Ë

Ë, ë (e-diaeresis) is a letter in the Albanian, Kashubian, Emilian, Romagnol, Ladin, and Lenape alphabets. As a variant of the letter e, it also appears in Acehnese, Afrikaans, Belarusian, Breton, Dutch, English, Filipino, French, Luxembourgish, Piedmontese, Russian, the Abruzzese dialect of the Neapolitan language, and the Ascolano dialect. The letter is also used in Seneca, Taiwanese Hokkien, Turoyo, and Uyghur when written in Latin script. In Acehnese, ë is used to represent /ə/ (schwa), a mid central vowel. In Afrikaans, the trema (Afrikaans: deelteken, ˈdɪəl.tɪəkən) is used mostly to indicate that the vowel should not be diphthongised: geër ("giver") is pronounced χɪər, and geer (a wedge-shaped piece of fabric) is pronounced χɪər. Sometimes, however, the deelteken does not change the pronunciation. For example, in reën ("rain"), which is pronounced rɪən. The nonexistent word *reen would have been pronounced identically, and the deelteken is only etymological since the archaic form of reën is regen. The deelteken indicates the removal of g, and some older people still pronounce reën in two syllables (ˈreː.ən). The deelteken does exactly what it means in Afrikaans ("separation mark") by marking the beginning of a new syllable and by separating it from the previous one. For example, voël ("bird") is pronounced in two syllables. Without the deelteken, the word would become voel ("feel"), which is pronounced in one syllable. Ë is the 8th letter of the Albanian alphabet and represents the vowel ə. It is the fourth most commonly used letter of the language, comprising 7.74 percent of all writings. Ë is used in the romanization of Classical or Eastern Armenian to represent the letter Ը/ը (ët’). Ë is a phonetic symbol also used in the transcription of Abruzzese dialects and in the Province of Ascoli Piceno (the Ascolano dialect). It is called "mute E" and sounds like a hummed é. It is important for the prosody of the dialect itself.