Swedish alphabet

The Swedish alphabet is the writing system used for the Swedish language. It is a 29-letter alphabet based on the modern 26-letter basic Latin alphabet plus the three letters 'å', 'ä' and 'ö', sorted after the letter 'z'.

Alphabet

The 29-letter form of the alphabet has been in use for many decades, with the 26-letter modern Latin alphabet, and the 3 added letters 'å', 'ä' and 'ö', which come after the letter 'z'; hence words beginning with those letters would be found near the end of a typical Swedish dictionary. The use of the letters 'q' and 'w' is very rare, and up to 2006, the 'v' and 'w' were often combined in the collating sequence under 'v'. Before the 19th century, 'w' used to be interchangeable with 'v' ('w' was used in Fraktur, 'v' in Antiqua). Official orthographic standards since 1801 use only 'v', except in names and foreign words. The letter 'q' was commonly used in ordinary words before 1889, when its replacement by 'k' was allowed; since 1900, only the forms with 'k' are listed in dictionaries. Some loan words have 'q' as discussed below. Many family names still use 'q' and 'w'.