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

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
:)

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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.
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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.

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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.
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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