# All Scandinavian languages: Special characters in text messages



## twohmen

When sending cellphone texts in German, I often use "e" to express an umlaut. For example, "für" I write as "fuer". Etc. I have similar tricks in other languages.

I would like to know what substitutions people write for the following:

1. "å" as in "Bokmål" . (I think I have heard doubling the letter, like "aa")

2. "ø" as in "førti". (I think I have heard adding an e, like "oe")


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## María Madrid

I'm not sure if you really do that. I don't live in Scandinavia anymore but when texting there I can use those characters, they're available in my phone (maybe some European regulation), so I don't need to use anything else, Depending on the model I have to change the language settings for that specific message or they come just as special characters. Same with the pc keyboard (Alt+some numbers), no excuse to write incorrectly.

As for Scandinavian phones, they don't need to change anything as those characters are not "special", but just as part of the default language the phone is set, just as any other letter. The texts I get may include a "special" spelling (just to make words shorter) but the characters are just as they should be.


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## jonquiliser

Yup, quite. Mobiles have those characters. Though I admit that sometimes, out of laziness, I'll substitute an o for an ö, or an a for an ä or å - the a and the o come about three characters sooner than ä/å and ö  

If I write on a computer that has neither å/ä/ö nor dieresis, I'll use a and o. I guess some people might use aa, ae and oe, but at least writing in Swedish, it's not common.


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## María Madrid

jonquiliser said:


> If I write on a computer that has neither å/ä/ö nor dieresis, I'll use a and o. .


All keyboards have Alt!!! Alt+134 or Alt+143. ¡Eso es vaguería!


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## jonquiliser

Uf, the option of alt and a whole bunch of numbers supera mis capacidades intelectuales y demás...


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## Pteppic

As has already been said, those characters aren't special at all on mobile phones, here. So I suppose the analogous situation is, as jonquiliser mentioned, writing home on foreign keyboards, in which case Norwegians do the same as the Swedes (although the umlaut thing doesn't apply to our alphabet). I think we might be slightly less hesitant to use the ae, oe and aa, though, but don't take my word for it. A friend of mine used Maria's Alt key method, but I've never known anybody else to do it, and it's not really an alternative for you, I suppose


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## Hildebrand

Æ / Ä = AE
Ø / Ö = OE
Å = AA

Ü = could be either Y or UE

^^ but still, you just have to click a little more on your cell phone to get to these letters (;


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## twohmen

OK, I hear you guys, I have killed myself trying to get those symbols on a blackberry. the blackberry DOES have a symbol page, but those characters are not on it. I did fiddle with the blackberry to try and get them.

Further, when I get texts from Norway, the blackberry puts "?" on those characters. Like "Bokm?l". So I don't think my cellphone is recognizing them...

The key would be to change the "keyboard" of the cellphone, but it's not clear on a bberry either...I tried for some time.


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## Sepia

Hildebrand said:


> Æ / Ä = AE
> Ø / Ö = OE
> Å = AA
> 
> Ü = could be either Y or UE
> 
> ^^ but still, you just have to click a little more on your cell phone to get to these letters (;



Right. Except for Ü. It is not the same as Y. UE should be used

In the days when they still used TELEX-machines (I think some still do, by the way) these are the substitutes that the machine made by it self when you pressed the keys with the special national characters.


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## Hildebrand

Sepia said:
			
		

> Right. Except for Ü. It is not the same as Y. UE should be used
> 
> In the days when they still used TELEX-machines (I think some still do, by the way) these are the substitutes that the machine made by it self when you pressed the keys with the special national characters.


 
I know, but it's a Y-sound to me ^^ (and to you, I guess)


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## MarX

María Madrid said:


> All keyboards have Alt!!! Alt+134 or Alt+143. ¡Eso es vaguería!


Well, my laptop keyboard doesn't.
It does have ä and ö, because it's a German keyboard, but I usually write aa for å, otherwise I'd waste too much time copying and pasting.


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## MarX

Hildebrand said:


> Æ / Ä = AE
> Ø / Ö = OE
> Å = AA
> 
> Ü = could be either Y or UE
> 
> ^^ but still, you just have to click a little more on your cell phone to get to these letters (;


I thought you don't use ü in Scandinavian.


