umlaut in English

noun

1

a mark ( ¨ ) used over a vowel, as in German or Hungarian, to indicate a different vowel quality, usually fronting or rounding.

German umlauts appear to be a problem in some cases.

verb

1

modify (a form or a sound) by using an umlaut.

Accented and umlauted vowels, and diacritical marks on consonants must be avoided, because they act as roadblocks and break the speed of a typist.

noun

diaeresis, dieresis

Use "umlaut" in a sentence

1. To change ( a vowel ) by umlaut.

2. To write or print ( a vowel ) with an umlaut.

3. Cannot print German umlaut characters on a PCL printer under VMS.

4. An umlaut is caused in a sound by its assimilation to another sound.

5. An umlaut should be distinguished from a change in vowel indicating a difference in grammatic function, called an ablaut , as in sing/sang/sung. Ablaut originated in the Proto-Indo-European language, whereas umlaut originated later, in Proto-Germanic .

6. Spelling an umlaut as ae, oe, or ue only maps to the corresponding exact match without further expansion.

7. She said "I was hoping I would bump into you because I noticed you know how to put the umlaut on the 'i', Can you please tell me how to do that on the iPhone?".

8. We must distinguish it clearly from other forms of gradation which developed later, such as Germanic umlaut (man/men, goose/geese, long/length, think/thought) or the results of English word-stress patterns (man/woman, photograph/photography). Confusingly, in some contexts, the terms 'ablaut', 'vowel gradation', 'apophony' and 'vowel alternation' may be heard used synonymously, especially in synchronic comparisons, but historical linguists prefer to keep 'ablaut' for the specific Indo-European phenomenon, which is the meaning intended by the linguists who first coined the word.