Ë (minuscule: ë), known as E with diaeresis or E-umlaut, is a Latin-script letter. It is present in the Albanian, Kashubian, Emilian, Romagnol, Ladin, and Lenape alphabets. As a variant of the letter e, it also appears in Acehnese, Afrikaans, Breton, Dutch, English, Filipino, French, Luxembourgish, Piedmontese, 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.
Usage in various languages
Acehnese
In Acehnese, ë is used to represent (schwa), a mid central vowel.
Afrikaans
In Afrikaans, the diaeresis (Afrikaans: deelteken, ) is used mostly to indicate that two vowels are pronounced separately. 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, geëet ("eaten") is pronounced in two syllables, the second one beginning with ë.
The deelteken does not always influence the number of syllables. The word voël ("bird"), pronounced , is different from voel ("feel"), pronounced , but both words have one syllable. In other cases, the deelteken does not even change the pronunciation. The words geër ("giver") and geer (a wedge-shaped piece of fabric), for instance, are both pronounced in contemporary language. Historically, though, words like geër or reën ("rain") were pronounced in two syllables: reën, which nowadays is pronounced , was pronounced as in older Afrikaans. The deelteken is only etymological since the archaic form of reën is regen.
Albanian
Ë is the 8th letter of the Albanian alphabet and represents the vowel , like the pronunciation of the in "ago". It is the fourth most commonly used letter of the language, comprising 7.74 percent of all writings. According to other data, it is the most common letter, comprising 10.290% of writings. In informal writing, the letter is sometimes substituted with a plain e.
Armenian
Ë is used in the romanization of Classical or Eastern Armenian to represent the letter (ët').
Ascolano
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.
Dutch
In Dutch, ë appears in the plural form of most words that end in -ie or -ee, like kolonie -> koloniën, zee -> zeeën, and knie -> knieën (Dutch-language rules stipulate an extra e before the ë in plurals if the accent falls on the syllable containing the ë). This so-called trema indicates that the vowel letter does not form a digraph with the preceding vowel letter but is pronounced separately. For example, koloniën is pronounced , but kolonien would be pronounced *. In the case of "Moët" champagne, the two dots over the "e" indicate that the "e" sound should be pronounced separately from the preceding "o". Therefore, "Moët" is pronounced with the "e" sounding as in "bet".
Emilian
In some peripheral Emilian dialects, ë is used to represent [ə], e.g. strëtt [strətː] "narrow".
English
Use of the character Ë in the English language is relatively rare. Some publications, such as the American magazine The New Yorker, use it more often than others. It is used to indicate that the e is to be pronounced separately from the preceding vowel (e.g. in the word "reëntry", the feminine name "Chloë" or in the masculine name "Raphaël"), or at all – like in the name of the Brontë sisters, where without diaeresis the final e would be mute.
Filipino
In the Filipino language (Filipíno/Filipino), Ë or ë, only since 2013, represents the schwa vowel sound natively existing in few to some Filipino words from Maranao (Mëranáw/Mëranaw), Pangasinan (Panggasinán/Pangasinan), and Ilocano (Ilokáno/Ilokano) languages that are also words in Filipino. Such is the case among few to some other Filipino words from other languages in the Philippines that natively have this vowel sound (e.g. Karay-a (Karáy-a/Kinaray-a), Cuyonon (Kuyónon/Kuyonon), Kankanaey (Kankanáëy/Kankanay), and Ibaloi (Ibalóy/Ibaloy) languages) and that are also words in Filipino.
Before the introduction of this variant of the letter Ee in the Filipino language's orthography, the schwa vowel sound was ambiguously represented by either the letter A / a or E / e.
Since stressed vowels are marked with an acute accent (Éé), the Ë / ë, when stressed, will become Ë́ / ë́.
French
Ë appears in words like French Noël. Like in Dutch, it is used to indicate that the vowel letter does not form a digraph with the preceding vowel letter but is pronounced separately. For example, Noël is pronounced , whilst Noel would be pronounced .
German
thumb|E-diaeresis in the word Poësie
Ë does not occur in the official German alphabet. However, a diaeresis above e in German occurs in a few proper names and ethnonyms, such as Ferdinand Piëch, Bernhard Hoëcker, Alëuten, Niuë, Uëa. Without a diaeresis, ie would be [iː] instead of [iə]; eu would be [ɔʏ] instead of [eu] and ae, oe, ue would be alternative representations of respectively ä, ö, ü.
Hungarian
Ë does not belong to the official Hungarian alphabet, but is usually applied in folklore notations and sometimes also in stylistic writing, e.g. is extensively used in the vocal oeuvre of Kodály. The reason is that open e (close to English hat, cat, cap) and closed ë (close to Spanish e) are distinguished in most spoken dialects, but is not indicated in writing because of the history of writing and due to little but observable areal variation.
Kashubian
Ë is the 9th letter of the Kashubian alphabet and represents .
Ladin
Although not used in standard Ladin, Ë is used in the local variations gherdëina, badiot and fodom. It represents .
Latin
In many editions of Latin texts, the diaeresis is used to indicate that ae and oe form a hiatus, not a diphthong (in the Classical pronunciation) or a monophthong (in traditional English pronunciations). Examples: aër "air", poëta "poet", coërcere "to coerce".
Lenape
In the Lenape language, the letter ë is used to represent the schwa vowel. An example of its use is the word mikwën, which means "feather". It can also be found in more complex words, such as ntëmpëm, which means "my brain".