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From: pooh@ut-sally.UUCP (Pooh @ the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen)
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.text
Subject: Re: about diacritical marks (danish dynamite)
Message-ID: <2663@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Aug-85 10:24:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.2663
Posted: Tue Aug 13 10:24:14 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Aug-85 22:52:02 EDT
References: <1065@diku.UUCP> <763@mcvax.UUCP> <1070@diku.UUCP> <775@mcvax.UUCP> <642@kvvax4.UUCP> <483@talcott.UUCP>
Reply-To: pooh@ut-sally.UUCP (Pooh @ the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen)
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
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Xref: linus net.nlang:3172 net.text:499

In article <483@talcott.UUCP> tmb@talcott.UUCP (Thomas M. Breuel) writes:
>
>German has special characters for the vowel combinations 'ae', 'oe',
>'ue', and 'sz'. These were introduced as a matter of convenience in
>handwriting: the first three combinations ('Umlaute') are written
>as the first vowel with two small parallel lines on top (contracted
>to dots in printed matter), which is actually a small script 'e'.
>The consonant combination 'sz' is written as a 'beta' like character,
>which is a contracted form of the script combination of 's' and 'z'.

Actually, I met extremely few Germans in West Germany who
even knew what the word "Umlaut" meant.  They just call the
letters by their pronounced form.  We're the ones who make
a distinction between the letter and the diacritical mark.

Pooh

pooh@purdue-ecn.ARPA     pur-ee!pooh

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