Re: German+Hungarian question
| From: | caeruleancentaur <caeruleancentaur@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, September 3, 2005, 11:24 |
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--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Stephen Mulraney
>In any case, the German substitution of following "e" for umlaut
seems
>to be peculiar among writing systems that I know of, and I guess it
>only arose because German words are occasionally written in this
>fashion even when umlauts are available, by native users. So the
>method is well known among Germans.
As I understand it, it is rather the umlaut substituting for the "e."
The German cursive "e" used to look something like a cursive "n" and
came to be written over the vowel. Then it became two marks not
unlike the Hungarian double accent, then it became simply two dots.
So when an umlaut is not available, the writer reverts to the older
system of following the vowel with an "e." I'd be interested in
knowing the timeline of these changes.
Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/user:caeruleancentaur
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