ø

A few bøds in Rønnies Voe.

The sound ø is still prolific and very stable in Shaetlan. Technically it is a front close-mid rounded vowel, and phonetically the only difference between the sounds /e/ and /ø/ is that the lips are rounded with /ø/. Old English had it, as did Old Norse, the main ancestors of Shaetlan. It is uncommon world-wide and is almost only found in Eurasian languages. The Scandinavian languages, German and French have it. Almost all English varieties have lost it, but it remains in Northumbrian English.

The sound /ø/ is sometimes spelled as ö. Either spelling is fine, and some languages use ø (eg Norwegian) while others use ö (eg Swedish). We have chosen ø because it is the same as the symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet.