umlaut

[Jan Ivarsson TransEdit]

<Is "tréma" used outside of French?
- - - -From: "Laurence Horn"

"Trema" is used also in German and the Nordic languages, precisely to name "the double dots over a letter", which covers also its use in the meaningless "Motörhead" or "Häagen-Dazs" - the latter an impossible construction in any of the languages I speak.
This leaves the words "diaeresis" and "Umlaut" to cover what they really mean - from the linguist's point of view.

Jan Ivarsson, TransEdit
Translator, Subtitler
jan.ivarsson at transedit.st
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Odegard" <markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 7:22 AM
Subject: Re: umlaut


> >From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM
> >
> >If you're talking with an American about the spelling of a word in the
> >Roman alphabet in any language, you have a much better chance of being
> >understood if you call the diacritic in question an "umlaut" than if you
> >call it a "dieresis". As far as I'm concerned, that's all that's necessary
> >to validate this usage. The high general probability that your interlocutor
> >doesn't know the language in question, let alone the historical or
> >synchronic processes that motivate the presence of the diacritic in this
> >particular word, only strengthens the argument.
>
> Umlaut, diaeresis and trema all seem to be used for the double dot over a
> letter. As Mark Mandel says, its unlikely that the latter two terms are
> going to be understood by the average speaker. What are you supposed to call
> those meaningless double dots over the band name Motley Crue or in that
> brand of ice cream, Hagan Daz?
>
> "Diaeresis" indeed seems to be the official name used by typographers and
> the Unicode Consortium, but for the moment, English has settled on 'umlaut'.
> The situation may change, especially when Unicode becomes universal, and
> everyone can look at the official name on their character set utility. I
> think the dictionaries need to acknowledge this, cross-referencing to trema
> and diaeresis.
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com