3 ms·

Off topic, but I'm curious about the two dots over the letter u, which is something I've never seen before in French. Living in a German-speaking land, I'm used

Off topic, but I'm curious about the two dots over the letter u, which is something I've never seen before in French. Living in a German-speaking land, I'm used to seeing the same name written as Emmäus, where the umlaut serves not only to shift the sound of the a vowel but also to imply the emphasis goes there... Now I understand the normal French u-sound is naturally closer to the German ü than any English vowel without the need for a diacritical mark, so I wonder what effect the dots have here and if they appear in other French words, or is it only something rare such as, in this case, when importing a place name from Hebrew via Greek... Any experts in French orthography with an opinion on this?

bill38 4y ago
It's for correct pronunciation. If there's no two dots on the u letter, french people may pronouce it 'emmo' because an 'a' followed by 'u' is pronounced 'o'. But there's no need because Emmaüs is so well known in France that everybody knows how to say it. You can find other examples in words like 'aigü' (acute) where you have to say the u like german ü.
- rodelrod 4y ago
  "Aigu" does not take a trema. The feminine form "aigüe" does, and the trema is there because otherwise you'd pronounce it "/ɛɡ/" instead of "/ɛ.ɡy/". It does not change the sound of the "u" at all.
  - smorrebrod 4y ago
    To add to the strangeness of it all, "aigüe" used to be incorrect and "aiguë" was correct. Since it does not make sense now both words are correct.
rodelrod 4y ago
The two dots here are not an umlaut. They're a trema [0], which happens to look the same. It's used to break digraphs or diphtongs into separate vowels. Without the trema, this word would be pronounced something like "/emo/". With it, it's pronounced "/ema.yz/". If you see two dots in French, Spanish, Portuguese (and English as written by The New Yorker!) you're looking at a trema. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)

bill38 4y ago

It's for correct pronunciation. If there's no two dots on the u letter, french people may pronouce it 'emmo' because an 'a' followed by 'u' is pronounced 'o'. But there's no need because Emmaüs is so well known in France that everybody knows how to say it. You can find other examples in words like 'aigü' (acute) where you have to say the u like german ü.

rodelrod 4y ago
"Aigu" does not take a trema. The feminine form "aigüe" does, and the trema is there because otherwise you'd pronounce it "/ɛɡ/" instead of "/ɛ.ɡy/". It does not change the sound of the "u" at all.
- smorrebrod 4y ago
  To add to the strangeness of it all, "aigüe" used to be incorrect and "aiguë" was correct. Since it does not make sense now both words are correct.

rodelrod 4y ago

The two dots here are not an umlaut. They're a trema [0], which happens to look the same. It's used to break digraphs or diphtongs into separate vowels. Without the trema, this word would be pronounced something like "/emo/". With it, it's pronounced "/ema.yz/". If you see two dots in French, Spanish, Portuguese (and English as written by The New Yorker!) you're looking at a trema. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)