posted February 24, 2002 11:26 PM
� is pronounced as a sharp s. But I believe the new German spelling is trying hard to replace "�" with "ss". (Fu�ball would then be Fussball)
posted February 25, 2002 03:39 AM
Which doesn't make a lot of sense, since it would change the pronunciation of all the words...
And a 'ß' is lowercase. There's no capital, because it never comes at the beginning of a word. Of course, if you want to write a word in all-capitals, it's a tall letter, so you can just use it as it is.
The 'ÿ' is a completely different letter. It doesn't occur in German. I don't actually know where it's used. I assume it occurs where it does in the character set just because it was a convenient spot.
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posted February 25, 2002 03:21 PM
The double-dot above a vowel has two common meanings. In German-related languages, it transforms the open vowel into a more nasal variant. For example a (as in "car") becomes � (as in "cat", although the length of the sound doesn't change). In Finnish, we only use �/a-umlaut/ae and �/o-umlaut/oe, but usually u-umlaut/ue is used as well. It's just that apparently my computer crashes if I try to type the letter for u-umlaut in Netscape...
If you see the double-dot over some vowel other than a, o or u, it's probably not a real umlaut. Instead, it just means the vowel is given more length, pitch and accent than one would expect. You see that a lot in (French) translitterations of Arabic or of "exotic" languages.
The a-with-a-circle is a Swedish speciality. It basically transforms a into an open variant of o, when the regular o in Swedish is usually very closed and resembles u in pronunciation. Sometimes it's translitterated as aa, but the Danes hate that since their aa isn't pronounced like that (any more than the "ae" in "Gaelic" is pronounced as a-umlaut). In Finland, we actually call the a-with-a-circle "the Swedish o", and thus "STARG�TE" gives us the same sort of giggles as Lily's "Borg? Sounds Swedish" line. The show's name is pronounced something like "Star-goth-e" around here...
Oh, and the Danes and Norwegians insist on writing o-umlaut not with a double-dot, but with a slash across the o. Silly them. It's basically the same letter anyway.
Boy, that was dull. Next week: how to tell the different types of Nordic ski events apart.
posted February 26, 2002 12:29 AM
Thanks TIMO! Woo, and to prolong this 'boring' subject, how DO you pronounce the a-e 0 ligatures (�) and the o-e and u-e (I don't see them on my character map)!?!
I always thought � was more an 'ee' sound?
Thanks
���w
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted February 26, 2002 04:42 AM
You'll hear "ae" pronounced like a long 'a', a long 'e', and a long 'i'. If it's from Latin, it should be a long 'i' (just try saying the two sounds separately: ah-ee; it sounds like an 'i').
Of course, in German, "ae" is just another way to write 'ä', so it's pronounced like a long 'a' or short 'e' (depending upon how it's used). The 'ö' is pronounced by rounding your lips for an 'o', but saying either a long 'a' or short 'e'. The 'ü' is pronounced by doing the lip-rounding thing and saying either a long 'e' or a short 'i'.
And every time I refer to a long or short vowel, I'm talking about the way those vowels are pronounced in English.
BTW, "umlaut" is the German word for the double-dots over a letter. In English, it's called a diaresis. Usually in English it's used to show that two vowels in a row are pronounced separately, rather than as a diphthong ("naïve", "coöperation"). However, that went out of practice quite a while ago, so you're not likely to see it much, if at all.
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posted February 26, 2002 04:46 AM
Oh, and regarding the ligatures... You'll usually find 'æ' and 'œ' in Latin. I'm not sure if the form "ue" ever exists in Latin, but, if it does, it isn't a diphthong. The sounds are separate, so the letters are written separately. There is no ligature for "ue", so that's why you couldn't find one.
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posted February 27, 2002 04:39 AM
For what it's worth, in linguistics [�] is the vowel sound in Eng. "cat" or "hat," a rare sound in most other languages. That particular symbol is used because on a logical chart of vowels that sound falls just between the a of "father" and the e of "pet."
posted February 27, 2002 03:31 PM
Andrew: What? The only reason I can think that you would see an ampersand is if you were seeing the HTML code I typed instead of the letters (e.g. "ö" instead of 'ö'). But I looked over my posts, and I didn't mistype any of them. Where are you seeing ampersands?
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posted April 19, 2002 06:55 AM
Fanboy barrier = Lee Kelly.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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posted April 19, 2002 09:31 PM
TSN - don't worry - I forget now what that was about the ampersand... I think I didn't at first realise it was the forum's font for an ampersand!?! It was a while ago.
And the reason for digging up this old thread was?
Andrew
np: "UR" - Alanis Morrissette
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted April 23, 2002 11:48 AM
I AM LORDING MY POWER!
RARGH!
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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