Dutch alphabet

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The Dutch alphabet has 26 letters, five or six of which are vowels. The alphabet used for the Dutch language is the Latin alphabet.

1 Letter names
2 Vowels and trema
3 Spelling alphabet
4 Notes
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Letter names

The Dutch alphabet in 1560.

A poster showing the letters of the alphabet as used for the teaching of handwriting in the Netherlands. The final three letter pairs read "Xx IJij Zz".

Letter	Letter name	Pronunciation
A	/a/	/a/ or /ɑ/
B	/be:/	/b/ or /p/ ^[1]
C	/se:/	/k/ or /s/
D	/de:/	/d/ or /t/ ^[1]
E	/e:/	/e/, /ɛ/ or /ə/
F	/ɛf/	/f/
G	/χe:/	: /χ/, : /ʝ/
H	/ɦa/	/ɦ/
I	/i/	/i/, /ɪ/ or /ə/
J	/je:/	/j/
K	/ka/	/k/
L	/ɛɫ/	l^[2] or /ɫ/^[3]
M	/ɛm/	/m/
N	/ɛn/	/n/
O	/o:/	/o/ or /ɔ/
P	/pe:/	/p/
Q^[4]	/ky/	/k/
R	/ɛɹ/	/r/^[5] or /ɹ/^[3] (allophonic)
S	/ɛs/	/s/
T	/te:/	/t/
U	/y/	/y/, /ʏ/ or /ʋ/^[6]
V	/ve:/	/v/
W	/ʋe:/	: /ʋ/^[7] or /w/^[8], : /w/
X^[4]	/ɪks/	/ks/
Y^[4]	/ɛɪ/^[9]	/ɪ/, /i/ or /j/
Z	/zɛt/	/z/

The digraph IJ is sometimes considered to be a separate letter (usually replacing, placed before or together with Y).

"E" is the mostly frequently used letter in the Dutch alphabet, usually representing a schwa sound. The least frequently used letters are "Q", "X", and "Y".

[edit] Vowels and trema

The vowels are:

A - E - I - O - U - and IJ when it is counted as a separate letter.

"Y" is sometimes, but not always, a vowel.^[10]

When a vowel is followed by another vowel, this usually represents a diphthong or a long sound. When this is not the case, a trema is placed upon the second vowel. This also indicates that the second vowel is in the next syllable. When the vowels are not immediately adjacent (e.g. when the word is split by a hyphen at the end of a line) the trema is not added. A trema is also not used if the letter combination does not exist in Dutch as a diphthong or long sound. Diphthongs in Dutch are 'au', 'ei', 'eu', 'oe', 'ou', 'ui', 'eeu' and 'ieu', long sounds are 'aa', 'ee', 'ie', 'oo' and 'uu'.

This can be seen on any vowel except for ij and y, because combinations of vowels followed by either of these are never ambiguous so a trema is never needed.

Unlike in some other languages, a vowel with a trema stays the same letter: ä, ë, ï, ö and ü do not have separate places in the alphabet.

[edit] Spelling alphabet

When necessary, Dutch speakers may use a conventional spelling alphabet for spelling words aloud (with slight variations from speaker to speaker):^[11]

Anton Bernhard Cornelis Dirk Eduard Ferdinand Gerard Hendrik Izaak Johan/Jacob Karel Lodewijk/Leo Maria Nico Otto Pieter Quirinus Richard/Rudolf Simon Theodoor Utrecht Victor Willem Xantippe IJmuiden/IJsbrand Ypsilon Zacharias

The NATO phonetic alphabet is also used, and sometimes the two are even mixed.

[edit] Notes

^ ^a ^b the Dutch language has final obstruent devoicing; at the end of a syllable, a B is usually pronounced as a P, a D as a T.
^ Preceding vowels. This pronunciation is used almost always in Flemish.
^ ^a ^b Preceding consonants or at the end of a word.
^ ^a ^b ^c The letters Q, X and Y occur mostly in words borrowed from other languages, but may also appear in words and names which hark back to older spellings. "Q" is almost always followed by "U" (qu), because nearly every word with a q is borrowed from French or Latin.
^ Preceding vowels, in some dialects always used.
^ after q
^ Preceding consonants.
^ At the end of a word, which occurs only rarely and almost always preceded by a u as in words such as "lauw" or "nieuw".
^ When pronouncing the alphabet as a whole, Y is generally pronounced as /ɛɪ/. However, when used in common speech and/or the need arises to distinguish the letter from IJ, it is most often referred to as "Griekse IJ" (sometimes written as "Griekse Y" [1])(Greek Y), "i-grec" (a French word having a similar meaning), or ypsilon.
^ Depending on its pronunciation. See also Genootschap Onze Taal. "Griekse ij, i-grec, ypsilon: klinker of medeklinker?" (Dutch)
^ Donaldson (1997), p. 15