Diaeresis (diacritic)
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Diaeresis[a](/daɪˈɛrəsɪs,-ˈɪər-/dy-ERR-ə-siss, -EER-)[1]is a name for thetwo dotsdiacritical mark(◌̈) as used to indicate the separation of two distinct vowel letters in adjacent syllables when an instance ofdiaeresis (or hiatus)occurs, so as to distinguish from adigraphordiphthong.
It consists of a two dots diacritic placed over a letter, generally avowel;when that letter is an⟨i⟩,the diacritic replaces thetittle:⟨ï⟩.[2]
The diaeresis diacritic indicates that two adjoining letters that would normally form adigraphand be pronounced as one sound, are instead to be read as separate vowels in two syllables. For example, in the spelling "coöperate", the diaeresis reminds the reader that the word has four syllablesco-op-er-ate,not three,*coop-er-ate.In British English this usage has been considered obsolete for many years, and in US English, although it persisted for longer, it is now considered archaic as well.[3]Nevertheless, it is still used by the US magazineThe New Yorker.[4]In English language texts it is perhaps most familiar in theloan wordsnaïve,NoëlandChloë,and is also used officially in the name of the islandTeänand ofCoös County.Languages such asDutch,Afrikaans,Catalan,French,Galician,andSpanishmake regular use of the diaeresis. (In some Germanic and other languages, theumlaut diacritichas the same appearance but a different function.)
Name
[edit]The worddiaeresisis fromGreekdiaíresis(διαίρεσις), meaning "division", "separation", or "distinction".[5] The wordtrema(French:tréma), used in linguistics and alsoclassical scholarship,is from the Greektrē̂ma(τρῆμα) and means a "perforation", "orifice", or "pip" (as ondice),[6]thus describing the form of the diacritic rather than its function.
History
[edit]In Greek, two dots, called atrema,were used in theHellenistic periodon the lettersιandυ,most often at the beginning of a word, as inϊδων,ϋιος,andϋβριν,to separate them from a preceding vowel.[citation needed]This was needed because writing wasscriptio continua,where spacing was not yet used as aword divider.[citation needed]However, it was also used to indicate that a vowel formed its own syllable (inphonological hiatus), as inηϋandΑϊδι.[7][8]
The diaeresis was borrowed for this purpose in several languages of western and southern Europe, among themOccitan,Catalan,French,Dutch,Welsh,and (rarely)English.As a further extension, some languages began to use a diaeresis whenever a vowel letter was to be pronounced separately. This included vowels that would otherwise form digraphs with consonants or simply be silent. For example, in the orthographies ofSpanish,Catalan,French,GalicianandOccitan,the graphemesguandqunormally represent a single sound,[ɡ]or[k],before the front vowelseandi(or before nearly all vowels in Occitan). In the few exceptions where theuis pronounced, a diaeresis is added to it.
Examples:
- Spanishpingüino[piŋˈɡwino]"penguin"
- Catalanaigües[ˈajɣwəs]"waters",qüestió[kwəstiˈo]"matter, question"
- Occitanlingüista[liŋˈɡwistɔ]"linguist",aqüatic[aˈkwatik]"aquatic"
- Frenchaiguëoraigüe[eɡy]"acute (fem.)"
- Note that theeis silent in most modern accents; without the diacritic, both theeand theuwould be silent, or pronounced as aschwain accents that have conserved all post-consonantal schwas, including inpoetry recitation,as in the proper nameAigues-Mortes[ɛɡ(ə)mɔʁt(ə)].
- Galicianmingüei[miŋˈɡwej]"I shrank",saïamos"we went out/used to go out"
- LuxembourgishChance[ˈʃɑ̃ːs]"opportunity",Chancë[ˈʃɑ̃ːsə](before a consonant) "opportunities"
- AfrikaansHoër"Higher"
This has been extended toGanda,where a diaeresis separatesyfromn:anya[aɲa],anÿa[aɲja].
