I studied German for a bit and was taught (and have seen) that umlauts can be substituted by following the umlaut-vowel with the letter 'e.' Is this true for other languages that use umlaut like Hungarian and the Scandinavian languages?
Umlauts in languages other than German
Yes, Skippy, you can substitude umlauts by vowel followed by the letter 'e' in German, but that would look very strange. It decreases reading speed a lot. You therefore shouldn't do that without real need. And today, there isn't any real need, because of the computer keyboard and graphical user invironment which normally should provide letters beyond pure ASCII.
I know, but is it true you can substitute "e" in other languages as well?
See Chechen for another language with umlauts: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~chechen/
In Finnish, it can't be written that way, at least partly because there are too many minimal pairs distinguishing 'ä' and 'ae'. I don't know about other languages.
While we're on the subject, I sometimes see "naïve" written as "naieve" on that model, but that's completely wrong. The dots in "naïve" are a diaeresis, not an umlaut -- they only indicate that the two vowels are separate.
- Kef
While we're on the subject, I sometimes see "naïve" written as "naieve" on that model, but that's completely wrong. The dots in "naïve" are a diaeresis, not an umlaut -- they only indicate that the two vowels are separate.
- Kef
<<While we're on the subject, I sometimes see "naïve" written as "naieve" on that model, but that's completely wrong. The dots in "naïve" are a diaeresis, not an umlaut -- they only indicate that the two vowels are separate.>>
In English, why bother with the diaeresis at all? Just replace the diaeresis with nothing (or perhaps a dot, in this case).
Long ago, words like vacuum, zoology, Bootes, coop, and even coordinate had a diaeresis to help with pronunciation, I suppose. But, English spelling is so irregular that adding the diaeresis is only a drop in the bucket. Nowadays, we don't bother distinguishing resume/resume, coop/coop, etc. These word pairs are no worse than read/read or lead/lead, for example.
In English, why bother with the diaeresis at all? Just replace the diaeresis with nothing (or perhaps a dot, in this case).
Long ago, words like vacuum, zoology, Bootes, coop, and even coordinate had a diaeresis to help with pronunciation, I suppose. But, English spelling is so irregular that adding the diaeresis is only a drop in the bucket. Nowadays, we don't bother distinguishing resume/resume, coop/coop, etc. These word pairs are no worse than read/read or lead/lead, for example.
I think it has to do with it being a direct borrowing from French, and still seeming French enough (due to its unusual pronunciation) to warrant the "foreign" diacritic.
Hi there,
Take a look at http://www.zdeutsch.com/
Take a look at http://www.zdeutsch.com/