Ë, ë (e-diaeresis) is a letter in the Albanian, Kashubian, Emilian-Romagnol and Ladin alphabets. This letter also appears in Acehnese, Afrikaans, Dutch, French, Abruzzese dialect, the Ascolano dialect and Luxembourgish as a variant of letter e. The letter is used in Seneca, in Taiwanese Hokkien, in Turoyo and in Uyghur when written in Latin script.
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Afrikaans
In Afrikaans, the trema (Afrikaans: deelteken) is mostly used to indicate that the vowel should not be diphthongised, for example geër ("giver") is pronounced [χeər], whilst geer (a wedge-shaped piece of fabric) is pronounced [χiːr]. There are some cases where the deelteken does nothing to the pronunciation, like in reën ("rain"), which is pronounced [reən]. The non-existent word reen would be pronounced the same. The deelteken in this case has only a historical background; the archaic form of reën is regen and the deelteken indicates that the g was removed. Some older people still pronounce reën in two syllables ([ˈreː.ən]).
The deelteken does exactly what it says (deelteken being Afrikaans for "separation mark"). It separates syllables, as it indicates the start of a new one. An example of this is the word voël ("bird"), which is pronounced in two syllables. Without it, the word would become voel ("feel"), which is pronounced in one syllable.
Albanian
Ë is the 8th letter of the Albanian alphabet and represents the vowel /ə/. It is the most commonly used letter of the language comprising 10 percent of all writings.
Ascolano
Ë is a phonetic symbol also used in the transcription of Abruzzese dialects and in the Province of Ascoli Piceno (the ascolano dialect). It is called "mute E" and sounds like a hummed é. It is important for the prosody of the dialect itself.
Emilian-Romagnol
Ë is used in Romagnol to represent [ɛː~ɛə], e.g. fradël [fraˈdɛəl~fraˈdɛːl] "brother". In some peripheral Emilian dialects, ë is used to represent [ə], e.g. strëtt [strətː] "narrow".
English
Use of the character Ë in the English language is relatively rare. Some publications, such as the American magazine The New Yorker, use it more often than others. It is used to indicate that the e is to be pronounced separately from the preceding vowel (e.g. in the word "reëntry", the feminine name "Chloë" or in the masculine name "Raphaël"), or at all - like in the name of the Brontë sisters, where without diaeresis the final e would be mute.
French and Dutch
Ë appears in words like French Noël and Dutch koloniën. This so-called trema is used to indicate that the vowel should not be diphthonged. For example, Noël is pronounced [nɔɛl], whilst Noel would be pronounced [nœl]. Likewise, "koloniën" is pronounced [koːˈloːniən], whilst "kolonien" would be pronounced [koːˈloːnin].
Kashubian
Ë is the 9th letter of the Kashubian alphabet and represents /ə/.
Ladin
Although not used in standard Ladin, Ë is used in some local dialects. It represents /ɜ/.
Latin
In many editions of Latin texts, the diaeresis is used to indicate that ae and oe form a hiatus, not a diphthong (in the Classical pronunciation) or a monophthong (in traditional English pronunciations). Examples: aër "air", poëta "poet", coërcere "to coerce".
Luxembourgish
In Luxembourgish, ⟨ë⟩ is used for stressed schwa /ə/ like in the word ëmmer ("always"). It is also used to indicate a morphological plural ending after two ⟨ee⟩ such as in eeër ("eggs") or leeën ("lay").
Mayan languages
In the modern orthography of Mayan languages, the letter Ë represents /ə/, as in Albanian.
Russian
In some Latin transliterations of Russian, Ë is used to represent its homoglyph, representing a stressed /jo/, as in Potëmkin to render the Cyrillic Потёмкин.
Syriac
In the Syriac Latin alphabet, the letter Ë gives a schwa. In grammar, sometimes it is a replacement for the other, original vowels (a, o, e, i, u). Example words that have Ë: knoţër ("he is waiting"), krëhţi ("they are running"), krëqdo ("she is dancing"), sxërla ("she has closed"), gfolëḥ ("he will work"), madënḥo ("east"), mën ("what"), ašër ("believe"). Turoyo and Assyrian languages may utilize this diacritic, albeit rarely.
Seneca
In Seneca the letter Ë is used to represent /ẽ/, a close-mid front unrounded nasalized vowel.
Tagalog
In Tagalog, Ë is used to represent the schwa, particularly in words originating from other Philippine languages.
Uyghur
Ë is the 6th letter of the Uyghur Latin alphabet and represents close-mid front unrounded vowel /e/.