Sound: The Norwegian Vowel Å

FEATURES:

• First used in print in 1541
• Derives from the Old Norse
• Denotes a longer and darker a
•  Also in the Swedish, Finnish, Skolt Sami, and Chamorro alphabets

Å  is the end. There are three extra letters in the Norwegian alphabet, and they all come at the end, after the completely unnecessary (for Norwegians) letter z. The extra letters are all vowels: æ, ø, and å. Å is the last one. Å is the end.

Let me describe the sound of an å. It is the first vowel sound in the English word hope. To a Norwegian, this would sound like håop, which is meaningless.

Norwegians are very fond of vowels. A friend recently told me that unlike the Danish, who pause between phrases and bring silence into speech, we Norwegians constantly make sounds by inserting long vowels while we think about what to say next. Å is one of the common vowels to land on, an extended and deep ååååååååååå, below our singing register, way down in the lowest of our four voice registers, the pulse register, as if we were clearing our throats in slow motion. In music we would call this a “vocal fry,” but in colloquial Norwegian we don’t call it anything at all. Even mentioning it might bring up the uncomfortable fact that it is an act of pleasure, pushing air slowly and bubbly through the throat, feeling the sound of our own insides reverberating and vibrating.

Instead, we focus only on the words we express—long vowel sounds are understood simply as holes in our conversations. We are not a singing people savoring a common, mystical, droning language, but a people “of few words,” as is often noted by visitors. Conveniently, the letter å is also a word, meaning “to,” as in “to” live or “to” begin, and the sound å is used to express the word and. Å is the end, but also a sign that we have not reached the end—we are simply always in the middle of something.

I’ve often needed to get away from å. I may be a Norwegian, but I’ve never been very comfortable with this fact, or with the feeling of the Norwegian language in my mouth—it’s full of pauses that we fill with these interminable vowels, as though we don’t really want to speak to one another. You could say it’s Norwegian anxiety, expressed in a song we refuse to call a song, or a ritual, or anything but silence, but really...