Raymond Brown wrote:
> Strictly speaking the two dots in Spanish mark di(a)eresis [we Brits ke=
ep
> the 'a', the Americans omit it], and the dots are also called 'diaeresi=
s'.
[snip]
> It has occasionally been used in English. In verse you may meet "thou
> se=EBst" to show that the second word is pronounced /'siEst/ and not /s=
i:st/.
> The Bront=EB sisters put the diaeresis on the final -e of their surname=
to
> show that it was pronounced and not silent as final -e usually is in
> English.
Particularly pretentious newspapers in the United States (like
the New York Times :) ) still use the diaeresis in words like
<co=F6perate> and <co=F6rdination>.
> To complicate matters further, some orthographies (e.g. Hungarian &
> Turkish) have then borrowed the German =F6, and =FC to rounded, front v=
owels
> although they do not derive from any umlaut vowel gradation. So strict=
ly
> the dots do not show umlaut in these languages; but we have no separate
> name for them & would generally refer to them as 'umlauts' here (What d=
o
> the Hungarians & Turks call them?).
What? Turkish has vowel harmony -- which is, afterall, just the superset
for umlaut :)
And German does use it for words which historically had no such
vowel harmony at all, like <n=F6> and other such words which simply
have front rounded vowels.
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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704 AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
Non cuicumque datum est habere nasum.
It is not given to just anyone to have a nose.
-- Martial
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