Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

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

From:Douglas Koller, Latin & French <latinfrench@...>
Date:Monday, October 27, 2003, 14:42
>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/) I suppose this is analogous to the "Brontë" example proferred by the OED as also being diaerisis. Kou

Replies

Douglas Koller, Latin & French <latinfrench@...>
Remi Villatel <maxilys@...>
Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
Jean-François Colson <bn130627@...>