Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!unido!cat!martin From: martin@cat.de (Thomas Martin) Newsgroups: comp.fonts Subject: Re: naive (...question about uncial...) Message-ID: Date: 27 Apr 91 23:28:24 GMT Organization: C.A.T. Kommunikations-System Lines: 27 Dick Dunn (rcd@ico.isc.com) schrieb am 24. 4.: > I'd answered in mail, but since this has come up in a couple of postings... > > davis@3d.enet.dec.com (Peter Davis) writes: > > The two dots over a letter are called an umlaut. > > Strictly, the mark is called a dieresis. You can call it an umlaut and > the intent will be understood, but umlaut tends to imply specific German > usage, and German doesn't use umlaut over "i"--it's only on the strong > vowels--"a", "o", "u". The "i-dieresis" is French usage. I agree on that (I'm german), but the French call it a Trema. My dictionary defines dieresis (german: Dia:rese) and Trema (sorry, this is the german spelling but I think it should be the same in English as it is a Greek word) nearly identically but puts more emphasis on the two dots in explaining Trema. So Trema should be a little more accurate also because the French use this expression as well for describing this character. For this i: they would say: "i trema". Regards, Thomas Martin --- Thomas Martin (martin@cat.de) C.A.T. Kommunikations-System, Frankfurt, Germany