umlaut

[Mark Odegard]

><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

Really? Your typical German schoolboy will, when spelling out or describing
a letter will say 'u-trema'? instead of 'u-umlaut' (or whatever is said in
German ?U mit trema?), as when explaining over the phone how 'Mueller' is to
be spelled, with a trema over the U or with an E after the U.

I have heard that Germans themselves get into fights over the definition of
'umlaut'.


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