Page:A Danish and Dano-Norwegian grammar.djvu/17

 THE ALPHABET. 8. The alphabet used in Danish and Dano-Norwegian literature has the same letters as the English alphabet and besides these the signs Æ (æ) and Ö (Ø, ø, ö). As for the sounds indicated by these letters see §§ 12, 13, 25, 26, 82, 91. The names of the vowels are represented by their sounds.

The names of the consonants b, c, d, etc. are be, ce, de etc. (pronounce e like a in name.) h and k are called haa and kaa (aa pron. with a sound between o in hole and a in call), j is called jod (yod), g ge (pronounced like g in give), w is called “dobbelt ve” (double v), z zet pr. set. The Gothic characters are still in very common use, especially in newspapers and popular books. These letters have the following forms :

Some authors also employ the sign å, borrowed from the Swedish language, to express the same sound as is usually in Danish and Dano-Norwegian literature denoted by aa (see above).

NOTE.—Capital letters are still according to official Danish rules of spelling used at the beginning of substantives and adjectives employed as substantives, while the official Norwegian orthography only acknowledges capital letters in proper nouns. A great many Danish authors also have done away with capital letters in common nouns.

The sounds of the Danish and the Dano-Norwegian branches of the language are so widely different, that it bashas [sic] been found practical to treat of them in separate chapters.