Words with alphabetical spellings full#

Occasionally, a diaeresis may be used in some well-known names, i.e.: Italiën (usually written as Italien). In proper names and ethnonyms, there may also appear a rare ⟨ ë⟩ and ⟨ ï⟩, which are not letters with an umlaut, but a diaeresis, used as in French and English to distinguish what could be a digraph, for example, ⟨ai⟩ in Karaïmen, ⟨eu⟩ in Alëuten, ⟨ie⟩ in Piëch, ⟨oe⟩ in von Loë and Hoëcker (although Hoëcker added the diaeresis himself), and ⟨ue⟩ in Niuë. Similar cases are Coesfeld and Bernkastel-Kues. The word ⟨neü⟩ does not exist in German.įurthermore, in northern and western Germany, there are family names and place names in which ⟨e⟩ lengthens the preceding vowel (by acting as a Dehnungs-e), as in the former Dutch orthography, such as Straelen, which is pronounced with a long ⟨a⟩, not an ⟨ä⟩. This should never be changed to das neü Buch, as the second ⟨e⟩ is completely separate from the ⟨u⟩ and does not even belong in the same syllable neue ( ) is neu (the root for 'new') followed by ⟨e⟩, an inflection. Consider, for example, das neue Buch ('the new book'). Names often exist in different variants, such as Müller and Mueller, and with such transcriptions in use one could not work out the correct spelling of the name.Īutomatic back-transcribing is wrong not only for names.

However, such transcription should be avoided if possible, especially with names. ⟨u⟩ instead of ⟨ü⟩) would be wrong and misleading. When it is not possible to use the umlauts (for example, when using a restricted character set) the characters ⟨Ä, Ö, Ü, ä, ö, ü⟩ should be transcribed as ⟨Ae, Oe, Ue, ae, oe, ue⟩ respectively, following the earlier postvocalic- ⟨e⟩ convention simply using the base vowel (e.g. Although the two dots of umlaut look like those in the diaeresis (trema), the two have different origins and functions. In German Kurrent writing, the superscripted ⟨e⟩ was simplified to two vertical dashes (as the Kurrent ⟨e⟩ consists largely of two short vertical strokes), which have further been reduced to dots in both handwriting and German typesetting.

Words with alphabetical spellings full#

Before the introduction of the printing press, frontalization was indicated by placing an ⟨e⟩ after the back vowel to be modified, but German printers developed the space-saving typographical convention of replacing the full ⟨e⟩ with a small version placed above the vowel to be modified. The accented letters ⟨ ä, ö, ü⟩ are used to indicate the presence of umlauts ( fronting of back vowels).