Look up "diacritic" in Wikipedia and be prepared to drink from the fire hydrant of knowledge on scores of different marks used in hundreds of human writing systems.
Bill Fairchild -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Linda Mooney Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2011 11:30 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Terminology Greetings! <snip----------- The mark over the 'a' in 'ä' is, for example, called a diaresis in English and an umlaut in German. </snip----------- Even in my English class it was called an umlaut, but that is the only one of the marks (is that the proper term?) that I recognize. I have been following this thread and I can see that there are many more marks than I have ever been aware of. Somebody's (maybe everybody's) email editor is probably playing tricks as the same marks, including those forwarded, are not shown consistently in my inbox. Can anyone offer a link with these marks that includes something about them, and hopefully audible enunciation? I did check Google, and found listings for en.wiktionary.org and www.tfode.com , but are there better references? Thanks, Linda ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Gilmore" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2011 9:02:05 AM Subject: Re: Terminology The ‘inverted circumflex’, as in ‘ă’, is in fact more like a lower semicircle than an inversion of the circumflex in ‘â’. It occur alone and in combination with other marks, as in ‘ặ ’, ‘ắ’, and ‘ẵ’. Linguists writing in English, in which it does not occur, sometimes call it a cup. In the languages in which it is actually used it has other names, different in each language. This is to be expected. The mark over the 'a' in 'ä' is, for example, called a diaresis in English and an umlaut in German. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
