That made it possible for short vowels to appear in open syllables once again. Later in Middle Dutch, the distinction between short and long consonants started to disappear. Long consonants were indicated usually by doubling the consonant letter, which meant that a short vowel was always followed by at least two consonant letters or by just one consonant at the end of a word. As the length was implicit in open syllables, it was not indicated there, and only a single vowel was written. The spelling system used by early Middle Dutch scribes accounted for that by indicating the vowel length only when it was necessary (sometimes by doubling the vowel but also in other ways). Therefore, any short vowel that was followed by a long consonant remained short. Consonants could still be long in pronunciation and acted to close the preceding syllable. Short vowels could now occur only in closed syllables. In the transition to early Middle Dutch, short vowels were lengthened when they stood in open syllables. Thus, long vowels could appear in closed syllables, and short vowels could occur in open syllables. Old Dutch possessed phonemic consonant length in addition to phonemic vowel length, with no correspondence between them. Vowel length is always indicated but in different ways by using an intricate system of single and double letters. ( March 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. The following additional letters and pronunciations appear in non-native vocabulary or words using older, obsolete spellings (often conserved in proper names): The following list shows letters and combinations, along with their pronunciations, found in modern native or nativised vocabulary: See Dutch phonology for more information. For simplicity, dialectal variation and subphonemic distinctions are not always indicated. Sound to spelling correspondences ĭutch uses the following letters and letter combinations. ⟨ i⟩ and ⟨ j⟩ together (1), the digraph ⟨ij⟩ (2) and ⟨ y⟩ (4) can all be found in Dutch words only ⟨ÿ⟩ (3) is not used in Dutch Letter
The least frequently used letters are ⟨q⟩ and ⟨x⟩, similar to English. ⟨e⟩ is the most frequently used letter in the Dutch alphabet, as it is in English. In some aspects, the digraph ⟨ij⟩ behaves as a single letter. Depending on how ⟨y⟩ is used, six (or five) letters are vowels and 20 (or 21) letters are consonants. The modern Dutch alphabet, used for the Dutch language, consists of the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Alphabet The Dutch alphabet in 1560, still including the long s In Flanders, the same spelling rules are currently applied by the Decree of the Flemish Government Establishing the Rules of the Official Spelling and Grammar of the Dutch language of 30 June 2006. This decree entered into force on August 1, 2006, replacing the Spelling Decree of June 19, 1996. The Decree on the Spelling Regulations of 2005–2006 contains the annexed spelling rules decided by the Committee of Ministers on 25 April 2005. In other cases, it is recommended, but it is not mandatory to follow the official spelling. In addition, the law requires that this spelling be followed "at the governmental bodies, at educational institutions funded from the public purse, as well as at the exams for which legal requirements have been established". The Spelling Act gives the Committee of Ministers of the Dutch Language Union the authority to determine the spelling of Dutch by ministerial decision. This came into force on 22 February 2006, replacing the Act on the Spelling of the Dutch Language of 14 February 1947. In the Netherlands, the official spelling is regulated by the Spelling Act of 15 September 2005.
The spelling system is issued by government decree and is compulsory for all government documentation and educational establishments. Dutch orthography uses the Latin alphabet.