The Apostrophe: 'n and Clipped Forms | Afrikaans Grammar

The apostrophe in Afrikaans is not optional punctuation you can sprinkle for style — it is a working part of the spelling system, and in one case it is even a required letter inside a word. This page covers every use: the indefinite article 'n, its unusual capitalisation behaviour at the start of a sentence, the clipped or contracted forms like dis and ek's, and the apostrophe that joins a foreign loanword stem to a diminutive ending. Get these right and your writing immediately looks native; get them wrong and the error is conspicuous.

'n — the indefinite article

The Afrikaans word for "a" or "an" is 'n: an apostrophe followed by a lowercase n. It corresponds historically to a worn-down form of een ("one"), and the apostrophe marks the letters that were dropped. Two iron rules govern it.

First, the apostrophe is mandatory. Writing a bare n is simply wrong, not a casual variant. The apostrophe is part of the word's spelling, exactly as a letter would be.

Ek soek 'n boek oor die geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika.

I'm looking for a book about the history of South Africa.

Sy het 'n appel en 'n piesang in haar tas.

She has an apple and a banana in her bag.

Second, 'n is always lowercase — even at the start of a sentence. This is the rule that trips up nearly every learner and even some native writers, so it gets its own section below.

For when to use 'n versus no article at all, see the indefinite article. This page is only about how to write it.

Capitalisation at the start of a sentence

In English, the first word of a sentence is capitalised. In Afrikaans, when that first word is 'n, you do not capitalise it. The article stays lowercase, and the capital letter jumps to the next word instead.

'n Hond blaf hard buite my venster.

A dog is barking loudly outside my window.

'n Man loop met sy kind oor die straat.

A man walks across the street with his child.

Look closely at the start of each sentence: the apostrophe and lowercase n lead, then Hond and Man take the capital. This is genuinely unusual — no other Afrikaans word behaves this way — and it is the single detail competing references most often get wrong or omit. The logic is that 'n is treated as a reduced, almost clitic-like element that "leans" on the following word, so the orthography lets the real first word carry the sentence-initial capital.

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Sentence-initial 'n never takes the capital. The apostrophe stays, the n stays lowercase, and the word after 'n is capitalised: 'n Hond blaf. Never write 'N Hond and never write N hond.

A practical consequence: many style guides recommend simply not starting a sentence with 'n in formal writing, precisely because the form looks odd to readers. But you must still recognise and produce it correctly, because it appears constantly in everyday text, dialogue, and headlines.

Clipped and contracted forms

Afrikaans, like spoken English, contracts very common word combinations, and the apostrophe marks the dropped letters — just as in English it's or don't. These forms are informal to neutral: completely normal in speech, dialogue, and casual writing, though formal prose often prefers the full forms.

Clipped form	Full form	Meaning	Register
dis	dit is	it is / it's	neutral–informal
daar's	daar is	there is / there's	informal
ek's	ek is	I am / I'm	informal
hy's	hy is	he is / he's	informal
wat's	wat is	what is / what's	informal

Note a small spelling subtlety: dis (it is) is conventionally written without an apostrophe, as a fully fused word, while daar's, ek's, and hy's keep the apostrophe before the s. Dis has simply settled into the language as a single word.

Dis koud vanoggend — trek 'n trui aan.

It's cold this morning — put on a sweater.

Daar's nog koffie in die pot as jy wil hê.

There's still coffee in the pot if you want some.

Ek's amper klaar; gee my net vyf minute.

I'm almost done; just give me five minutes.

There is also an older clipped 't (from het or dit) that survives in a few fixed and literary expressions; you will meet it occasionally in older or stylised text but you do not need to produce it. (literary / archaic)

The apostrophe in foreign-stem diminutives

Afrikaans loves diminutives — the -tjie / -jie / -ie endings that turn a noun into its "little" version. Normally they attach directly: hond → hondjie (little dog), boom → boompie (little tree). But when the base word is a loanword ending in a vowel, attaching the ending directly would blur the spelling, so an apostrophe separates the foreign stem from the ending.

Stuur vir my daardie foto'tjie wat jy gisteraand geneem het.

Send me that little photo you took last night.

Hy ry 'n klein ou Datsun met 'n radio'tjie wat kraak.

He drives a small old Datsun with a little radio that crackles.

So foto (photo, a loanword ending in -o) becomes foto'tjie, and radio becomes radio'tjie. The apostrophe keeps the original loan stem visible and signals that -tjie is a suffix, not part of the root. Native vowel-final words that have been fully absorbed do not always need it, so this is specifically a loanword device. The full system of diminutive spelling — including which words take the apostrophe — is on the diminutive spelling page.

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The apostrophe in foto'tjie does the same job as the one in 'n: it marks a boundary the bare letters would otherwise hide. In both cases it is a required spelling, not decoration.

Typing the right apostrophe

Use a plain straight apostrophe (or the standard curly typographic apostrophe your software produces). Do not substitute a backtick (`) or an opening quote. In 'n the mark must sit tight against the n with no space: 'n boek, never ' n boek.

Common mistakes

❌ 'N Man loop in die reën.

Incorrect — sentence-initial 'n stays lowercase; the capital goes to the next word: 'n Man.

✅ 'n Man loop in die reën.

A man walks in the rain.

❌ Ek het n nuwe fiets gekoop.

Incorrect — the article must keep its apostrophe: 'n, never a bare n.

✅ Ek het 'n nuwe fiets gekoop.

I bought a new bike.

❌ N hond het my wakker geblaf.

Incorrect on two counts — missing apostrophe and capitalised; it should be lowercase 'n with the capital on Hond.

✅ 'n Hond het my wakker geblaf.

A dog barked me awake.

❌ Stuur vir my die fototjie.

Incorrect — a vowel-final loanword stem takes an apostrophe before the diminutive: foto'tjie.

✅ Stuur vir my die foto'tjie.

Send me the little photo.

❌ Dit's koud vandag.

Marginal — the settled form is 'dis' written as one word, not 'dit's'.

✅ Dis koud vandag.

It's cold today.

Key takeaways

'n (apostrophe + lowercase n) is the indefinite article; the apostrophe is a required letter, never optional.
At the start of a sentence, 'n stays lowercase and the next word takes the capital: 'n Hond blaf.
Clipped forms (dis, daar's, ek's, hy's) mark dropped letters and belong to informal–neutral register; dis is written as one word without an apostrophe.
A vowel-final loanword stem takes an apostrophe before the diminutive ending: foto'tjie, radio'tjie.

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