Umlaut (diacritic)
Umlaut (/ˈʊmlaʊt/) is a name for the two dots diacritical mark (◌̈) as used to indicate in writing (as part of the letters ⟨ä⟩, ⟨ö⟩, and ⟨ü⟩) the result of the historical sound shift due to which former back vowels are now pronounced as front vowels (for example [a], [ɔ], and [ʊ] as [ɛ], [œ], and [ʏ]).
In its contemporary printed form, the mark consists of two dots placed over the letter to represent the changed vowel sound.
In German, the umlaut diacritic indicates that the short back vowels and the diphthong [aʊ] are pronounced ("shifted forward in the mouth") as follows: And the long back vowels are pronounced in the front of the mouth as follows: In modern German orthography, the affected graphemes ⟨a⟩, ⟨o⟩, ⟨u⟩, and ⟨au⟩ are written as ⟨ä⟩, ⟨ö⟩, ⟨ü⟩, and ⟨äu⟩, i.e. they are written with the umlaut diacritic, which looks identical to the diaeresis mark used in other European languages and is represented by the same Unicode character.
In blackletter handwriting, as used in German manuscripts of the later Middle Ages, and also in many printed texts of the early modern period, the superscript ⟨e⟩ still had a form that would be recognisable as an ⟨e⟩, but in manuscript writing, umlauted vowels could be indicated by two dots since the late medieval period.
In the forms of handwriting that emerged in the early modern period (of which Sütterlin is the latest and best-known example) the letter ⟨e⟩ was composed of two short vertical lines very close together, and the superscript ⟨e⟩ looked like two tiny strokes.
Even from the 16th century, the handwritten convention of indicating umlaut by two dots placed above the affected vowel is also found in printed texts.
[2][3][4] When typing German with a keyboard that doesn't have umlaut letters, it is usual to replace them with the underlying vowel followed by an ⟨e⟩.
As the pronunciation differs greatly between the normal letter and the umlaut, simply omitting the dots would be incorrect.
The sign is called dve bodky [ˈdʋe ˈbɔtki] ("two dots"), and the full name of the letter ä is široké e [ˈʂirɔkeː ˈe] ("wide e").
Hungarian follows the German rules and replaces ⟨ö⟩ and ⟨ü⟩ with ⟨oe⟩ and ⟨ue⟩ respectively [citation needed] – at least for telegrams and telex messages.
Also in Danish, Ö has been used in place of Ø in some older texts and to distinguish between open and closed ö-sounds and when confusion with other symbols could occur, e.g. on maps.
The Cyrillic letters ӓ, ӧ, ӱ are used in Mari, Khanty, and other languages for approximately [æ], [ø], and [y].
Other vowels using a double dot to modify their values in various minority languages of Russia are ӛ, ӫ, and ӹ.
The two dot diacritic can be used in "sensational spellings" or foreign branding, for example in advertising, or for other special effects, where it is usually called an umlaut (rather than a diaeresis).
The Brontë sisters are so-called because their Irish father, Patrick Brunty, used the device to Anglicise the family name.
[7] The International Phonetic Alphabet uses a double dot below a letter, a notation it calls "subscript umlaut" to indicate breathy (murmured) voice, (for example Hindi [kʊm̤ar] "potter".
