What is Ø?

Today’s word of the day ø, meaning island, is also the shortest Danish word (well, tied with another single-letter word, å, which means stream).

It is also one of three Danish letters that don’t exist in English, along with the aforementioned Å and Æ. These letters are often split into oe (ø), aa (å) or ae (æ) when, for example, Danish names are written in English texts. Ø is also sometimes written as o, which is misleading, because o is a different vowel in Danish.

The pronunciation of ø is somewhere between the exclamation ‘oh!’ and the filler word ‘er’ in English, but given the letter ø cannot be found in the English-language alphabet, it’s hard to describe an exact match.

We think that, like the word ‘bed’ in English, ‘ø’ has the rare quality of looking like the thing it signifies. It has more than a passing resemblance to an island, right?

Why do I need to know Ø?

Apart from Jutland, Denmark is a country consisting of islands (there are 443 named ones), so it’s a word you’ll hear a lot.

You’ll spot it in the names of some of these islands, such as Læsø, Samsø, Æbelø, Bogø, and Sprogø. These are generally the smaller islands, while big ones have names without the ø — the obvious examples are Zealand (Sjælland) and Funen (Fyn), but Bornholm, Langeland, Lolland, Falster and Møn can also be added to this list.

There are some exceptions to this, like Endelave and Anholt, which are both somewhat smaller than our favouritely-named Danish island of all: Ærø.

An important linguistic point to remember is that you generally use the preposition på (on) with islands. For example, you would say ‘jeg bor på Fyn‘ (I live on Funen), but jeg bor i Jylland (I live in Jutland).

Although ‘på Fyn‘ is correct, this only applies when talking about the island, not towns or cities located on it, for example: jeg bor i Svendborg, en mindre by på Fyn (I live in Svendborg, a small town on Funen).

Likewise, when talking about a region within an island you switch back to i (in). This is particularly relevant on the largest island, Zealand, which is often discussed in terms of its geography. Jeg bor i Hillerød, det ligger i Nordsjælland (I live in Hillerød, it’s located in North Zealand) is correct, for example.

It’s not a major faux pas to mix up på and i, however.

Finally, the Danish word for peninsula is halvø, literally ‘half island’. Worth knowing given that the only non-island part of the country, Jutland, is in fact a very large peninsula.

Examples

Jeg har lige været på Ærø og synes øboerne er utrolig venlige.

I have recently been to Ærø and think the islanders are incredibly friendly.

Intet menneske er en ø.

No person is an island.