What is å?

Å is the 29th and last letter of the Danish alphabet, although it hasn’t always been. It was introduced to the dictionary as part of a 1948 orthographic reform which also saw Danish scrap the practice of capitalising nouns — similar to how German is written today.

The reform saw å replace aa in official spelling of regular words, although proper nouns did not necessarily follow suit. This is why Aarhus was spelt Århus until 2011, but Aalborg has always been Aalborg (although many people incorrectly write it as “Ålborg”).

The letter has the distinction of having a name that isn’t just the sound of the letter: bolle-å, or “ball-å”, marks it out from the older style of writing it as aa.

Why do I need to know å?

So what does it mean? 

En å is the word for a canal, stream or brook. Å also occurs in some place names.

Gudenå, sometimes written as the River Guden in English, is Denmark’s longest river and runs across Jutland. As you can see, it uses the word for “stream” in its name rather than the Danish word for “river”, which is flod.

Ådal (“stream valley”) is the name of a natural area near Jutland town Vejle, in a region of the country a little more hilly than generally-flat Denmark has a reputation for.

A lot of streams and rivers are also simply named after towns they flow through: Aarhus Å is the name of the canal that appears in tourist photos of bars and restaurants in the centre of Denmark’s second city, but you can also follow the stream back through the countryside to its source, so you’ll see it marked as “Aarhus Å” well outside of Aarhus.

The canals in Copenhagen, notably in the Christianshavn neighbourhood, are not generally called å, but kanal. This is because they are man-made.

While not really the same word, å is also a sound you’ll hear many Danes make when they give a surprised exclamation. Usually you’ll see it written with an ‘h’ after it: Åh nej! Jeg har tabt min is (“Oh no! I’ve dropped my ice cream”).

READ ALSO: Danish word of the day: Ø

Examples

Mange bække små gør en stor å

Many small brooks a large stream make

Skal vi drikke en kaffe nede ved åen?

Shall we go for a coffee down by the canal?