Swedish (Svenska) is the national language of Sweden and one of two national languages of Finland. It is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era (AD 800-1066). Standard Swedish is the national language that evolved in the 1800s and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. Swedish is noted for its musical quality: spoken Swedish has a tone or pitch accent. The alphabet consists of 29 letters, the regular 26 of the English alphabet, plus å, ä and ö at the end.