Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!fluke!inc
From: inc@tc.fluke.COM (Gary Benson)
Newsgroups: comp.text.sgml
Subject: Re: Umlaut vs. Diaresis (?)
Message-ID: <1990Oct11.065031.1481@tc.fluke.COM>
Date: 11 Oct 90 06:50:31 GMT
References: <4410@swi.swi.psy.uva.nl>
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 39

In article <4410@swi.swi.psy.uva.nl> manfred@swi.psy.uva.nl () writes:

>Does SGML provide a way of specifying an 'Umlaut', as is used in German, in
>contrast wit a 'diaresis', used in many languages, such as the Dutch language.
>In printed text, i.e. typographically, these two are not distinguishable
>anymore. Note that an umlaut historically was printed as two vertical stripes
>(") on top of a vowel, whereas a diaresis should e printed as two dots (..) on
>top of a vowel.
>These two things are not the same, the umlaut changes the sound of the vowel,
>whereas the diaresis is used to mark a seperation in a word.

>All replies are greatly appreciated (references, ideas?)

Those two dots are not either an umlaut **OR** a diaresis  - - -  for
example, in Finnish, a letter "A" with two dotss above is a separate letter
altogether...A(two-dots) comes after Z in the alphabet! The same holds true
inother languages.... French for example uses "grave" and  "acute" "accents"
to make different letters, (Oh! look at the German "ss" that looks like an
English upper-case letter "B")

Instead of trying to get the world to see things the way some local language
sees it, don't you think we'd gain more by looking at symbols attached
to letters as part of the letter, rather than trying to define what they
mean in the language of origin? Really.

In Finnish, I canmnmot write write "maki" on this vt100 terminal.

"maki" is just a hill. In Finnish, it needs two dots above the "A" to make
it a real word. If you read it without the two dots, it means nothing.

So: in some languages at least, the two dots are not an intensive -- they
make the letter into a diofferent letter.



-- 
Gary Benson    -=[ S M I L E R ]=-   -_-_-_-inc@fluke.com_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

He who shits on the road will meet flies on his return.  -South African Proverb