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

From:Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Monday, November 15, 1999, 19:06
At 12:19 pm +0100 15/11/99, Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
>> Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 07:01:24 +0100 >> From: Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...> > >> 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 'No=3DEB=
l'
>> 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-umla=
ut.
> >That's funny, I never perceived a conflict there. I just put different >stress on them --- the letters are 'a-"umlaut' and so on, and the >phon. phenn. are '"a umlaut' aso. So in German, the "i umlaut of a is >spelled a-"umlaut... no problems.
No problem if you're speaking - and if your listener knows why you are making a difference in stress. But stress tends to get lost when you write :) ------------------------------------------------------------------ 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 'No=EBl' >>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-umlau=
t.
> >I'm glad I learnt them as diereses!
Moi aussi. The French =EB in No=EBl 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 'tr=E9ma'. It was devized by the Alexandrian Greeks more than tw= o millennia ago for this very purpose.
>> >>I'd prefer to called the written forms 'umlauted a', 'umlauted o' etc. - >>but I guess purists would object to putting an English suffix onto a Germa=
n
>>word :=3D( > >I might think they would more wonder "which kind of umlautted a? I or >u?" Though here I suppose you're really talking about the a with >dieresis?
No - I'd _never_ use the term if the two dots were denoting diaeresis, only if they denoted umlaut as in German. But I agree - it is confusing having the term 'umlaut' used in these two different ways. But the German usage of the two dots is not the Romano-Greek and French use to denote diaeresis. ----------------------------------------------------------------- At 7:13 pm +0100 15/11/99, Irina Rempt-Drijfhout wrote:
>On Mon, 15 Nov 1999, Raymond Brown wrote: > >> 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 'No=EBl' >> called 'e-umlaut'!). > >Also in the HTML standard: the vowels with dots on are expressed as >&auml; etcetera, even &iuml; !
Ach y fi!! And I suppose =FF is &yuml. I can only suppose that those who coined the HTML terms were monoglot anglophones who hadn't a clue about umlaut or diaeresis. ----------------------------------------------------------------- At 10:41 am -0800 15/11/99, Barry Garcia wrote: [snip]
> >That's what I always thought 'umlaut' meant, that you had two dots placed >over a vowel for a modified sound, as in the Spanish word for bilingual, >"biling=FCe"
That is most definitely _diaeresis_, not umlaut, to show that the 'u' is actually pronounced & not silent as one would normally expect between 'g' and 'e'. I thought it was called 'di=E9resis' in Spanish. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 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. But I guess it's too late now - and confusion will continue to reign. Ray. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D A mind which thinks at its own expense will always interfere with language. [J.G. Hamann 1760] =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D