CLOSE
News

What Is Letter ä With Two Dots

WR
by William Reid
09.11.2022

As a native English speaker embarking on learning a new language, two dots, accents, and hats over and beneath letters can be a bit daunting. What’s more, several languages use a wide variety of writing systems. Once you understand the fundamentals of how these diacritics aid the native speakers of those languages, you may apply that knowledge to studying languages written in any script.

The people who benefit most from the written representation of a language—its orthography—are the people who already know how to read and write in that language. What seems most apparent and appropriate to them may make little sense to the student. Your upbringing in a different society with different writing standards is to blame for this.

What Is Letter ä With Two Dots

You may have seen that the English language often lacks logical spelling. Firstly, many letters do not make any sound. For example, the -e at the end of “like” and the gh in the middle of “light” are both examples of silent letters. However, you’ll correct me if I type “link,” insisting that I mean “lick,” even though “lit” is perfectly acceptable.

Some languages’ writing systems haven’t been updated in a very long time. Therefore the written form differs significantly from the spoken form. In contrast, many languages still undergo regular renewal periods every hundred years. These languages are more prone to use diacritics to clarify and standardize their writing systems. For instance, I could immediately alter the English language to make it easier to read and write: yuw majt ivn bi ebl të gês wët lêtërs ajm jusîng fër wët sawnds. As you can see, a reform that includes the addition of diacritics can make a language’s spelling very consistent.

Given that there are twelve different vowel sounds in the English language but only five roman letters with which to write them, we have developed several inventive ways to express them, typically by employing double letters like ‘ea’ and ‘ou. The French language, which continues this pattern, is likely where English picked it up. The International Phonetic Alphabet is an excellent tool for accurately representing the worth of every sound in every human language. Scientists and linguists utilize this alphabet based on Roman and Greek letters to decipher any language.

Historically, I’ve seen the letters ä, ö, and ü on German signage with an e inscribed above the letters. They evolved into only two dots.

The definition of an umlaut

Umlaut is defined as “a sound shift in which vowel sounds more like an a than a subsequent vowel or semivowel” Over time, languages evolve. Because humans are innately lazy, these alterations are frequently driven by a quest to find the easiest way to produce a particular noise. This is why we use an umlaut.

As a punctuation mark, the umlaut is used to denote this German pronunciation change. Umlauted vowels were indicated in medieval writing by a tiny letter “e” written directly above the vowel. The “e” went through a series of changes, starting with two bars and ending with two dots. The letters ä, ö, and ü are “special characters” in German orthography. They don’t have their place in the alphabet. They are still vital, though.

In what languages do you find umlauts/ Vowels with two dots?

Umlauts are used in languages other than German to represent sounds equivalent to those described by umlauted German letters.

  • Estonian
  • Finnish
  • Hungarian
  • Karelian
  • The Sami speak languages.
  • Slovak
  • Swedish

However, not all letters with two dots above them are umlauts. Visually, umlauts are indistinguishable from another punctuation mark, the diaeresis, which signifies a different kind of sound shift but developed independently.

Diaeresis occasionally appears in English, for example, in the word naive.

Umlauts Have Some Worth

Honestly, how significant can the difference between two dots be?

The number of languages that use them is higher than you might assume. A few examples from the German language include the distinction between Mutter and Mütter, as well as Schon and Schön. No, umlauts aren’t just for show; they affect how a word is pronounced and what it means.

Which varieties of German umlauts exist?

Beyond the standard set of 26 letters, the German language uses three umlauts. Those umlauts are:

Ä

Ö

Ü

The extra two dots on top of a German letter are umlauts, which are crucial to mastering the language. They are essential for proper word pronunciation and grammatical accuracy.

There are two different forms of each of these umlauts, which adds to the confusion. Different forms exist for “short” and “long” umlauts. This produces linguistic and phonetic differences between the different words.

The length of the sound produced while speaking words with a short or long umlaut is the only linguistic distinction between the two. For short umlauts, you will say the word quickly rather than prolong the sound, whereas, for long umlauts, you will need to extend the sound.

How do you pronounce the German umlauts?

While the umlaut is a precious part of the German language, it can be challenging for non-native speakers to learn. Simply put, the German umlauts have no direct English equivalents. So, to learn how to pronounce German umlauts, we must first choose terms that sound similar to the ones we need to imitate.

