Xref: utzoo comp.fonts:2550 soc.culture.german:4371 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!exodus!ringworld.Eng.Sun.COM!eager From: eager@ringworld.Eng.Sun.COM (Michael J. Eager) Newsgroups: comp.fonts,soc.culture.german Subject: Re: Umlaute [was: naive (...question about uncial...) ] Message-ID: <13863@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> Date: 23 May 91 02:36:56 GMT References: <1991Apr24.152455.22367@engage.enet.dec.com> Sender: news@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM Followup-To: comp.fonts Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca. Lines: 29 In article tmb@ai.mit.edu (Thomas M. Breuel) writes: > >I don't think the combinations are any more hideous that what German >and most other languages already have: "sch", "ch", "au", etc. It's >merely a question of what you are used to. > >In any case, I believe most dialects of English already have more >vowels than any of the languages you mention (certainly more than >Spanish). English has somewhere around 14 vowels. Doesn't it sort of muddy the waters to mix phonemes into a discussion of fonts and orthography? German has umlauts; it also has standard orthographic substitutions for them which do not use the dots: ae, oe, ue. Sch, ch, au, mentioned above, are not orthographic substitutions; they _are_ the orthography. English may have fourteen vowel sounds (I'd really guess at a higher number if you include pronounciations from New England, Manchester, Texas, etc.) but it has 5 (perhaps as many as 7) orthographic vowels: a, e, i, o, u and occasionally y and w. Orthography does not match phonetics in any language I am aware of. That is why there is an International Phonetic Alphabet. -- Mike Eager