'Ÿ' is sometimes used in transcribedGreek,where it represents the Greek letterυ(upsilon) inhiatuswithα.For example, it can be seen in the transcriptionArtaÿctesof the Persian nameἈρταΰκτης(Artaüktēs) at the very end ofHerodotus,or the name ofMount Taÿgetuson the southern Peloponnesus peninsula, which in modern Greek is spelledΤαΰγετος.
Modern usage
[edit]Catalan
[edit]InCatalan,the digraphsai,ei,oi,au,eu,andiuare normally read as diphthongs. To indicate exceptions to this rule (hiatus), a diaeresis mark is placed on the second vowel: without this the wordsraïm[rəˈim]( "grape" ) anddiürn[diˈurn]( "diurnal" ) would be read *[ˈrajm]and *[ˈdiwrn],respectively.
Dutch
[edit]InDutch,spellings such ascoëfficiëntare necessary because the digraphsoeandienormally represent the simple vowels[u]and[i],respectively. However, hyphenation is now preferred for compound words so thatzeeëend(sea duck) is now spelledzee-eend.[9]
English
[edit]In ModernEnglish,the diaeresis, thegrave accentand theacute accentare theonly diacritics usedapart fromloanwords.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 "[10]but this usage is considered by prescriptive writing guides to be largelyarchaic.[citation needed]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, notablyThe New Yorker[11][4]andMIT Technology ReviewunderJason 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 namesChloëandZoë,which otherwise might be pronounced with a silente.To discourage a similar mispronunciation, the mark is also used in the surnameBrontë.[12](See alsoUmlaut (diacritic) § Use of the umlaut for special effect.)
French
[edit]InFrench,the diaeresis is referred to as atréma.Some diphthongs that were written with pairs of vowel letters were later reduced tomonophthongs,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 wordsmaïs[ma.is]andnaïve[na.iv]would be pronounced*[mɛ]and*[nɛv],respectively, without the diaeresis mark, since thedigraphaiis pronounced[ɛ].[b]The English spelling ofNoëlmeaning "Christmas"(French:Noël[nɔ.ɛl]) comes from this use.Ÿoccurs in French as a variant ofïin a few proper nouns, as in the name of theParisiansuburb ofL'Haÿ-les-Roses[la.ileʁoz]and in the surname of thehouse of Croÿ[kʁu.i].In some names, a diaeresis is used to indicate two vowels historically in hiatus, although the second vowel has since fallen silent, as inSaint-Saëns[sɛ̃sɑ̃s]andde Staël[dəstal].
The diaeresis is also used in French when a silenteis added to the sequencegu,to show that it is to be pronounced[ɡy]rather than as a digraph for[ɡ].For example, when the feminine‑eis added toaigu[eɡy]"sharp", the pronunciation does not change in most accents:[c]aiguë[eɡy]as opposed to the city nameAigues-Mortes[ɛɡmɔʁt].Similar is the feminine nounciguë[siɡy]"hemlock"; comparefigue[fiɡ]"fig". In the ongoingFrench spelling reformof 1990, this was moved to theu(aigüe,cigüe). (Incanoë[kanɔ.e]theeis not silent, and so is not affected by the spelling reform.)
Galician
[edit]InGalician,diaeresis is employed to indicate hiatus in the first and second persons of the plural of theimperfect tenseof verbs ended in-aer,-oer,-aírand-oír(saïamos,caïades). 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 Presentsubjunctive(saiamos,caiades), as those have saidiforming a diphthong with the followinga.
In addition, identically to Spanish, the diaeresis is used to differentiate the syllablesgüe[ɡʷe]angüi[ɡʷi]fromgue[ɡe]andgui[ɡi].[13]
German
[edit]InGerman,in addition to the pervasive use ofumlaut diacriticswith vowels, diaeresis aboveeoccurs in a few proper names, such asFerdinand PiëchandBernhard Hoëcker.
