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Nordic languages use characters additional to those available in English. Digraphs are two-character combinations used for simplicity, and are often the most universally understood notation of those characters.
For example, "A'satru'" is used to represent "Ásatrú", and "Aesir" or "AEsir" is used to represent "Æsir".
Since the colonial descendents of the Norse make up a large part of English speaking poeple's ancestry, their language has heavily influenced ours. Consequently, the sounds they represent ARE included in our pronounciation. This contrasts to sounds like the "Pt" in "Ptolemey" from Greek/Egyptian/Arabic, or the tounge-twisters of Welsh which are derived from the elder Celtic immigrants. Both of the latter groups remained geographically separate from the mainstream influencers of our language.
Character | Name | Digraph | HTML equiv. | Pronounced |
Á, á | a acute | A', a' | Á á | "ou" in "loud" |
Ð, ð | eth | TH, th | "th" in "there" | |
É, é | e acute | E', e' | É é | "ea" in "yeah" |
Í, í | i acute | I', i' | Í í | "e" in "he" |
Ó, ó | o acute | O', o' | Ó ó | "o" in "home" |
Ú, ú | u acute | U', u' | Ú ú | "U" in "Uniform" |
Ý, ý | y acute | Y', y' | Ý ý | "e" in "he" |
Þ, þ | thorn | TH, th | &Szlig; ß | "th" in "thumb" |
Æ, æ | ae | AE, ae | Æ æ | "i" in "hi" |
Ø, ø | o-slash | OE, oe | Ø ø | "i" in "bird" |
Å, å | a-ring | AA, aa | Å å | "o" in "bored" |
Ä, ä | a diaeresis | A", a" | Ä ä | "a" in "bad" |
Ö, ö | o diaeresis | O", o" | Ö ö | "i" in "bird" |
Ü, ü | u diaeresis | U", u" | Ü ü | "ue" in "rue" |