saying "umlaut"

[Herb Stahlke]

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:
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> 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:
> 'Ê mlaÊ 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.
>
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>>> -----------------------
>>> 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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>
> --
> "A learned blockhead is a better blockhead than an ignorant one"
> - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
>
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