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.
When a vowel is followed by another vowel, this combination usually represents a long vowel (aa, ee, eu, ie, oe, oo, uu) or a diphthong (ai, au, ei, ou, ui, aai, eeu, ieu, oei, ooi).
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. 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.
Read more about this topic: Dutch Alphabet
Famous quotes containing the words vowels and and/or vowels:
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—Roger Brown (b. 1925)
“Playing “bop” is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.”
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