Symbol ä

If you know German, don’t fall for the same tricks when studying Finnish or any other language. In this case, only German and Swedish share similar pronunciations.

LANGUAGEIPA SOUND
German/ɛː/ also written {ae}
Luxembourgish/æ/
Swedish/ɛː/
Finnish/æ/
Estonian/æ/
Slovak/æ/ (many pronounce it /e/)

It’s not always easy to tell the difference between the short and long umlaut, but you can use the presence of an “h” following the umlaut as a rough rule of thumb. You should say the silent “h” even if it isn’t printed there if you can say the word has a long.

Those who are not fluent in German or English may have trouble pronouncing this umlaut, and native speakers of English may feel tempted to slide it into a different vowel sound. In this case, you’re saying “êy” because you were trying to pronounce the short as an ê. German vowels and umlauts do not blend in pronunciation as English vowels and consonants do.

This audio recording is courtesy of German language learning websites and will give you a better sense of pronouncing the umlaut ö.

Why do Germans put two dots on some letters?

The use of umlauts in modern German is an integral feature of the language’s grammar. Umlauts are required for proper German grammar. If you don’t use them, anyone reading or listening to you speak German will be confused.

Standard usage for umlauts includes the following cases:

  • Make a difference between singular and plural forms.
  • Convert between the present and past tense

Singular and Plural

The singular is one, and the plural is numerous in every language. That distinction is made with the use of German umlauts. In German, “house” is spelled “Haus” since it is always used in the singular. When referring to the plural form, “Houses” is used in English while “Häuser” is used in German. A few more instances are:

  • Hände (Hand) and Hand (Hand) (hands)
  • Stick & Stöcke (German) (sticks)
  • Küsse (kiss) and Kuss (kiss) (kisses)
  • Chair and Stool; Stuhl and Stühle (chairs)

The Present and the Past

Umlauts are also used to indicate tense, such as the present vs. the past. The verb “to lie” is an illustration. Lying here means either telling a fib right now or having lied previously in English. In German, the present tense is “lügen,” while the past tense is “log.” Some others are:

  • To have and to hold; Haben and Hätten (had)
  • Sleep and snooze (Schläft) (slept)

Decorated with Umlauts: Haagen-Daz and the Metal Umlaut

Unfortunately, umlauts are rarely used in languages like English. They have an unfamiliar appearance to us and are also used to give words an exotic air.

For instance, the American Häagen-Dazs ice cream brand.

American Häagen-Dazs

Even though Danish doesn’t use an umlaut, the name was created that way so that it would sound and appear “Danish.” To my knowledge, “Häagen-Dazs” has no meaning in Danish or any other language. Simply put, it is a string of meaningless syllables.

Metal’s Umlaut

Additionally, the “metal umlaut” must not be forgotten. After all, that’s what sets Motörhead apart. What prompted metal bands to start naming themselves with random umlauts?

Rolling Stone states that Blue yster Cult was the pioneering band. Sandy Pearlman, the band’s original manager, and producer, and Richard Meltzer, a rock critic, came up with the idea for the umlaut.

“I suggested we call ourselves “Blue Oyster Cult.” Remembered Pearlman. An umlaut will be placed over the letter “O,” as Richard put it. I responded with a “Great!”

It’s hard to say for sure, but perhaps Motörhead is responsible for elevating this punctuation mark to the status of a metal classic. According to Rolling Stone, Lemmy of Motörhead said:

The look was hostile to me. Yes, that’s the rub. In another interview, Lemmy admitted that he stole the concept for the band from Blue yster Cult. Then Mötley Crüe stole it, and the legacy lives on.

Unicode Keyboard Instructions for Typing a German Umlaut

Using the German umlauts is possible even without a German keyboard. If you press ALT on your keyboard and either of these two sets of digits, you will get the desired effect:

ä = ALT+0228

ö = ALT+0246

ü = ALT+0252

Ä = ALT+0196

Ö = ALT+0214

Ü = ALT+0220

You can use “HTML Entities” and “HTML Unicode calls” to incorporate German umlauts into your HTML code.

If you don’t know how to type the German umlauts ä, ö, ü, here’s an easier way.

If you are unable to use the dots on your keyboard to create the German umlauts, write the vowel without the two dots and add an e:

ä = ae

ö = oe

ü = ue

Küssen, for instance, is shortened to kuessen (to kiss).

Do you need an expert language translation or localization service?

Get a Quote