umlaut

[Jan Ivarsson TransEdit]

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. He would only have to say "ü", since any not-deaf german would know from the pronunciation that the vowel is "umlautized".
The trema (which is a convenient term for your "two-dot-thing") has been used to indicate the Umlaut in Germanic languages since Mediaeval times, when the scribes found it practical to move the "e" following the preceding vowel up and simplifying it into a trema or a tilde. Have a look at e.g. Johann Schönsperger, Äsop. Fabeln. Nürnberg 1491; "gebürlich", "bäum", etc.
The Nazis definitely did not disfavour the trema. "Der Führer" was normally written thus. I have before me a "Rundschreiben" from January 3, 1941 by "Der Stellvertreter des Führers" Martin Bormann, forbidding the use of the Gothic type ("Schwabacher-Judenlettern"). On 22 lines there are 20 tremas! If the Nazis disfavored the trema, they certainly would not have used it in such a context.
Jan Ivarsson
Translator
jan.ivarsson at transedit.st

----- Original Message -----
From: "David M. Robertson" <dmsnake at usit.net>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2001 2:37 AM
Subject: Re: umlaut
- - - -

> >From my one year of German 35 years ago, I think the German schoolboy *would*
> say "u-umlaut" if spelling orally. (Unless he would only need to say "u" since
> any literate german would know from the context that the vowel would be
> umlautized.") Writing, he would render it either as a "u" with the two-dot-thing
> floating above it, or as "ue." I believe the use of the two-dot-thing to
> indicate an umlaut was a fairly recent development in German (19th century?) and
> was disfavored by Hitler (der Fuehrer) and his followers such as Goebbels and
> Goering as being "un-German." Thus the Nazis insisted on "umlautizing" the a, o
> and u by adding an e after them, as ae (Schaefer), oe (Goebbels) and ue
> (Nuernburg), not by using the two-dot-thing..
>
>   Snake  (Schlang)