The modern Dutch alphabet consists of the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet and is used for the Dutch language. Five (or six) letters are vowels and 21 (or 20) letters are consonants.
| Majuscule Forms (also called uppercase or capital letters) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
| Minuscule Forms (also called lowercase or small letters) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | v | w | x | y | z |
Contents |
Until the nineteenth century, the ſ or long s was also used for words in the Dutch language, but was then replaced with the regular s. The ligature æ was sometimes used (for example in the name Æneas Mackay), but today the letters a and e would replace this letter.
Currently the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet are used:
The digraph ⟨IJ⟩ behaves like a separate letter for capitalisation. In alphabetically ordered lists, ⟨IJ⟩ may intermix with ⟨Y⟩ (usual for telephone directories) or come between ⟨ii⟩ and ⟨ik⟩ (common in dictionaries). The letter ⟨E⟩ is the most frequently used letter in the Dutch alphabet, usually representing a schwa sound. The least frequently used letters are ⟨Q⟩ and ⟨X⟩.
The vowels are:
"Y" is sometimes, but not always, a vowel.[1]
When a vowel is followed by another vowel, this combination usually represents a long vowel (aa, ee, eu, ie, oe, oo, uu)[2] or a diphthong (ai, au, ei, ou, ui, aai, eeu, ieu, oei, ooi).[3]
When one of these letter combinations should not be pronounced together (phonological hiatus), a trema is placed upon the first vowel of the next syllable. A trema is not used if the letters do not normally form a combination. For instance, a trema is added in ruïne (ruin) because otherwise ui would be pronounced as a diphthong. It is also added in beëdigen (to swear in) because otherwhise ee would form a long vowel. It is not added in beamen (to confirm) because ea can only be pronounced as e + a and not in any other way.[4] In words that are still considered completely foreign, and keep their original spelling, no trema is added even if the combination of vowels would produce a diphthong or a long vowel. For instance, museum is not written museüm.
When the vowels are not immediately adjacent (e.g. when the word is split by a hyphen at the end of a line) there is no ambiguity so the trema is not added.
A trema can be seen on any vowel except for ij and y, because combinations of vowels preceded or followed by either of these are never ambiguous.
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.
| Letter | Letter name | Pronunciation |
|---|---|---|
| A | [aː] | /aː/ or /ɑ/ |
| B | [beː] | /b/[5] |
| C | [seː] | /k/ or /s/ |
| D | [deː] | /d/[5] |
| E | [eː] | /eː/, /ɛ/ or /ə/ |
| F | [ɛf] | /f/ |
| G | [ɣeː][6] | : /ɣ/,[5] : /ʝ/[5][7] |
| H | [ɦaː] | /ɦ/ |
| I | [i] | /i/, /ɪ/, /ə/ or /j/[8] |
| J | [jeː] | /j/ |
| K | [kaː] | /k/ |
| L | [ɛɫ] | /l/[9] |
| M | [ɛm] | /m/ |
| N | [ɛn] | /n/ |
| O | [oː] | /o/ or /ɔ/ |
| P | [peː] | /p/ |
| Q[10] | [ky] | /k/ |
| R | [ɛɾ] | /r/[11] |
| S | [ɛs] | /s/ |
| T | [teː] | /t/ |
| U | [y] | /y/, /ʏ/ or /ʋ/[12] |
| V | [veː] | /v/[5] |
| W | [ʋeː] | : /ʋ/,[13] and : /w/ |
| X[10] | [ɪks] | /ks/ |
| Y[10] | [ɛɪ][14] | /ɛɪ/, /ɪ/, /iː/ or /j/ |
| Z | [zɛt] | /z/ |
When necessary, Dutch speakers may use a conventional spelling alphabet for spelling words aloud (with slight variations from speaker to speaker):[15]
The NATO phonetic alphabet is also used, and sometimes the two are even mixed.