Afrikaans words with ê, ë and ô

The kappie: a little hat on ê and ô

The kappie is the little hat on ê and ô. It makes the vowel long and open. ê sounds like the vowel in the English word air, so sê sounds like a drawn-out “seh”. ô sounds like the aw in saw, so môre sounds like “maw-ruh”.

The hat also tells words apart. se without the hat is a different word, so a missing hat is a real spelling mistake, not a small slip. ô is rare: môre (tomorrow, or morning) is the one most children meet. You will hardly ever see a hat on u or i.

The deelteken: two dots on ë

The deelteken is the two dots on ë. It means: say this vowel on its own, as a new beat. Without the dots, two vowels side by side join into one sound; with them, they stay apart. So reën (rain) has two beats, and voël (bird) sounds like “foo-el”, not one sound.

You see the dots most when a word grows: see becomes seë (seas), knie becomes knieë (knees), and oog becomes oë (eyes).

How to type the marks

On a phone, press and hold the e or o key, then pick the letter with the mark. That is hard for a child, so the app shows a row of marked letters above the keyboard for Afrikaans lists: tap ê, ë or ô and it goes in. Five minutes a day on these words makes the marks a habit.