Script guide › Latin
Danish vs Swedish
Danish and Swedish sit in the same corner of the writing-system map — Grafle's Latin group — and players mix them up constantly. Here's the fastest way to tell them apart.
The tell
Swedish dots its vowels (ä, ö); Danish strikes them (æ, ø). Two-dot letters = Sweden.
Side by side
Danish
Rødgrød med fløde er en klassisk dansk dessert.
Hyggeligt at møde dig! Kom og få en kop kaffe.
Mange bække små gør en stor å.
Danish's own tells
- Uses æ, ø, å — like Norwegian, unlike Swedish's ä/ö.
- Near-identical to Norwegian: Danish writes 'af' where Norwegian writes 'av', so lean on context.
On signs in:
- Denmark
- Greenland
Swedish
Alla människor är födda fria och lika i värde.
Hej! Trevligt att träffas — hur mår du?
Borta bra men hemma bäst.
Swedish's own tells
- Uses å, ä, ö. If you see ä and ö but never æ or ø, think Sweden.
- 'och' (and) is a quick Swedish tell.
On signs in:
- Sweden
- Finland