saying "umlaut"

Julia Achenbach julia.achenbach at UNI-OLDENBURG.DE
Sat Oct 10 00:33:47 UTC 2009


Herb, I think we mean the same thing. If you had German in HS, you will
have definitely heard this word (ä,ü and ö are the Umlaute)

The transcription did not turn out the way I was hoping it would.

The first "u" in Umlaut is short. The second one is pronounced together
with the "a". This sound than is, as it has been stated already, sounds
like "ou" as in "out".

I hope this makes any sense.

>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: saying "umlaut"
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I think I learned the word in high school in German class, and it's
>> always been /'UmlaUt/ for me.  I'm not sure I've ever heard Julia's
>> pronunciation.
>>
>> Herb
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 7:48 PM, Julia Achenbach
>> <julia.achenbach at uni-oldenburg.de> wrote:
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Julia Achenbach <julia.achenbach at UNI-OLDENBURG.DE>
>>> Subject:      Re: saying "umlaut"
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Shouldn't it be something like this:
>>> '? mla? t ???
>>>
>>> The letter "u" is short, similar to the way "u" is pronounced in "gun",
>>> the so ~oom seems just a little bit weird to me.
>>>
>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
>>>>> Subject:      saying "umlaut"
>>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> Interestly "umlaut" has multiple pronunciations.
>>>>>
>>>>> At forvo.com, enter "umlaut", click on the resulting first word (not
>>>>> arrow), see three pronunciations:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1  ~oomlout (where ~oo is as in "good" ~ou as in "out", spoken by
>>>>> topquark
>>>>> 2. ~oomlou' (where "t" is dropped or glottalized) spoken by threb
>>>>> 3. ~oomllaat  (stress second syl, with ~aa as in "Saab", spoken by
>>>>> Olbill.
>>>>>
>>>>> thefreedictionary.com has
>>>>> 1. USA = ~uemlout (where ~ue is as in "true")
>>>>> 2. UK = ~uemllout (stress second syllable)
>>>>>
>>>>> m-w.com has two pronunciations
>>>>> 1. firstly  ~oomlout
>>>>> 2. secondly  ~uemlout
>>>>> (but the phonetic notation is in reverse order.  So which is really
>>>>> first
>>>>> or second?)
>>>>>
>>>>> It's pretty rare in English to have a word start with ~oo.  Of the top
>>>>> 5k
>>>>> most popular words, none do.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
>>>>> see truespel.com phonetic spelling
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>>>
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>>> - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
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>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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--
"A learned blockhead is a better blockhead than an ignorant one"
- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

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