29
votes
Can an umlaut be written as a line in handwriting?
Ü/ü should not be written as Ū/ū in handwritten documents.
The 'ū' used to be the distinction between 'n' and 'u' in handwriting because they look very similar. It was a part of the 'Sütterlinschrift' ...
- 824
27
votes
Accepted
Ordering German special characters and those from other languages when sorting
Short answer:
Take a look at MySQL and different character-collations. Choose one and follow its rules. Or as @RHa and @cbeleites suggest find a library that provides locale-dependent sorting.
Long ...
- 14.2k
25
votes
Accepted
How to pronounce "Gröbner"?
The letters "ö" and "o" represent two different vowels, so "o" as in soft or ocean is not correct (both would be "o" in German, too), and the short "oo&...
- 25.4k
18
votes
Can an umlaut be written as a line in handwriting?
Some people do this, but that doesn't mean it's correct. It is just sloppy writing and (maybe) a remnant from "Sütterlin" that distinguished the "n" from the "u" that way, and thus has no relationship ...
- 62.5k
16
votes
Accepted
Gödel but Noether?
What you learnt is correct. You always write the umlaut unless you don’t have it on your keyboard. However especially in names the rules are somewhat flexible. So you might see people using the e ...
- 442
16
votes
How to pronounce "Gröbner"?
HalvarF already said it in his answer: Letters with umlauts (ä, ö, ü) are distinct letters in German language. Historically they derived from the letters without dots, and there are still connections (...
- 121k
14
votes
Gödel but Noether?
Proper nouns are not covered by orthographic rules, full stop. That is the essence when asking for why a given person or a given place is spelt the way they are.
Excursion on the use of umlauts
For ...
- 38.5k
14
votes
Can an umlaut be written as a line in handwriting?
I'd say it can be written this way. Not that it is taught to be written so, or even encouraged, but everyone who reads it will understand what is meant.
I do not believe this is a remnant from the ...
- 4,757
10
votes
Can an umlaut be written as a line in handwriting?
I suggest that the premise of this question is somewhat incorrect. The umlaut dots cannot be written as a single line, but a single line is well what might end up on paper when writing quickly.
The ...
- 8,596
9
votes
Why do some words that are not inflected have an umlaut?
Umlaut marks are usually used to show that an inflection has occurred, that is the umlaut is a synchronic change.
Umlauted vowels are less common than unumlauted vowels, but I think it's going too ...
- 684
8
votes
Gödel but Noether?
A even more famous example is Goethe: The grandfather of the famous German poet
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
did not have the Name Goethe. His name was
Friedrich Georg Göthe
(with ö ...
- 121k
8
votes
Accepted
Umlaut over consonant preceding a vowel
This simply is wrong.
It should be:
BEI VÖLLIGER DUNKELHEIT ENTWICKELN
There is a letter »V̈«, but it is not part of the German language. (Some Oceanic languages use this letter, for example ...
- 121k
8
votes
Warum gibt's keinen Umlaut für e und i?
Das liegt an der Entwicklung der deutschen (und anderen germanischen) Sprache aus dem indoeuropäischen Vorläufer.
Das Indoeuropäische kennt nur fünf verschiedene Vokallaute, die sich in den meisten ...
- 38.5k
8
votes
Why do some words that are not inflected have an umlaut?
In most of your examples the vowel ä is an actual Umlaut, i.e. a changed vowel a or ā:
Ärger relates to arg, https://www.dwds.de/wb/Ärger
Hälfte relates to halb, https://www.dwds.de/wb/Hälfte
Träne ...
- 16.1k
8
votes
Why do some words that are not inflected have an umlaut?
First of all, let's distinguish between the linguistic phenomenon (Germanic) umlaut (or i-mutation) and the grapheme umlaut diacritic. In German, these two concepts are very closely related, because ...
- 191
7
votes
Accepted
Do any German words contain "ae", "oe", or "ue"?
In other words, if I encounter a word containing "ae", "oe", or "ue", can I be sure that the correct way to write the word is with the appropriate umlaut?
