Von: fpbstra@club-internet.fr (Francis BUSSER)
  Datum: 04.06.98, 13:57:16
Betreff: Re: Heil  'UMLAUT' (long live the Umlaut)

Ralf and Sonja Aldrich wrote:
>
>  While we are still on the subject of umlauts, I wish to add the question
> "Where did it come from?".  Those two dots over the letters a and o in
> German that make a letter almost unpronouncable to non German speaker, and
> which the German Government now wants to ban from the language altogether.

Hello Ralf, Sonja and many others,

As an Alsacian, I can attest the only unpronouncable language in the
world is English ! As a proof : in my occupation I have learned to read
it, since a few weeks I try (with many mistakes) to write it, but nobody
was never able to teach me how to speak it. (Fine demonstration, isn't
it ?)

German is much easier to pronounce as French or English. Its
pronounciation is very regular and you speak it as you write it (the
difficulty is to write it). The general rule is to pronounce each letter
and each letter has always (mostly) the same pronounciation. Several
exceptions still exists. So as an exemple 'Ei' is pronounced as 'ai'.
The only real difficulty in the German pronounciation is the
accentuation or how to place right the tonic accent. The place of the
tonic accent can indeed change the sense of a word as by 'übersetzen (to
ferry over)and über'setzen (to translate). But it is less difficult as
in Chinese...

Now about the 'Umlaut'. It is the changement of pronounciation of a
vowell under influence of a following 'clearer' vowel, mostly an 'e'.
The sign " ower an 'a', an 'o' or an 'u' is a shortscript for a little
'e' that in the past the copyists where in the habit of writing ower as
an abbreviation. With the time the sign became an " or two points to
form todays ä, ö and ü. I dont have documents about the history of 'au'
and 'äu' pronounced approximatively 'öi' (as in 'Allgäu) and not
'ä-u'/'ae-u' as written.

If you have to decipher documents written in the German 'Frakturschrift'
(sometimes called also improperly 'Sütterlinschrift' from the name of
his reformator Ludwig Sütterlin 1865-1917), don't confuse with an
'Umlaut', the line you can find on the 'u' to distinguish it from the
'n'.

As far I am informed, in the last orthography reform (decided the 1st of
July 1996, obligatory after the 1st of August 1998 with a transitory
period until 2005) it is not question from an abolition of the 'Umlaut'.
On the other hand, the sharp 's' ('ß' said 'ess-tsed') also does not
disapear. It is now mostly replaced by 'ss' and subsists only after a
long vowel as in 'Maß' or in 'gießen'. But it is allowed to use 'ss' in
all cases each time the current font has no 'ß'.

The "Deutsche Rechtschreibung. Regeln und Wörterverzeichnis. Text der
amtlichen Regelung", the official text of the reform, does not speak at
all from 'Umlaute'. It try only to simplify the written language and to
make it nearer from the spoken one in so it takes act in the new
orthography of todays pronounciation. The reform does not speak from the
possibility to replace the characters ä, ö, ü with 'ae', 'oe' or 'ue' as
I have learned to do if no characters with 'Umlaut' exists in the
current font.

This reform expects also to represent a consensus between all the German
speaking countries in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Let us wait and
see !

I hope to have contributed to your nightmares !

Néanmoins toutes mes amitiés à tous, (nevertheless, my best friendship
to all)
	Francis Busser in Strasbourg (Alsace, France)