Eindletter

Eindletter is a Dutch linguistic term that refers to the final letter of a word as it is written. It denotes the last grapheme or character in the word, regardless of meaning or pronunciation, and is used in analyses of spelling, morphology and orthography.

In linguistic analysis, the eindletter helps describe how words change when affixes are added or when inflected forms appear. For example, the eindletter of the word kat is t, while the eindletter of hond is d. The concept also plays a role in discussions of spelling rules, hyphenation at line breaks, and alphabetic ordering in dictionaries and word lists.

In education and language teaching, eindletter can be used to teach word endings, suffixes, and the behavior of words under different grammatical forms. Teachers may refer to the eindletter when guiding students in spelling, reading fluency, and word recognition, emphasizing how endings signal grammatical relationships or word classes.

The term is primarily a descriptive one and does not imply a separate grammatical category beyond the notion of the word’s last written letter. It is distinct from, but related to, the more general idea of the “laatste letter” (last letter) and is sometimes encountered in linguistic discussions, lexicography, and spelling instruction in Dutch.

See also: laatste letter, eindregel in orthografie, alfabetische ordening.