![]() It is not used in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.Īs ⟨ß⟩ derives from a ligature of lowercase letters, it is exclusively used in the middle or at the end of a word. ![]() The German spelling reform of 1996 somewhat reduced usage of this letter in Germany and Austria. Sharp s German label "Delicacy / red cabbage." Left cap is with old orthography, right with new.Įszett or scharfes S ( ⟨ ß⟩) represents the “s” sound. The breved ⟨u⟩ was common in some Kurrent-derived handwritings it was mandatory in Sütterlin. However, the breve – or the ring ( ⟨°⟩) – was traditionally used in some scripts to distinguish a ⟨u⟩ from an ⟨n⟩. A horizontal bar ( macron, ⟨¯⟩), a breve ( ⟨˘⟩), a tiny ⟨N⟩ or ⟨e⟩, a tilde ( ⟨˜⟩), and such variations are often used in stylized writing (e.g. They will be understood whether they look like dots ( ⟨¨⟩), acute accents ( ⟨ ˝ ⟩) or vertical bars ( ⟨ ‖⟩). Unlike in Hungarian, the exact shape of the umlaut diacritics – especially when handwritten – is not important, because they are the only ones in the language (not counting the tittle on ⟨i⟩ and ⟨j⟩). ![]() The omission can cause some inconvenience, since the first letter of every noun is capitalized in German. Geographical names in particular are supposed to be written with ⟨a, o, u⟩ plus ⟨e⟩, except Österreich. Uppercase umlauts were dropped because they are less common than lowercase ones (especially in Switzerland). Swiss keyboards and typewriters do not allow easy input of uppercase letters with umlauts (nor ⟨ß⟩) because their positions are taken by the most frequent French diacritics. 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. 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). ![]()
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