No, you can't.
Counterexample: Oboe
- 7,657
7
votes
Accepted
Is it normal that the "ä" is pronounced this way in this word? (Swiss German)
There are several things happening with ä in Swiss German:
The very open front vowel that has developed from Germanic e or from the secondary umlaut of a is consistently transcribed with ä. While ...
- 7,031
6
votes
Accepted
Umlaut or not on "ihr" form of verb
Ihr lauft is the only correct form, see for example this conjugation table. Same goes for ihr schlaft.
However, in spoken German you may hear ihr läuft. The reason could be the influence of local ...
- 15.4k
6
votes
How to remember umlauts? (ö and ü)
What is your mother tongue? In same cases this can explain certain difficulties.
There is a path from pronounciation to writing it, but if you don't have access to the right pronounciation or you ...
- 1,615
6
votes
Ordering German special characters and those from other languages when sorting
If it's not names you are dealing with, it would be best to ignore all diacritics when sorting (and count ß as ss).
The only reason to deviate from this simple system lies in the unfortunate fact ...
- 25.5k
6
votes
Why does “missmutig” lack an umlaut when every other “-mütig” adjective has one?
The German word Mut has the meaning courage, boldness, bravery:
Er bewies Mut und nahm die Herausforderung an.
He showed courage and accepted the challenge.
But it also can mean mood:
Frohen ...
- 121k
5
votes
Accepted
How do I know when a word is spelled with ä rather than an e when I hear the word
Actually, the long ä is pronounced different from the long e but especially Northern German dialects don't make that difference except for cases where it matters:
Er sagte, er läse. (Konjunktiv II ...
- 57.2k
5
votes
Deutsche Wörter mit allen deutschen Sonderbuchstaben
Gestern fand ich eher zufällig: tränenüberströmt. Adjektive kommen bisher bei euch noch gar nicht vor. Das Wort begeisterte mich so, dass ich heute erstmals schaue, ob sich auch andere schon diesem ...
- 51
5
votes
How to pronounce "Gröbner"?
German <ö> represents two distinct front rounded vowels, close-mid long [øː] as in Höhle and open-mid short [œ] as in Hölle (links are to Wiktionary, where you can listen to a native speaker's ...
- 25.5k
4
votes
Wie schreibt man Umlaute und scharfes S auf nichtdeutschen Tastaturen?
Entering German symbols in Word can be done relatively easy on a US keyboard:
For ä press Ctrl+Shift+;, then press a.
For ö press Ctrl+Shift+;, then press o.
For ü press Ctrl+Shift+;, then ...
- 41
4
votes
Accepted
How are vowel sounds changed by the diaeresis/trema?
About umlauts, trema and diaeresis
In case of German language, the dots you see in ä, ü and ü are neither called diaeresis nor trema, and they also don't fall into the category of diacritics. Those ...
- 121k
4
votes
Accepted
What are the expectations for German search behavior in software?
Make it as broadly as possible, but be reasonable.
The best user experience would be to type in "Gefaskrankheit" and your app knows its "Gefäßkrankheit" despite the input typo. But you are not Google ...
- 14.2k
4
votes
Accepted
How to remember umlauts? (ö and ü)
It's grundsätzlich yet gründlich.
So, your confusion is basically about the tonal change in regard to word class? Remember all but the shortest German words follow the same pattern:
([prefix(es)] –...
- 57.2k
4
votes
Accepted
How to write german Um-laut Ä ä Ö ö Ü ü and ß from a non German keyboard?
On Microsoft Windows, you can use the ALT key plus the appropriate numeric string to insert these letters. While holding down ALT, enter the appropriate string of numbers in sequence on the NUMPAD (...
- 166
4
votes
Wann macht die Endung -in keinen Umlaut?
Ursprünglich trat der Umlaut dann auf, wenn in der folgenden Silbe ein i vorkam. Im Englischen wird das Phänomen daher auch als i-Mutation bezeichnet.
Ursprünglich bedeutet hier: Im Althochdeutschen ...
- 15.4k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible