[Python-Dev] PEP 393 Summer of Code Project

[Terry Reedy]

On 9/1/2011 11:45 AM, Guido van Rossum wrote:

> typewriter). Dutch does have one native use of the umlaut (though it
> has a different name, I forget which, maybe trema :-),

You remember correctly. According to
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Trema_%28diacritic%29
'trema' (Greek 'hole') is the generic name of the double-dot vowel 
diacritic. It was originally used for 'diaerhesis' (Greek, 'taking 
apart') when it shows "that a vowel letter is not part of a digraph or 
diphthong". (Note that 'ae' in diaerhesis *is* a digraph ;-). Germans 
later used it to indicate umlaut, 'changed sound'.

> when there are
> two consecutive vowels that would normally be read as a special sound
> (diphthong?). E.g. in "koe" (cow) the oe is two letters (not a single
> letter formed of two distict shapes!) that mean a special sound
> (roughly KOO). But in a word like "coëxistentie" (coexistence) the o
> and e do not form the oe-sound, and to emphasize this to Dutch readers
> (who believe their spelling is very logical :-), the official spelling
> puts the umlaut on the e. This is definitely thought of as a separate
> mark added to the e; ë is not a new letter.

So the above is trema-diaerhesis. "Dutch, French, and Spanish make 
regular use of the diaeresis." English uses such as 'coöperate' have 
become rare or archaic, perhaps because we cannot type them. Too bad, 
since people sometimes use '-' to serve the same purpose.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy