Abbreviations and Acronyms

Every written register of Afrikaans is full of short forms — the bv. and ens. of careful prose, the MIV and VIGS of the news, the CD's and ATM's of everyday life. They follow tidy rules that differ in two specific ways from English, and getting them right is a quiet marker of literacy. The two rules to internalise: clipped abbreviations end in a point, and the plural of an acronym or a number is written with an apostrophe before the -s (CD's, 1990's). Neither is intuitive for an English speaker, so this page lays them out concretely.

Abbreviations end in a point

An abbreviation (afkorting) is a word shortened in writing but read aloud in full. In Afrikaans these almost always end in a point (full stop), because the point signals "letters are missing here." This is more consistent than English, which has drifted toward dropping points (etc alongside etc.). In Afrikaans the point is expected.

Note that multi-word abbreviations like d.w.s. carry a point after each letter. And when an abbreviation ending in a point falls at the end of a sentence, its point doubles as the sentence's full stop — you do not write two (... brood, ens. not ... brood, ens..).

Acronyms: read as a word, written in capitals

An acronym (akroniem) is built from initial letters and pronounced as a word. These are written in capitals with no points, and they behave grammatically like ordinary nouns: they take the definite article die and can take an article-like determiner.

Here VIGS (= Verworwe Immuniteitsgebreksindroom, AIDS), MIV (= Menslike Immuniteitsgebreksvirus, HIV) and SAUK (the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Suid-Afrikaanse Uitsaaikorporasie) are read as words or letter-strings and slotted straight into the sentence. Note that Afrikaans coins its own acronyms rather than borrowing the English ones — VIGS not AIDS, MIV not HIV.

Initialisms: spelled out letter by letter

An initialism is also built from initials but spelled out letter by letter rather than read as a word: die ANC ("A-N-C"), die DA, 'n CD ("C-D"). These too are written in capitals without points and take die or 'n as ordinary nouns.

Whether a string is read as a word (acronym) or spelled out (initialism) does not change the spelling on the page — both are capitals without points. It only changes how you say it aloud.

The apostrophe-s plural — the rule English speakers miss

Here is the distinctively Afrikaans convention, and the one competitors rarely state: when you pluralise an acronym, an initialism, or a number, you insert an apostrophe before the -s. The apostrophe protects the reading of the capital letters or digits before the plural ending.

The same apostrophe appears in the possessive and before other endings hung on capitals or figures (die ANC's beleid — the ANC's policy). The underlying logic is that the apostrophe keeps the all-capital or all-digit form visually intact before a lowercase ending. English, by contrast, has mostly abandoned this (CDs, 1980s), which is exactly why English speakers leave the apostrophe out. The other side of the apostrophe — including the 'n at the start of sentences — is covered separately.

Articles and gender

Afrikaans has no grammatical gender, so abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms cause no gender headaches — they simply take die (the) or 'n (a/an) like any other noun. Choice of article follows the full form's sense, and there is nothing extra to memorise: die SAUK, die ANC, 'n CD, 'n MIV-toets (an HIV test).

Where an acronym combines with a following noun, Afrikaans joins them with a hyphen: MIV-positief, CD-speler (CD player), SAUK-kantoor (SABC office) — the regular compounding hyphen, not an apostrophe.

Clipped words read in full

A third short-form type is the clipping — a long word cut down but still read as the full word, written with a closing point: prof. (professor), dr. (dokter, doctor), St. (Sint, Saint), e.g. is borrowed, but Afrikaans prefers bv. These behave exactly like the abbreviations in the first table: point at the end, read aloud in full.

A useful sub-rule: titles like dr., prof., mnr. and mev. take the point and a capital only at the start of a sentence; mid-sentence they are lowercase (dr. Naidoo, mnr. Khumalo). The personal name after them, of course, keeps its capital.

How to read a short form aloud

The single most useful habit is to read every short form in full. You do not say "bee-vee" for bv. — you say byvoorbeeld; ens. is read ensovoorts; asb. is asseblief; mnr. is meneer. Acronyms like VIGS are the exception that is read as the short word, and initialisms like ANC are read letter by letter. So there are really three reading behaviours: clipped words and abbreviations expand to the full word; acronyms are pronounced as a new word; initialisms are spelled out.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• Abbreviations end in a point: bv., ens., nl., asb., d.w.s., mnr. — and the point doubles as a sentence-final stop.
• Acronyms (read as words) and initialisms (spelled out) are written in capitals without points and take die / 'n like ordinary nouns.
• Afrikaans coins its own acronyms — VIGS (AIDS), MIV (HIV), SAUK (SABC).
• Plurals of acronyms, initialisms and numbers use apostrophe-s: CD's, ATM's, 1990's — ordinary words do not.
• There is no gender to track; compounds with acronyms use a hyphen (MIV-positief, CD-speler).
• Measurement symbols (km, kg, R) are symbols, not abbreviations, and take no point.