Ë
Ë, ë (e-umlaut or diaeresis) is a letter of Albanian and Kashubian language. This letter also appears in Afrikaans, Dutch, French and Luxembourgish language as a variant of letter “e”. The letter also appears in Assyrian in Latin letters.
Usage in various languages
Albanian
Ë is the 8th letter of the Albanian alphabet and represents /ə/. It is the most commonly used letter of the language comprising 10 percent of all writings.
Kashubian
Ë is the 9th letter of the Kashubian alphabet and represents /ə/.
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 /noɛl/, whilst "Noel" would be pronounced /nœl/. Likewise, "koloniën" is pronounced /koloniən/, whilst "kolonien" would be pronounced /kolonin/.
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).
Afrikaans
In Afrikaans, the trema (Afrikaans: deelteken) is mostly used to indicate that the vowel should not be diphthonged, for example "geër" (giver) is pronounced /xɪəɪr/, whilst "geer" (a wedge-shaped piece of fabric) is pronounced /xɪər/. There are some cases where the deelteken does nothing to the pronunciation, like in "reën" (rain), which is pronounced /rɪən/, but "reen" (no meaning) would be pronounced the same. The only reason for the deelteken in this case is for traditional reasons, because the archaic form of "reën" is "regen" and the deelteken just indicates that the g was removed.
Assyrian
In Latin written Assyrian (Syriac) books and papers the letter ë gives the sound of a short vocal. In grammar sometimes it's originally a replacement for the other vocals (a, o, e, i, u). Example words that has ë: knotër (he is waiting), krëhti (they are running), krëqdo (she is dancing), sxërlah (she has closed), gfolëh (he will work), madënho (east), mën (what).
Character mappings
| Charset | Unicode | ISO 8859-1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16 |
|---|---|---|
| Majuscule Ë | U+00CB | CB |
| Minuscule ë | U+00EB | EB |