Catalan In
Catalan, the digraphs
ai,
ei,
oi,
au,
eu, and
iu are normally read as diphthongs. To indicate exceptions to this rule (
hiatus), a diaeresis mark is placed on the second vowel: without this the words ("grape") and ("diurnal") would be read * and *, respectively. Diaeresis also indicates that
ü is pronounced [w] in digraphs such as
gü and
qü when placed before
e or
i.
Dutch In
Dutch, spellings such as are necessary because the digraphs
oe and
ie normally represent the simple vowels and , respectively. However, hyphenation is now preferred for compound words so that (sea duck) is now spelled .
English In Modern
English, the diaeresis, the
grave accent and the
acute accent are the
only diacritics used apart from
loanwords. It may be used optionally for words that do not have a morphological break at the diaeresis point, such as "
naïve", "
Boötes", and "Noël". It was previously used in words such as "coöperate" and "reënter": in such cases, the diaeresis has been replaced by the use of a hyphen ("co-operate", "re-enter"), particularly in British English, or by no indication at all ("cooperate", "reenter"), as in American English. The use of the diaeresis persists in a few publications, notably
The New Yorker and
MIT Technology Review under
Jason Pontin. 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. (See also .)
French In
French, the diaeresis is referred to as a
tréma. Some diphthongs that were written with pairs of vowel letters were later reduced to
monophthongs, which led to an extension of the value of this diacritic. It often now indicates that the second vowel letter is to be pronounced separately from the first, rather than merge with it into a single sound. For example, the French words and would be pronounced * and *, respectively, without the diaeresis mark, since the
digraph ai is pronounced . The English spelling of
Noël meaning "
Christmas" ( ) comes from this use.
Ÿ occurs in French as a variant of
ï in a few proper nouns, as in the name of the
Parisian suburb of
L'Haÿ-les-Roses and in the surname of the
house of Croÿ . In some names, a diaeresis is used to indicate two vowels historically in hiatus, although the second vowel has since fallen silent, as in
Saint-Saëns and
de Staël . The diaeresis is also used in French when a silent
e is added to the sequence
gu, to show that it is to be pronounced rather than as a digraph for . For example, when the feminine
e is added to
aigu "sharp", the pronunciation does not change in most accents:
aiguë as opposed to the city name
Aigues-Mortes . Similar is the feminine noun "hemlock"; compare "fig". In the ongoing
French spelling reform of 1990, this was moved to the
u (
, ). (In the
e is not silent, and so is not affected by the spelling reform.)
Galician In
Galician, diaeresis is employed to indicate hiatus in the first and second persons of the plural of the
imperfect tense of verbs ended in
-aer,
-oer,
-aír and
-oír (, ). This stems from the fact that an unstressed
-i- is left between vowels, but constituting its own syllable, which would end with a form identical in writing but different in pronunciation with those of the Present
subjunctive (
, ), as those have said
i forming a diphthong with the following
a. In addition, identically to Spanish, the diaeresis is used to differentiate the syllables
güe and
güi from
gue and
gui .
German In
German, in addition to the pervasive use of
umlaut diacritics with vowels, diaeresis above
e occurs in a few proper names, such as
Ferdinand Piëch and
Bernhard Hoëcker.
Greek In
Modern Greek, the diaeresis is used above
iota and
upsilon to show that they do not form a digraph (except for
ηυ which is never needed) with the preceding vowel
(αι, οι, ει, υι, ου, αυ, ευ). For example, '
and ' represent the
diphthongs and , and '
the disyllabic sequence , whereas ', '
, and ' transcribe the simple vowels , , and . The diacritic can be the only one on a vowel (
ϊ, ϋ), as in ''
(, "academic"), or in combination with an acute accent (ΐ, ΰ)
, as in '' (, "protein").
Occitan The
Occitan use of diaeresis is very similar to that of Catalan:
ai, ei, oi, au, eu, ou are diphthongs consisting of one syllable but
aï, eï, oï, aü, eü, oü are groups consisting of two distinct syllables. Diaeresis may be used to indicate that
ü is pronounced in digraphs such as
gü and
qü.
Portuguese In
Portuguese, a diaeresis () was used in (mainly Brazilian)
Portuguese until the
1990 Orthographic Agreement. It was used in combinations and , in words like "
sanguineous". After the implementation of the Orthographic Agreement, it was abolished altogether from all Portuguese words.
Spanish Spanish uses the diaeresis obligatorily in words such as and ; and optionally in some poetic (or, until 1950, academic) contexts in words like , and .
Welsh In
Welsh, where the diaeresis appears, it is usually on the stressed vowel, and this is most often on the first of the two adjacent vowels; typical examples are (to copy) contrasted with (to mop). It is also used on the first of two vowels that would otherwise form a diphthong ( ('created') rather than ('believed')) and on the first of three vowels to separate it from a following diphthong: is pronounced rather than . ==See also==