Diaeresis

Question

Can anyone give me a reason why we aren't learning to use the diaeresis in US schools? It think the diaeresis would make the English language a lot more interesting

Enoon · Accepted Answer

The reason is that the English alphabet has 26 letters, none of which has one. How would it make English more interesting?

Philip · Answer

To my knowledge, languages that use the diaeresis, or umlaut, use it for a reason. In Spanish it is used in very few cases, but it indicates that a vowel that otherwise would be part of a diphthong is pronounced individually. In German, it is used to indicate a completely different vowel sound. I believe that it used to be used in English for a purpose similar to the use in Spanish [coördinate, to show that the two vowels were both pronounced as /o/.]

How would you use it?

Anonymous · Answer

The diaeresis is supposed to indicate a new syllable in words that have to consecutive vowels such as naïve or coöperation, so it would not be included in the alphabet.
English is pretty dull, in my opinion, it doesn't use any word modifying symbols. Seëing some fancy symbols over some letters would make it a bit more interesting and relatable to other Latin derived languages.

Anonymous · Answer

I am actually from a Spanish speaking country and I do speak the language, maybe not to the extent that one might consider proficient <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/4.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/4.gif' alt='Emotion: stick out tongue'/> .Here are a couple of words that I have come across that use the diaeresis: Vergüenza (shame or timidity), Urugüay, antigüedad (old, past) and various others I can't remember. Most of the time it's used over the 'u' when it is followed by another vowel.

Mister Micawber · Answer

AnonymousVergüenza (shame or timidity), Urugüay, antigüedad (old, past)

You do know that these are not English words, right?

AlpheccaStars · Answer

AnonymousCan anyone give me a reason why we aren't learning to use the diaeresis in US schools? It think the diaeresis would make the English language a lot more interesting

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_%28diacritic%29#cite_note-3

Along with the grave accent, the diaeresis is the only diacritic native to Modern English (apart from diacritics used in loanwords, such as the acute accent, the cedilla, or the tilde). The use of both, however, is considered to be largely archaic.

The diaeresis mark is sometimes used in English personal first and last names to indicate that two adjacent vowels should be pronounced separately, rather than as a diphthong.
Examples include the given names Chloë and Zoë, which otherwise might be pronounced with a silent e. To discourage a similar mispronunciation, the mark is also used in the surname Brontë. It may be used optionally for words that do not have a morphological break at the diaeresis point, such as naïve, Boötes, and Noël. However its use in words such as coöperate and reënter, previously sometimes found in US English, has been dropped or replaced by the use of a hyphen except in a very few publications—notably The New Yorker.

But few students become writers for The New Yorker, so this archaic form is not taught on a regular basis. High school students might run across these marks in literature, but the meanings will not be difficult to absorb.

Anonymous · Answer

Yes, I do know, thank you very much. That is why I put translations in parenthesis right  next to them.

Anonymous · Answer

As this thread progressed, an answer was the last thing I was waiting for.
Thanks for the information.

Diaeresis

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