The letter Ä arose in German and later in Swedish from originally writing the E in AE on top of the A, which with time became simplified as two dots, consistent with the Sütterlin script. In the Nordic countries, the vowel sound was originally written as ' Æ' when Christianisation caused the former Vikings to start using the Latin alphabet around A.D. The sign at the bus station of the Finnish town Mynämäki, illustrating an artistic variation of the letter Ä In the romanization of Nanjing Mandarin, Ä stands for. In German and Slovak Ä stands for (or the archaic but correct ). In Finnish, Kazakh, Turkmen and Tatar, this is always in Swedish and Estonian, regional variation, as well as the letter's position in a word, allows for either or. The letter Ä occurs as an independent letter in the Finnish, Swedish, Skolt Sami, Karelian, Estonian, Luxembourgish, North Frisian, Saterlandic, Emiliano-Romagnolo, Rotuman, Slovak, Tatar, Kazakh, Gagauz, German, and Turkmen alphabets, where it represents a vowel sound. Usage Sign of Stäket, a residential area in Järfälla Municipality, Sweden Independent letter
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, it represents the open central unrounded vowel. Ä (lower case ä) is a character that represents either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter A with an umlaut mark or diaeresis. See also: ä (IPA) Latin letter A with diaeresis
