'W' Gets Its Own Place in Swedish Language

Yahoo News ^ | 4/23/06

[Unam Sanctam]

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The letter 'W' has entered the mainstream of the Swedish language, getting its own section for the first time in the country's most respected dictionary.

While 'W' has long been a letter in its own right in other Nordic languages, Swedish linguists have always viewed it as a lesser sibling of the letter 'V,' as the two letters are pronounced identically in Swedish.

The few Swedish words that use 'W' have generally been borrowed from other languages — such as "watt," "walkie-talkie" and the "World Wide Web" — and have so far always been lumped under the 'V' section in dictionaries.

Sweden is called "Sverige" in Swedish and its language is named "Svenska."

But the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in literature and whose members are considered the guardians of the Swedish language, decided it was time for 'W' to come out of the shadows.

The letter, called "double-v" in Swedish, "can no longer be sorted in under the single V," the academy said when it introduced the 13th edition of its dictionary this week.

The change means that the Swedish language, at least according to the academy, now has 29 letters instead of 28.

[SteveMcKing]

Cultural errosion....

I'd be liwid.

[null and void]

Ya sure, yabetcha!

[jocon307]

Obviously, Bush's fault.

[null and void]

That vent vithout saying...

[satchmodog9]

I guess my wife and I were trend setters by having W stickers on our Volvo's.

[Wormwood]

Wolvos, you mean.

[Slings and Arrows]

VTF?!

[John Geyer]

Volvo means "to go" in Latin, it's not a swedish word.

[ChessExpert]

Post 4 & 5

Very funny. You two are a pair (vv?).

[adorno]

...decided it was time for 'W' to come out of the shadows.

Is that the same as "W" coming out of the closet?

[tophat9000]

Gee and all these Swede's living in the state of Visconsin

[null and void]

Ve verk together, don'tcha know?

[TypeZoNegative]

I'm sure the liberal Swedes love W taking over their language.

[MineralMan]

Real good, then, you Svenska folks, you betcha. Now if you and the nice Norskies will quit duking it out all the time, Minnesnowta, and Visconsin vill be wery nice places, doncha know.

This is most certainly true!

[Charles Henrickson]

Ping to the Swedish Ping List.

When my grandfather emigrated from Sweden to America and came through Ellis Island, his name was changed--I don't know if he did it or the immigration official did it--his name was changed from "Karl Viktor Henriksson" to "Charles Wiktor Henrickson." I think maybe his pronunciation of the "V" led to the change to a "W."

[NYpeanut]

Svedes don't do liwid. They just frovn.

[RogerFGay]

Interesting about your grandfather's name -- W is most often encountered here in names.

I'm glad they decided to acknowledge the special nature of "double V" -- maybe in the future there won't be as much confusion here between the two sounds v, w.

[schwing_wifey]

Knov vhat you mean... I think my family name Swendsen used to be Svendsen... makes hunting down those Svedish connections that much harder....

:)