Re: Umlauts (was Re: Elves and Ill Bethisad)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Koller, Latin & French" <latinfrench@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 3:42 PM
Subject: Re: Umlauts (was Re: Elves and Ill Bethisad)


> >Ray Brown scripsit:
> >
> >>  Strictly speaking the double-dot superscript
> >>  diacritic is called _trema_.  The terms 'umlaut'
> >>  and 'di(a)eresis' refer to _uses_ of the trema.
>
> I couldn't find "trema" in the OED, though "diaerisis" and "umlaut"
> were certainly there.
>
> >In Spanish, and in certain Catalan uses, u-trema simply
> >indicates that the u is pronounced as /w/ rather than
> >being a mere indicator that the preceding "g" is /g/.
> >Catalan also uses a French-style diaeresis.
>
> French has both usages, each of which I surmise the OED calls
> "diaerisis". As has been discussed earlier, it separates vowels:
>
> Noël, maïs /mais/ (vs. mais /mE/)
>
> but is also used as in John's Spanish example:
>
> if the feminine of "ambigu" or "exigu" were written without tréma, it
> would yield "ambigue" (/a~mbig/) and "exigue" (/egzig/). To retain
> pronunciation of the "u", tréma is added:
>
> ambigüe (a~mbigy), exigüe (/egzigy/)
Here you follow the Académie Française's recommendation, but IRL that's most
often written ambiguë and exiguë. The point of the Academy was: the
diaeresis means that the vowel which wears it, is PRONOUNCED separately, but
the final "e" is generally not pronounced.

Not using the diaeresis can lead to mispronunciations:
"gageure" is normally pronounced /gaZuR/.
The 1st "e" is there to make a soft "g".
But since "eu" is pronounced /2/ or /9/ in French, and since there is no
diaeresis on the "u", the word is sometimes pronounced /gaZ9R/.

>
> I suppose this is analogous to the "Brontë" example proferred by the
> OED as also being diaerisis.
>
> Kou
>