Greek
[edit]InModern Greek,αϊandοϊrepresent thediphthongs/ai̯/and/oi̯/,andεϊthe disyllabic sequence/e.i/,whereasαι,οι,andειtranscribe the simple vowels/e/,/i/,and/i/.The diacritic can be the only one on a vowel, as inακαδημαϊκός(akadimaïkós,"academic" ), or in combination with anacute accent,as inπρωτεΐνη(proteïni,"protein" ).
Occitan
[edit]TheOccitanuse of diaeresis is very similar to that of Catalan:ai, ei, oi, au, eu, ouare diphthongs consisting of one syllable butaï, eï, oï, aü, eü, oüare groups consisting of two distinct syllables.
Portuguese
[edit]InPortuguese,a diaeresis (Portuguese:trema) was used in (mainly Brazilian)Portugueseuntil the1990 Orthographic Agreement.It was used in combinationsgüe/qüeandgüi/qüi,in words likesangüíneo[sɐ̃ˈɡwinju]"sanguineous".After the implementation of the Orthographic Agreement, it was abolished altogether from all Portuguese words.
Spanish
[edit]Spanishuses the diaeresis obligatorily in words such ascigüeñaandpingüino;and optionally in some poetic (or, until 1950, academic) contexts in words likevïuda,andsüave.[14][15]
Welsh
[edit]InWelsh,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 arecopïo[kɔ.ˈpi.ɔ](to copy) contrasted withmopio[ˈmɔ.pjɔ](to mop). It is also used on the first of two vowels that would otherwise form a diphthong (crëir[ˈkreː.ɪr]('created') rather thancreir[ˈkrəi̯r]('believed')) and on the first of three vowels to separate it from a following diphthong:crëwydis pronounced[ˈkreː.ʊi̯d]rather than[ˈkrɛu̯.ɨd].
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^also spelleddiæresisordieresis;plural:diaereses,etc.
- ^maiswith no diaeresis is the conjunction "but" butmaïswith one is the cereal "maize" (usually calledcornin America) so the distinction is important.
- ^In a some varieties, such asBelgianandSwiss French,"silent"‑ecauses a lengthening of the preceding vowel, so‑guë/‑güeis pronounced[ɡyː]in those accents.
References
[edit]- ^Wells, J C(2000).Longman Pronunciation Dictionary(2nd ed.). Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education Limited. p. 219.ISBN978-0-582-36467-7.
- ^The Unicode Standard v 5.0.San Francisco: Addison-Wesley. 2006. p. 228.ISBN0-321-48091-0.
- ^Shaw, Harry (1993)."Accent Marks:Dieresis ".Punctuate It Right!(second ed.). p. 38.ISBN0-06-461045-4.
...it is much less used than formerly, having been largely replaced by the hyphen...
- ^abNorris, Mary (2012-04-26)."The Curse of the Diaeresis".The New Yorker.Retrieved2021-08-07.
The special tool we use here at The New Yorker for punching out the two dots that we then center carefully over the second vowel in such words as "naïve" and "Laocoön" will be getting a workout this year, as the Democrats coöperate to reëlect the President.
- ^διαίρεσις.Liddell, Henry George;Scott, Robert;A Greek–English Lexiconat thePerseus Project
- ^τρῆμα.Liddell, Henry George;Scott, Robert;A Greek–English Lexiconat thePerseus Project
- ^Johnson, William A. (2013).Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus.University of Toronto Press. p. 343.
- ^Bagnall, Roger S., ed. (2011).The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology.p. 262.ISBN9780199843695.
- ^"zee-eend".woordenlijst.org.Retrieved2021-08-07.
- ^Burchfield, R.W. (1996).Fowlers's Modern English Usage(3 ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 210.ISBN0-19-869126-2.
- ^diaeresis: December 9, 1998.The Mavens' Word of the Day.Random House.
- ^Brown, Mark (26 September 2024)."Brontë sisters finally get their dots as names corrected at Westminster Abbey".The Guardian.
- ^Normas Ortográficas do Idioma Galego (p.25)
- ^"Diéresis | Diccionario de la lengua española".
- ^"Rae::ortografía".
External links
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| Marks used as diacritics |
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