Umlauts weren’t always written as dots above a vowel. Later, the –i plural ending disappeared and a whole bunch of other sound changes happened, but we are left with the echo of that mutated vowel in mouse/mice, as well as in foot/feet, tooth/teeth, and other irregular pairs. That plural –i pulled the u forward into umlaut. Way, way back in a time before English had branched off from other Germanic languages, plurals were formed with an –i ending. English was also affected by the umlaut mutation.Įver wonder why the plural of “mouse” is “mice”? Blame umlaut. (Start with “ah” for ä and “oh” for ö.) 4. Not working? Trying pinging back and forth: oo-ee-oo-ee-oo-ee-oo-ee … now freeze your tongue position in “ee” and only move your lips back to “oo.” Hold that u sound with your lips though! Good. You should feel the body of your tongue move forward and up in your mouth. Keep your lips completely frozen in u position while you try to say “ee” with the rest of your mouth. Now imagine there’s an i-sound (an “ee”) coming up. Mimicking that mutation process is a great way to learn to pronounce the umlaut. Technically, “umlaut” doesn’t refer to the dots, but to the process where, historically, a vowel got pulled into a different position because of influence from another, upcoming vowel. “Umlaut” is originally the name for a specific kind of vowel mutation. He called it umlaut from um (around) + laut (sound). In 1819 he described a sound-change process that affected the historical development of German. Jacob Grimm was not only a collector of fairy tales (along with his brother Wilhelm), but also one of the most famous linguists ever. The word “umlaut” comes from one of the Brothers Grimm.
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