Ë
Encyclopedia
is a letter in the Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...

, Ripuarian, Uyghur Latin Script
Uyghur Latin Yéziqi
Uyghur Latin script is an auxiliary alphabet for the Uyghur language based on the Latin script. Uyghur is primarily written in a Arabic alphabet and sometimes in a Cyrillic alphabet.- Construction :...

, Ladin, and Kashubian language
Kashubian language
Kashubian or Cassubian is one of the Lechitic languages, a subgroup of the Slavic languages....

s. This letter also appears in Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...

, Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Abruzzese
Southern Italian
Southern Italian , or Napoletano-Calabrese, is a group of Italo-Dalmatian Romance dialects spoken in Southern Lazio, Southern Marche, Abruzzo, Molise, Campania, Basilicata, Apulia, and Northern Calabria....

 dialect (especially its version Ascolano), and Luxembourgish
Luxembourgish language
Luxembourgish is a High German language spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 320,000 people worldwide speak Luxembourgish.-Language family:...

 language as a variant of letter "e". The letter is used in Seneca
Seneca language
Seneca is the language of the Seneca people, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois League. About 10,000 Seneca live in the United States and Canada, primarily on reservations in western New York, with others living in Oklahoma and near Brantford, Ontario.-Phonology:Seneca words are written with...

, in Turoyo
Turoyo language
Turoyo/Surayt is a variety of Aramaic traditionally spoken in eastern Turkey and north-eastern Syria by the Assyrian/Syriac people. Turoyo is to a lesser extent mutually intelligible with Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic.-Etymology:...

 and Taiwanese Hokkien when written in Latin script
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...

.

Afrikaans

In Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...

, the trema
Umlaut (diacritic)
The diaeresis and the umlaut are diacritics that consist of two dots placed over a letter, most commonly a vowel. When that letter is an i or a j, the diacritic replaces the tittle: ï....

 (Afrikaans: deelteken) is mostly used to indicate that the vowel should not be diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...

ed, 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. Some older people do pronounce "reën" in two syllables /rɪəɪn/.

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" (English: Bird). It gets pronounced in two syllables. Without it the word becomes "voel" (English: Feel), pronounced in one syllable.

Albanian

Ë, called e pa zë (e without voice; voiceless e), is the 8th letter of the Albanian alphabet
Albanian alphabet
The modern Albanian alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, and consists of 36 letters:Note: The vowels are shown in bold. to the pronunciation of the letters.-History:...

 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, especially in its northern variant in the Province of Ascoli Piceno (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialetto_ascolano#Zona_ascolana) and it's called "mute E": sounds like an é but just hummed. It's important for the prosody of the dialect itself.

English

Use of the character Ë in the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 is rare, although it is found in some publications such as the American magazine The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

. It is used to indicate that the "e" is to be pronounced: separately from the preceding vowel (e.g. "reëntry"), 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
Umlaut (diacritic)
The diaeresis and the umlaut are diacritics that consist of two dots placed over a letter, most commonly a vowel. When that letter is an i or a j, the diacritic replaces the tittle: ï....

 is used to indicate that the vowel should not be diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...

ed. For example, "Noël" is pronounced /noɛl/, whilst "Noel" would be pronounced /nœl/. Likewise, "koloniën" is pronounced /koloniən/, whilst "kolonien" would be pronounced /kolonin/.

Ladin

Although not used in standard Ladin, Ë is used in some local dialects. It represents /ɜ/.

Luxembourgish

In Luxembourgish
Luxembourgish language
Luxembourgish is a High German language spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 320,000 people worldwide speak Luxembourgish.-Language family:...

, ‹ë› is used for stressed schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...

 /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
Mayan languages
The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...

, the letter ë represents /ə/, as in Albanian.

Seneca

In Seneca
Seneca language
Seneca is the language of the Seneca people, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois League. About 10,000 Seneca live in the United States and Canada, primarily on reservations in western New York, with others living in Oklahoma and near Brantford, Ontario.-Phonology:Seneca words are written with...

 the letter ë is used to represent /ẽ/, a front mid unrounded nasalized vowel.

Turoyo

In Latin-script Turoyo
Turoyo language
Turoyo/Surayt is a variety of Aramaic traditionally spoken in eastern Turkey and north-eastern Syria by the Assyrian/Syriac people. Turoyo is to a lesser extent mutually intelligible with Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic.-Etymology:...

 (Syriac) the letter ë gives a schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...

. 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).

Uyghur Latin Script

Ë is the 6th letter of the Uyghur Latin Script
Uyghur Latin Yéziqi
Uyghur Latin script is an auxiliary alphabet for the Uyghur language based on the Latin script. Uyghur is primarily written in a Arabic alphabet and sometimes in a Cyrillic alphabet.- Construction :...

 and represents close-mid front unrounded vowel /e/
Close-mid front unrounded vowel
The close-mid front unrounded vowel, or high-mid front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ....

.

Character mappings

CharsetUnicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

U+00CB CB
Minuscule U+00EB EB

External links

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