I was about to Have Opinions about the threats the US is making to Greenland, Denmark and Europe, then realised I have nothing useful to add, so I pressed Delete.
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@CiaraNi I'm studying an 18th century German musician named Friedrich Dulon. I'm monolingual, and the U in his name has one, and I have no idea what it means for pronunciation.
@ChristineMalec May I ask, does this ‘single umlaut’ appear in handwriting? As in Dúlon (or at least looking similar to that)?
@CiaraNi -
It upsets me that there are no umlauts in the word umlaut
@CiaraNi there is an umlaut in the plural, Umläute ...
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J jwcph@helvede.net shared this topic
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@CiaraNi I'm studying an 18th century German musician named Friedrich Dulon. I'm monolingual, and the U in his name has one, and I have no idea what it means for pronunciation.
@ChristineMalec
I wouldn't be surprised if the surname Dulon was originally brought to Berlin by the Huguenots (around 1700), and, of course, the u and -on would then be pronounced french, i.e. u becomes ü and -on becomes the nasal o sound.When the name was germanized, it became Dülon, so the ü was adapted but the nasal was dropped. That would be common. I would even expect a stress shift from the second to the first syllable (Du'lon => 'Dülon)
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ü is a sound we don't have in English. To make it, say a long E sound (the sound in "leek" or "wheel") but with your lips rounded as if you were saying a u sound. It's hard; you'll have to overcome programs your brain learned when you were a toddler to make the inside of your mouth try to make the 'e' sound while your lips are trying to make the 'u' sound. That combination makes the ü.
@stevegis_ssg
Mind that, regarding the original post of the Mühlenbrücke, your ü description only explains the pronunciation of the first ü in that word. The ü in Brücke is different. Its much shorter (apparantly, WP calls it Near-close near-front rounded vowel, whereas the ü in Mühle is a Close front rounded vowel). Dülon employs the closed form.
@ChristineMalec @CiaraNi -
@ChristineMalec May I ask, does this ‘single umlaut’ appear in handwriting? As in Dúlon (or at least looking similar to that)?
@CiaraNi@HenkvanderEijk @ChristineMalec His name is written "Dülon", but also – and more common – "Dulon" in several dictionaries, e.g.:
https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/gnd116235594.html#ndbcontent
His father was Louis Dulon. So without digging deeper in his genealogy, it's probably an orthographic assimilation of a French name to German spelling, and therefore I guess it's pronounced [dylɔ̃]. For [y] think of "tu" (you) in French, "über" (over) in German or "yksi" (one) in Finnish. Three characters, one sound.
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It upsets me that there are no umlauts in the word umlaut
@CiaraNi yeah, but there's no umlaut in "Umlaut". So you may say, describing umlauts is possible entirely with lauts. So you can describe umlauts without the need to use them, which makes learning them a lot easier.
At least one thing, we Germans got right, eh? -
@HenkvanderEijk @ChristineMalec His name is written "Dülon", but also – and more common – "Dulon" in several dictionaries, e.g.:
https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/gnd116235594.html#ndbcontent
His father was Louis Dulon. So without digging deeper in his genealogy, it's probably an orthographic assimilation of a French name to German spelling, and therefore I guess it's pronounced [dylɔ̃]. For [y] think of "tu" (you) in French, "über" (over) in German or "yksi" (one) in Finnish. Three characters, one sound.
@HenkvanderEijk @ChristineMalec @CiaraNi Or as @datenhalde explained: Maybe the nasal [ɔ̃] was dropped and the stress is on the first syllable.
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@CiaraNi @mlazz @hanscees If you want to nitpick, umlaut is the phenomenon where an a changes to ä and o to ö when a word is inflected, while dieresis is the diacritical sign on top of a and o in ä and ö.
In many (most?) languages where ä and ö are used, the dieresis is *not* seen as an ”accent”, but ä, ö, and å are separate letters. Just like E is not seen as an F with an extra bar.
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@headword @walfischbucht 'Täpid’ - that's more like it. I'm going to need Germans to speak Estonian from now on, so, please.
Also, thanks for this information. Very pleasing to learn.
@CiaraNi @headword @walfischbucht But at least there's a diphtong in "Umlaut". 🫠
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@HenkvanderEijk @ChristineMalec @CiaraNi Or as @datenhalde explained: Maybe the nasal [ɔ̃] was dropped and the stress is on the first syllable.
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@CiaraNi It really does seem like a severely missed opportunity.
@courtcan Agreed
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ü is a sound we don't have in English. To make it, say a long E sound (the sound in "leek" or "wheel") but with your lips rounded as if you were saying a u sound. It's hard; you'll have to overcome programs your brain learned when you were a toddler to make the inside of your mouth try to make the 'e' sound while your lips are trying to make the 'u' sound. That combination makes the ü.
@stevegis_ssg @ChristineMalec Thanks. That's a fine 'user-friendly' guide!
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@stevegis_ssg
Mind that, regarding the original post of the Mühlenbrücke, your ü description only explains the pronunciation of the first ü in that word. The ü in Brücke is different. Its much shorter (apparantly, WP calls it Near-close near-front rounded vowel, whereas the ü in Mühle is a Close front rounded vowel). Dülon employs the closed form.
@ChristineMalec @CiaraNi@datenhalde @stevegis_ssg @ChristineMalec The variations in a single letter or accent are fascinating
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@CiaraNi @ChristineMalec If you vocalize the English letter "e" and don't change anything about the position of your teeth and tongue BUT narrow your lips as though vocalizing an "ooo" sound at the same time, you'll come extremely close to the German pronunciation of the "ü."
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@courtcan @ChristineMalec Lovely accessible description. Danke!
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@courtcan Agreed
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@CiaraNi @ChristineMalec The ü is pronounced like y in Danish. In my experience as a teacher of Danish to foreigners native English speakers find it hard to pronounce at first but basically just start saying eeee and then round your lips and the sound then changes to y. Don't change anything else in or around your mouth, just the lips.
@saederup @ChristineMalec Oh that's interesting - I hadn't thought of a parallel with Danish 'Y'. A very useful comparison and user-friendly description - danke und tak!
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@CiaraNi there is an umlaut in the plural, Umläute ...
@otte_homan All umlauts should be in the plural so. Both because the umlauts would then have umlauts and because the world could use more nice-looking umlauts
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@CiaraNi yeah, but there's no umlaut in "Umlaut". So you may say, describing umlauts is possible entirely with lauts. So you can describe umlauts without the need to use them, which makes learning them a lot easier.
At least one thing, we Germans got right, eh?"So you can describe umlauts without the need to use them, which makes learning them a lot easier."
This makes so much sense. Wise language, German.
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@CiaraNi @mlazz @hanscees If you want to nitpick, umlaut is the phenomenon where an a changes to ä and o to ö when a word is inflected, while dieresis is the diacritical sign on top of a and o in ä and ö.
In many (most?) languages where ä and ö are used, the dieresis is *not* seen as an ”accent”, but ä, ö, and å are separate letters. Just like E is not seen as an F with an extra bar.
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@CiaraNi @headword @walfischbucht But at least there's a diphtong in "Umlaut". 🫠
@katzentratschen @headword @walfischbucht Doesn't make up for the lack of umlauts though.
