Diaeresis and Umlaut

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Diaeresis (known as tréma in French) and umlaut both employ the same character. But there is a difference of use between diaeresis and umlaut. Letters with umlaut stand for completely different sounds than their non-accented counterparts. For example in Swedish Oo represents /u/ while Öö represents /ø/. Diaeresis on the other hand does not change the sound value of a letter, but instead marks that a vowel is not part of a diphthong or digraph. Both are also known under the general name trema.

The diaeresis and umlaut characters have different origins. Diaeresis was borrowed from the Greek alphabet,[1] while umlaut began as a small e placed on top of Aa, Oo or Uu. This e then later evolved into the same shape as diaeresis.[2]

Diaeresis/Umlaut in Unicode

Characters with Diaeresis/Umlaut
¨ ◌̈ Ä ä Ǟ ǟ Ë ë Ï ï
U+00A8 U+0308 U+00C4 U+00E4 U+01DE U+01DF U+00CB U+00EB U+1E26 U+1E27 U+00CF ​ U+00EF U+1E2E
Diaeresis Combining Diaeresis Latin Capital Letter A With Diaeresis Latin Small Letter A With Diaeresis Latin Capital Letter A With Diaeresis And Macron Latin Small Letter A With Diaeresis And Macron Latin Capital Letter E With Diaeresis Latin Small Letter E With Diaeresis Latin Capital Letter H With Diaeresis Latin Small Letter H With Diaeresis Latin Capital Letter I With Diaeresis Latin Small Letter I With Diaeresis Latin Capital Letter I With Diaeresis And Acute
Ö ö Ȫ ȫ Ü ü Ǖ ǖ Ǘ
U+1E2F U+00D6 U+00F6 ​ U+022A U+022B U+1E4E U+1E4F U+1E97 U+00DC ​ U+00FC U+01D5 U+01D6 U+01D7
Latin Small Letter I With Diaeresis And Acute ​ Latin Capital Letter O With Diaeresis Latin Small Letter O With Diaeresis ​ Latin Capital Letter O With Diaeresis And Macron Latin Small Letter O With Diaeresis And Macron Latin Capital Letter O With Tilde And Diaeresis Latin Small Letter O With Tilde And Diaeresis Latin Small Letter T With Diaeresis Latin Capital Letter U With Diaeresis Latin Small Letter U With Diaeresis Latin Capital Letter U With Diaeresis And Macron Latin Small Letter U With Diaeresis And Macron ​ Latin Capital Letter U With Diaeresis And Acute
ǘ Ǚ ǚ Ǜ ǜ Ÿ ÿ
U+01D8 U+01D9 U+01DA U+01DB U+01DC U+1E7A U+1E7B U+1E84 U+1E85 U+1E8C U+1E8D U+0178 U+00FF
Latin Small Letter U With Diaeresis And Acute Latin Capital Letter U With Diaeresis And Caron Latin Small Letter U With Diaeresis And Caron Latin Capital Letter U With Diaeresis And Grave Latin Small Letter U With Diaeresis And Grave Latin Capital Letter U With Macron And Diaeresis Latin Small Letter U With Macron And Diaeresis Latin Capital Letter W With Diaeresis Latin Small Letter W With Diaeresis Latin Capital Letter X With Diaeresis Latin Small Letter X With Diaeresis Latin Capital Letter Y With Diaeresis Latin Small Letter Y With Diaeresis

Diaeresis/Umlaut in Natlangs

Uses of Diaeresis or Umlaut
Usage Language Letters Notes
Front version of back vowel (this includes Ää even though its unaccented version is not a back vowel in all of these languages) Estonian Ää /æ/, Öö /ø/, Üü /y/
Finnish Ää /æ/, Öö /ø/ Usage borrowed from Swedish.
German Ää /ɛ/, Öö /ø/, Üü /y/ The umlaut evolved from the letter e in the digraphs ae, oe and ue.
Hungarian Öö /ø/, Üü /y/
Icelandic Öö /œ/
Livonian Ää /æ/, Ǟǟ /æː/
Mandarin (Pinyin romanization) Üü /y/, Ǖǖ /y˥/, Ǘǘ /y˧˥/, Ǚǚ /y˨˩˦/, Ǜǜ /˥˩/ Üü without tone markings may stand for the so called neutral tone,[3] or it is simply due to no tone marks being used in the given text.[4] Note that these tone values are based on the Beijing dialect.[5]
Slovak Ää /æ~ɛ/ /æ/ is archaic or dialectal pronunciation.[6]
Swedish Ää /ɛ/, Öö /ø/, Üü /y/ The umlaut evolved from the letter e in the digraphs ae[7] and oe.[8] Üü is not really a part of the Swedish alphabet, but is used in some loanwords and in many surnames.
Hiatus Catalan Ïï /i/, Üü /u/ Diaeresis on an Ii or Uu following another vowel marks that the two vowels are in different syllables. Without diaresis, the Ii or Uu would stand for a semivowel.[9]
French Ëë, Ïï, Üü, Ÿÿ
Non-silent vowel Catalan Üü /w/ Diaresis on an Uu that is between Gg or Qq and a front vowel marks that this letter stands for /w/. Otherwise it would be a part of the digraph Gu gu /g/ or Qu qu /k/ that is used before front vowels.[9]
Raised vowel Hungarian Ëë /e/ Unaccented Ee stands for /ɛ/. Ëë is not really a part of the Hungarian alphabet however; it is used when writing down spoken or sung language in a dialect that has this phoneme.

Diaeresis/Umlaut in Conlangs

Uses of Diaeresis or Umlaut
Usage Language Creator Letters Notes
Digraph disambiguation Lhueslue Qwynegold Ëë /e/ The diaeresis is used when /e/ follows another vowel, and signals that these two vowel letters do not form a digraph. These two vowels are pronounced as a diphthong.[10]
Front version of back vowel Songulda Öö /ø/, Üü /y/ Unaccented Oo, Uu stand for /o, u/.[11]

See Also

References