Re: TERMS: going dotty, twice over (was: TERMS: Umlaut-Ablaut)

Raymond Brown wrote:
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> At 1:36 pm -0500 15/11/99, Padraic Brown wrote:
> >On Mon, 15 Nov 1999, Raymond Brown wrote:
> [snip]
>
> >>But - 'umlaut' is often used also to describe the two dots placed over
> >>modified vowels in German (I've even heard the 'e' in the French 'Nokl'
> >>called 'e-umlaut'!).  In that usage, of course, we have "a-umlaut",
> >>"o-umlaut" & "u-umlaut" in German - but they are _all_ examples of i-umlaut.
> >
> >I'm glad I learnt them as diereses!
>
> Moi aussi.
>
> The French k in Nokl is, of course, diaeresis [that's how I learnt it],
> i.e. shows that the 'o' and 'e' are pronounced separately.  The French call
> the symbol 'trima'.  It was devized by the Alexandrian Greeks more than two
> millennia ago for this very purpose.
>
        Yes, I'm happy to have learned this word "tre'ma". I think that's the
same one used in Dutch, isn't it? In fact, I have heard of the existence
of this word "umlaut" for the first time on this very list.

> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A neat system would be to call the two dots 'trema' and confine the terms
> 'umlaut' & 'd(a)eresis' to the two different usages of the trema.
>
        I think that it is done in French, at least in linguistics. As we have
already the word "tre'ma" for the two dots, we can easily confine
"umlaut" and "die're`se" to the different usages of it. But well, I
never heard the word "umlaut" used in French (but saw it in a few
linguistic papers) and I'm not even sure "die're`re" is the right French
word for "diaeresis" (I think it is, I am nearly sure I saw it in a
footnote of a theater play written in verse).

> But I guess it's too late now - and confusion will continue to reign.
>
> Ray.
>
> =========================================
> A mind which thinks at its own expense
> will always interfere with language.
>                    [J.G. Hamann 1760]
> =========================================
--
        Christophe Grandsire

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