[CrackMonkey] .sig haiku, no zinc

[Seth David Schoen]

Monkey Master writes:

> begin  Seth David Schoen quotation:
> > > P.S. I assume it's SHOW-en and not "SHOON."
> > 
> > I'm afraid it's not.  Umlaut, you know.
> 
> 	What?  I've been pronouncing it SHOW-en for years!
> 
> 	BTW: the umlaut is actually the u with the diacritical
> "two-dot" above it, not the diacritical itself.

I had a long conversation with my Linguistics professor about this.  My
version of his tentative conclusions:

(1) "Umlaut" is actually the name of the phonetic process by which certain
vowels in certain languages (most extensively in German) are moved (to
the front of the mouth, isn't it?) under certain conditions.

(2) This is indicated in German orthography and orthographies derived from
it by a mark containing two dots, which is an "umlaut mark" (sometimes
"umlaut" for short).

(3) The process of diaeresis (or dieresis) also happens to be indicated
(starting in scholarly Latin in the Middle Ages, I think) by two dots over
the second vowel, which is a "diaeresis mark" (sometimes "diaeresis" for
short).

(4) The orthographic name for the symbol itself (two dots over a letter), 
indepedent of what it indicates, is "trema", so a trema can be used as an
indication of an umlaut, a diaeresis, or possibly other things.

The name of the letter is usually given as "o-umlaut" (or "u-umlaut" or
whatever).  Technically, that means "o with umlaut" (or "o subjected to
umlaut"), but the "umlaut" in question is what has happened to the vowel,
phonetically, and not the symbol itself.

Can anyone correct or improve on this understanding?

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org>  | And do not say, I will study when I
Temp.  http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/  | have leisure; for perhaps you will
down:  http://www.loyalty.org/   (CAF)  | not have leisure.  -- Pirke Avot 2:5