'n Nuwe eeu begin.

A new century begins.

Breakdown of 'n Nuwe eeu begin.

• 'n: a
• nuut: new
• begin: to start
• die eeu: century

Questions & Answers about 'n Nuwe eeu begin.

What does 'n mean, and why does it have an apostrophe?

'n is the Afrikaans indefinite article, the equivalent of English a or an.

So:

• 'n nuwe eeu = a new century

The apostrophe is just part of the spelling. It is not a contraction in the English sense.

A useful writing rule:

• At the start of a sentence, the next word is usually capitalized, not 'n itself.

So you normally write:

• 'n Nuwe eeu begin.

not:

• 'N nuwe eeu begin.

Why is Nuwe capitalized here?

Because it is the first full word of the sentence.

In Afrikaans, when a sentence begins with 'n, the article itself usually stays lowercase, and the following word gets the capital letter:

• 'n Nuwe eeu begin.

But in the middle of a sentence, it would be:

• Ek sien 'n nuwe eeu.

So the capital letter is not special to nuwe; it is just there because of sentence position.

Why is it nuwe and not nuut?