Afrikaans uses the same 26-letter Latin alphabet as English, so there is nothing new to memorise in terms of shapes. What changes is the names of the letters, the frequency with which each one is used, and a small set of diacritic-bearing vowels that ride on top of ordinary letters. This page gives you the full inventory and the letter names — useful the moment you have to spell your surname over the phone or read a licence plate aloud.
The 26 letters and their names
The letter names below are written as you would pronounce them when reciting the alphabet or spelling a word out loud. Afrikaans letter names are close to Dutch and quite different from English — saying the English names will not be understood.
| Letter | Name (approx.) | Letter | Name (approx.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| A a | aa | N n | en |
| B b | bee | O o | oo |
| C c | see | P p | pee |
| D d | dee | Q q | kuu |
| E e | ee | R r | er |
| F f | ef | S s | es |
| G g | gee (with the guttural g) | T t | tee |
| H h | haa | U u | uu |
| I i | ie | V v | vee |
| J j | jee | W w | wee |
| K k | kaa | X x | eks |
| L l | el | Y y | y (rhymes with "ai") |
| M m | em | Z z | zet |
My van word gespel: vee, aa, en — Van.
My surname is spelled: V, A, N — Van.
Is dit met 'n c of 'n k geskryf?
Is that written with a c or a k?
The working letters versus the loanword letters
Here is the practically useful insight: four of the 26 letters — c, q, x, z — almost never appear in native Afrikaans words. When you do see one, it is a near-certain signal that the word is borrowed from another language or is a proper name. Recognising this helps you predict both pronunciation and behaviour.
- c survives mainly in the digraph ch (in loanwords) and in unassimilated borrowings; native words that once had c were respelled with k or s. So kafee (café) and sirkus (circus) use k and s where English keeps c.
- q appears only in loanwords and names, almost always with u: kwota is respelled, but quorum and brand names keep it.
- x is rare; native words use ks instead. You write baksteen (brick), not baxteen.
- z is rare in native words, which prefer s; you meet z mostly in loanwords like zoeloe (Zulu, the language/people) and zebra.
Ek drink koffie by die kafee om die hoek.
I drink coffee at the café around the corner.
Daar is 'n sebra en 'n zebra-oorgang in dieselfde storie.
There's a zebra and a zebra crossing in the same story.
Because these four letters flag a word as foreign, they often warn you that the usual native rules — including the guttural g and the regular vowel-doubling system — may not apply, and that the word may keep a spelling closer to its source language. For the details, see loanword spelling and the loan letters c, q, x, z.
The guttural g is a single letter, not a digraph
English speakers often expect the back-of-the-throat scrape to be spelled with two letters, as Dutch sometimes hints and as the German ch does. In Afrikaans it is just plain g. Every ordinary g you see — at the start, middle, or end of a word — is the guttural fricative.
Goeie môre, gaan dit goed met jou?
Good morning, are you doing well?
The digraph ng (as in sing, "to sing") and the rare gh (which marks the English hard g in a handful of loanwords) are exceptions covered on their own pages. Everything else: plain g equals the throat-scrape.
The diacritic-bearing vowels
Afrikaans adds two diacritics to vowels. Crucially, a vowel with a diacritic is not a separate letter of the alphabet — it is the same letter, modified. Ê files under e; ï files under i. This matters for dictionaries and alphabetical sorting.
| Mark | Name | Vowels | What it signals |
|---|---|---|---|
| ◌̂ circumflex | kappie | ê ô î û | a long vowel with an open quality |
| ◌̈ diaeresis | deelteken | ë ï ö ü | a syllable break — the vowel starts a new syllable |
The two marks have ordinary spoken names you will hear teachers use: the circumflex is the kappie ("little cap"), and the diaeresis is the deelteken ("division mark"). When typing, you produce them with your keyboard's accent keys or compose sequences.
Skryf 'wêreld' met 'n kappie op die e.
Write 'wêreld' with a circumflex on the e.
'Reën' kry 'n deelteken op die tweede e.
'Reën' takes a diaeresis on the second e.
What you must not do is treat the marks as decoration. Se and sê are different words; reen would be misread as one long vowel rather than the two-syllable reën. The full rules live on the circumflex and diaeresis pages.
Alphabetical ordering ignores the diacritics
When you alphabetise an Afrikaans word list — or look something up in a dictionary — the diacritics make no difference to sort position. Sê sorts exactly as if it were se. Môre sorts under m-o-r-e. The marks change meaning and pronunciation, not alphabetical rank. This is the same convention English uses for the rare accented loanword like café, just applied systematically.
Common mistakes
❌ Ek spel my van met die Engelse lettername: 'jay, ay, see'.
Incorrect — naming letters with English names won't be understood; use jee, aa, see.
✅ Ek spel my van: jee, aa, see.
I spell my surname: J, A, C.
❌ Sy naam begin met 'n harde Engelse g.
Incorrect — the letter g in Afrikaans is always the guttural fricative, never the English hard g.
✅ Sy naam begin met die Afrikaanse g — agter in die keel.
His name starts with the Afrikaans g — at the back of the throat.
❌ Die woord vir 'brick' is 'baxteen'.
Incorrect — native Afrikaans uses ks, not x: baksteen.
✅ Die woord vir 'brick' is 'baksteen'.
The word for 'brick' is 'baksteen'.
❌ In die woordeboek staan 'sê' ná 'sy', want dit het 'n kappie.
Incorrect — diacritics don't change sort order; 'sê' sorts as 'se'.
✅ In die woordeboek sorteer 'sê' soos 'se'.
In the dictionary, 'sê' sorts like 'se'.
Key takeaways
- Afrikaans uses the 26-letter Latin alphabet, but with its own (Dutch-like) letter names — never use the English names.
- c, q, x, z are rare and flag a word as borrowed; native words prefer k/s, kw, ks, and s.
- Plain g is always the guttural fricative; you do not need a digraph for it.
- The diacritic vowels ê ô î û (kappie) and ë ï ö ü (deelteken) are modified letters, not new alphabet entries, and they do not affect alphabetical order.
Now practice Afrikaans
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Start learning Afrikaans→Related Topics
- Afrikaans Spelling: OverviewA1 — A map of the Afrikaans orthographic system — its diacritics, vowel doubling, and homophone traps — and where each rule lives.
- Spelling Loanwords and InternationalismsB1 — How Afrikaans adapts borrowed spellings — nativising some words fully, keeping foreign letters in others, and always attaching native endings on top.
- Spelling with c, q, x and zB2 — The four 'foreign' letters c, q, x and z are mostly nativised out of Afrikaans loanwords — c becomes k or s, qu becomes kw, x becomes ks — so when one survives, it reliably flags an unassimilated loan or a proper name.
- The Afrikaans G: A Guttural FricativeA1 — How to pronounce the Afrikaans g — a voiceless back-of-the-mouth fricative like the ch in Scottish 'loch' — and how it differs from the English hard g.
- Spelling with the CircumflexA2 — When to write the circumflex (kappie) on ê ô î û — it marks a long, distinct vowel, separates minimal pairs like sê and se, and often marks the spot where a g has dropped out (brug → brûe).
- Spelling with the DiaeresisA2 — The deelteken on ë, ï, ö and ü marks a new syllable where two vowels meet — and you can derive it from morpheme boundaries instead of memorising it.