Diaeresis in English ortography

[zompist]

No, they're not a thing.

Plus it makes no sense for "beautiful", which has /ju/, not /iu/. And even if you say bee-yootiful, it doesn't divide into <ea> + <u>. We inherit the whole <eau> from French.

[Tropylium]

Plus it makes no sense for "beautiful", which has /ju/, not /iu/. And even if you say bee-yootiful, it doesn't divide into <ea> + <u>. We inherit the whole <eau> from French.

And in, I think, all the other cases ‹eau› stands for /oʊ/ instead (note esp. beau); so I'm imagining an analysis that /i/ + /u/ contracts to /ju/, much like ocean (or, shall we say, oceän?) parses as //osiən// > //osjən// > /oʊʃən/.

But yeah, it's a bit of a kludge. Are there any precedents for front vowels desyllabifying to /j/ in pretonic positions? It's not like reüse or deïnstall come out as ˣ/ruːz/, ˣ/dʒɪnstɔːl/.

[Boşkoventi]

Plus it makes no sense for "beautiful", which has /ju/, not /iu/. And even if you say bee-yootiful, it doesn't divide into <ea> + <u>. We inherit the whole <eau> from French.

And in, I think, all the other cases ‹eau› stands for /oʊ/ instead (note esp. beau); so I'm imagining an analysis that /i/ + /u/ contracts to /ju/, much like ocean (or, shall we say, oceän?) parses as //osiən// > //osjən// > /oʊʃən/.

But yeah, it's a bit of a kludge. Are there any precedents for front vowels desyllabifying to /j/ in pretonic positions? It's not like reüse or deïnstall come out as ˣ/ruːz/, ˣ/dʒɪnstɔːl/.

Best I can tell, it came that way from French. "Beauty" is first attested in the 13th century as "bealte" or "buute", then "beute", "beuaute", etc. The Old French form was "beauté" or "biauté" (earlier "bealté"), reflecting its pronunciation as [be̯awte] (WP). It's easy to see how [e̯aw] would collapse into /iu(ː)/, especially since English /y/, /ɛu/, and /iu/ were merging right around the same time.

And the OED has a note that "beau" was originally naturalized, but later reintroduced from modern French with the newer pronunciation.

[Pabappa]

Plus it makes no sense for "beautiful", which has /ju/, not /iu/. And even if you say bee-yootiful, it doesn't divide into <ea> + <u>. We inherit the whole <eau> from French.

And in, I think, all the other cases ‹eau› stands for /oʊ/ instead (note esp. beau); so I'm imagining an analysis that /i/ + /u/ contracts to /ju/, much like ocean (or, shall we say, oceän?) parses as //osiən// > //osjən// > /oʊʃən/.

But yeah, it's a bit of a kludge. Are there any precedents for front vowels desyllabifying to /j/ in pretonic positions? It's not like reüse or deïnstall come out as ˣ/ruːz/, ˣ/dʒɪnstɔːl/.

It may be similar to how karaoke is pronounced /kæri'oki/, which may have come from kære'joki/. Not listing it as a true example though since it didnt desyllabify. Karaoke is, of course, a much younger word than Beauty and if we had been importing Japanese music as early as we had been importing French fashion then I think maybe it would be a consonant by now.

And the OED has a note that "beau" was originally naturalized, but later reintroduced from modern French with the newer pronunciation.

As /bju/ ?That would be a headtrip. It sounds too much like "abuse" (verb) for me to be comfortable with it being a pet name for a boyfriend.

[Boşkoventi]

And the OED has a note that "beau" was originally naturalized, but later reintroduced from modern French with the newer pronunciation.

As /bju/ ?That would be a headtrip. It sounds too much like "abuse" (verb) for me to be comfortable with it being a pet name for a boyfriend.

Yeah, it also mentions "Beaulieu" as [bjuːlɪ]. (Which seems to me like one of those crazy place names in England where the pronunciation and spelling have little to do with each other.)

But yeah, it would be pretty weird.

[JT_the_Ninja]

I think another problem is that some aren't aware of the distinction between diaeresis and umlaut. I recently read a fantasy novel, the start of a series, called Dwarves. The author is German, so it's in translation, but it's a fairly good read, especially towards the end. Standard Tolkienian fantasy, but with enough original twists that it's still enjoyable.

In the book, the author makes frequent use of diacritics, and not always in (as it seems to me) a consistent way. That is, it's not always clear when he means two dots over a vowel to be a diaeresis or an umlaut (there is no pronunciation guide). For example, there are not only elves but älfar, their evil cousins. Clearly, the only interpretation there can be an umlaut. But there are also names like Boëndal and Goïmgar. Maybe it's just because I've read a lot of Tolkien, but my feeling is that these are quite clearly intended to be diaereses, so that the reader doesn't diphthongize the vowels. It could also just be an attempt to make the orthography look more foreign (he also uses names like Nod'onn without any clear indication of what the apostrophe means), of course. So throughout the book I'm constantly unsure of how to say the names aloud to myself. Arguably a minor quirk, which wouldn't even bother someone who'd never studied linguistics, but there it is.

I do like using it sometimes in words like coöperation, though; and let's not even get started on spellings like rôle. []

[Ryan of Tinellb]

I was annoyed at the overuse of "foreign-looking" diacritics in Lynn Flewelling's works, although she may have had her reasons for doing so.

When I was a kid, I went to a fête with my aunt. Afterwards, we wrote a storybook together detailing the event. She insisted on putting the circumflex there, so I wênt ahêad and circumflêxed all thê e's.

[linguoboy]

I think another problem is that some aren't aware of the distinction between diaeresis and umlaut.

I was surprised some years ago to discover that a typographical distinction actually exists (or, rather, existed in the days of cast type, since Unicode lumps them together). You need pretty sharp eyes to spot it, but traditionally umlauts are squarer and closer together than diaereses.

[JT_the_Ninja]

Interesting; that sounds like an interesting search for examples. But it makes sense, since the umlaut started as a tiny blackletter e written over the vowel. []

[Radagast revived]

I use it for coöperate and similar words.

[schyrsivochter]

I’ve never even seen the diaeresis in words like ‘cooperate’ or ‘reestablish’, but to me, the one in ‘naïve’ belongs there.