Are æ, ø and å just accented vowels?

No. They are full, independent letters in the Norwegian alphabet, occupying positions 27, 28 and 29 after z. They represent distinct sounds and can change a word's meaning, so they are phonemically real, not decorative accents.

What is the difference between the modern and traditional mapping?

Modern mapping uses ø→o and å→a, which is common in URLs and short identifiers. Traditional mapping uses ø→oe and å→aa, reflecting older spelling — å was historically written aa, as in place names like Aalesund.

When should I transliterate at all?

Only when a system genuinely cannot store the letters, such as a legacy filename scheme, an ASCII-only username field, or a URL slug. In normal Norwegian writing you should always keep æ, ø and å intact.

Does case get preserved?

Yes. Uppercase letters map to capitalised digraphs, so Ø becomes O or Oe and Å becomes A or Aa, keeping the original casing of your text.

Norwegian Diacritic Remover

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Norwegian uses three letters beyond the basic Latin alphabet: æ, ø and å. This tool converts them to ASCII for situations where the real letters cannot be stored, while making clear that they are genuine letters rather than accents.

How it works

Each special letter is replaced according to the chosen scheme, with casing preserved:

Modern:       æ → ae   ø → o    å → a
Traditional:  æ → ae   ø → oe   å → aa

All other characters pass through unchanged. The traditional aa for å reflects historic spelling — many older place names were written with aa before the letter å was standardised.

Tips and notes

Use transliteration only for filenames, URL slugs, or legacy ASCII-only fields. Because æ, ø and å are distinct phonemes, dropping them in ordinary text changes pronunciation and can change meaning — får (gets/sheep) is not far (father). Keep the original letters everywhere correct Norwegian is expected.