonology
• Spelling alphabet#Latin alphabets
• Swedish alphabet
• Swedish Braille
• Swedish orthography

• Type Danish characters online
• Type Norwegian characters online

• Latin alphabets
• Danish language
• Norwegian language

• CS1 Danish-language sources (da)
• CS1 Norwegian Nynorsk-language sources (nn)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Pages with plain IPA
• Articles containing Norwegian-language text
• Articles containing Danish-language text
• Pages with Danish IPA
• Pages with Norwegian IPA
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from July 2010
• Articles containing Old Norse-language text
• Articles with unsourced statements from April 2014