N, the German Kurrent letter n
N is the 14th letter of the German alphabet, representing a voiced alveolar nasal /n/, pervasive in German inflectional morphology and verb endings. In German Kurrent handwriting, it has a distinct historical ductus taught across German-speaking Europe until 1941.
In words
Sonntag · Sunday
Kinder · children
Weihnachten · Christmas
Easy to confuse with
Looks like e (Kurrent e)
The n is joined at the bottom and the e at the top: two short strokes linked across their feet are an n, linked across their tops an e.
Looks like u (Kurrent u)
The u is written exactly like the n and is told apart only by the small arc drawn above it; without the arc it is an n. A straight bar above an n is not that arc: it doubles the letter (nn).
History
The letter N occupies the 14th position in the German alphabet. Phonetically, it represents a voiced alveolar nasal /n/, pervasive in German inflectional morphology and verb endings.
Lowercase n in Kurrent consists of two pointed vertical downstrokes connected at the bottom by a sharp diagonal join. It must be carefully distinguished from e (which connects at the top) and u (which carries a curved line above). Capital N is built from two upright vertical stems connected by a diagonal stroke.
The letter n is ubiquitous in German documents, forming plural inflections, dative cases, infinitives, and past participles. Scribes frequently used a horizontal tilde or macron over a single n (n̄) as a shorthand for 'nn', a crucial abbreviation for genealogists to recognize.
After e, n is the most frequent letter in German text and the most frequent consonant, at about 9.8% of all letters.[1] Because n and u are otherwise drawn alike in Kurrent, it is the u that carries the arc above it; an n carries at most a straight doubling bar.[2]
Sources
- [1] N — Wikipedia (German) — second most frequent letter, most frequent consonant, 9.78% (accessed 2026-10-14)
- [2] Deutsche Kurrentschrift — Wikipedia (German) — the arc over u distinguishes it from n; the straight bar doubles n or m (accessed 2026-10-14)