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## DrWatson

You're right, Ü is not used in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian or Icelandic. At least in Swedish Y has the same sound as German Ü.


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## Sepia

Hildebrand said:


> I know, but it's a Y-sound to me ^^ (and to you, I guess)



so you think it is OK to write the name of former Danish chief of state

POUL SCHLYTER

like this?

Or rather like this, POUL SCHLUETER, when you don't have the Ü in your character set?

Internationally Ü is not always the same phonem as Y.


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## María Madrid

DrWatson said:


> At least in Swedish Y has the same sound as German Ü.


I'm not so sure it's the exactly the same... maybe off topic, sorry.


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## Sepia

María Madrid said:


> I'm not so sure it's the exactly the same... maybe off topic, sorry.



Still does not change the fact that such conventions have a purpose - and the internationally accepted convention is UE for Ü. If text me a message to go make a reservation for our business partner Mr Schlüter, you don't have the Ü-character ready and write SCHLYTER, you can imagine what happens. I make the reservation, Mr Schlüter shows up and says his name - spells it. The receptionist knows that there is no ü on his keyboard and enters the name SCHLUETER which he knows is the correct spelling. And he says:

"Sorry, Mr Schlueter, we don't have any reservation under your name ..."


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## María Madrid

Sure Sepia, I agree, I just referred to the pronunciation. I must admit I had never heard ü could be spelled y, just ue.


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## Sepia

María Madrid said:


> Sure Sepia, I agree, I just referred to the pronunciation. I must admit I had never heard ü could be spelled y, just ue.




Remember the actor Yves Montand?

Or Yul Brynner? 

That is what I meant with "internationally". Several cultures know "Y" as a "greek I" and pronounce it nothing like the "Y"  "by" or "cykel" and not like "ü" in "Schlüter".


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## María Madrid

Sorry, got lost with your point I was talking about Swedish pronunciation... What has Yves Montand to do with the pronunciation of ü/y being or not being the same sound in Swedish? Besides, French has no ü. As for spelling I actually said I only knew ü=ue, never y. 

And yes, I know Y is called Greek I, among others in my mother tongue, Spanish and we certainly do NOT pronounce it like y in "cykel".


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## Sepia

María Madrid said:


> Sorry, got lost with your point I was talking about Swedish pronunciation... What has Yves Montand to do with the pronunciation of ü/y being or not being the same sound in Swedish? Besides, French has no ü. As for spelling I actually said I only knew ü=ue, never y.
> 
> And yes, I know Y is called Greek I, among others in my mother tongue, Spanish and we certainly do NOT pronounce it like y in "cykel".




Again: There is no ü in any language except German and Turkish, I think. At least there isn't one in any of the Scandinavian languages. Except in proper names.

But there is - and has been for decades - an international convention for how to substitute those characters that are uniqe to German and Scandinavian languages. It worked just fine back in the days of the TELEX machine and they still work fine. That some cultures pronounce y and ü the same doen't change the fact that most do not. 
That was my point.

Besides, they wrote ue for ü long before the ü-character was conceived. Just like the Danes used aa before they adapted the Swedish å for that sound.


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## María Madrid

Again... what has it got to do with Swedish pronunciation? And I NEVER said ü can be replaced with y. Please reread the previous messages, because I feel you're correcting me for something I've never said.


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## Hildebrand

Sepia said:
			
		

> so you think it is OK to write the name of former Danish chief of state
> 
> POUL SCHLYTER
> 
> like this?
> 
> Or rather like this, POUL SCHLUETER, when you don't have the Ü in your character set?
> 
> Internationally Ü is not always the same phonem as Y.


 
what I said was that had the sound of a Y, but I would use UE too (;


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## Lugubert

When I travel abroad, I carry a little slip of paper with the Alt codes for åäö ÅÄÖ and even üÜ and a few others. The first day or two, it's a nuisance, but at least to me, it soon gets quite automatic, and I know that it will make a huge positive difference to people that read my e-mail items. I don't know how far that works for cellphones, but my phones all have had Scandinavian characters if you scroll a few more key presses: caps/lower case åäö follow the o, a, a respectively.


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