Herero Alphabet (Otjiherero)

Otjiherero, the Herero language, is written in the Latin alphabet. Almost every letter is one you already have on your keyboard: a b d ḓ e g h i j k m n o p r s t u v w y z. What makes a Herero text recognisable are three extra letters, ḓ, ṱ and ṋ, a d, a t and an n with a small circumflex (a little upside-down v) under them. They stand in their natural place in the alphabet, ḓ right after d, ṋ right after n and ṱ right after t.

The mark under the letter means the sound is dental: the tip of the tongue touches the back of the upper front teeth rather than the ridge behind them, where English t and n are made. Herero keeps dental and ordinary d, t and n apart, so the marks are part of the spelling and not decoration. When a keyboard cannot reach the letters, people sometimes fall back on plain t and n, which a reader can usually work out from context but which is not the correct spelling.

Many Herero sounds are written with two or three ordinary letters. Tj, as in Otjiherero itself, is close to English ch; ndj, as in Ndjambi, is close to the j of jam with an n in front; and the nasal clusters mb, nd and ng, as in ozongombe (cattle), are said as one smooth unit. None of them needs a special character, so they have no separate cells in the grid.

Why Herero words start with o: prefixes and names

Herero is a Bantu language, and like its relatives it sorts nouns into classes marked by prefixes. Most nouns also begin with an initial vowel, usually o-, which is why so many Herero words look alike at the start. One Herero person is an Omuherero, the people are the Ovaherero, and their language is Otjiherero; the Himba people are the Ovahimba and the Mbanderu the Ovambanderu.

The same pattern runs through place names in central and northern Namibia, such as Okahandja, Otjiwarongo and Omaruru, many of which come from Herero. A Namibian town whose name begins with Otji- or Oka- often has a Herero name, though Oshiwambo names such as Okahao begin with Oka- too.

Herero is a tonal language, but the standard spelling does not mark tone, so apart from ḓ, ṱ and ṋ there are no accented letters to learn.

How to type Ṱ ṱ and Ṋ ṋ on a computer or phone

The quickest way is to copy them from this page. In Unicode they are precomposed letters in the Latin Extended Additional block: Ṱ is U+1E70, ṱ U+1E71, Ṋ U+1E4A and ṋ U+1E4B. In Microsoft Word on Windows, type 1E71 and press Alt+X to get ṱ, or 1E4B and Alt+X for ṋ. On a Mac, add the Unicode Hex Input source in the keyboard settings, then hold Option and type 1E71 or 1E4B.

In HTML, write Ṱ for Ṱ, ṱ for ṱ, Ṋ for Ṋ and ṋ for ṋ. You can also build them from a plain t or n followed by the combining circumflex below, U+032D, but the precomposed letters search, sort and display more reliably, so prefer them.

Many phone keyboards do not offer ṱ or ṋ on a long-press, so set up a text replacement once: on an iPhone in Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement, on Android in your keyboard's personal dictionary or shortcuts. Paste ṱ or ṋ as the phrase and choose a short trigger such as tt or nn. Watch the look-alikes: ṱ is not ţ (t with cedilla) or ṭ (t with a dot below), and ṋ is not ṇ or ň.

Where Herero is spoken

Herero is a national language of Namibia, where Unicode's CLDR estimates about 250,000 speakers, mostly in the centre and east of the country and, through the Himba dialect, in the Kunene region of the north-west. It is taught in schools and Namibia's national broadcaster, the NBC, runs a radio service in Otjiherero. Smaller Herero-speaking communities live in Botswana, descendants of families who fled across the Kalahari from the German colonial war of 1904, and in southern Angola.

Herero belongs to the south-western Bantu languages. Its neighbours in Namibia include Ndonga and Kuanyama, the two written forms of Oshiwambo, as well as Nama (Khoekhoegowab), Afrikaans, German and English, each with its own collection. Far to the east in South Africa, Venda uses the same dental letters ṱ and ṋ. The Namibia collection has the flag 🇳🇦 and the country's emoji, and Tswana covers the main language of Botswana.