Thanks for the über-dots in 532!

[Chazar]

Really, as a native German speaker, I always find it highly irritating if the English-speaking people write "uber" instead of "über". I usually don't care much about spelling and language - for language is just a tool to get a message across and therefore the majority of speakers/writers set the ever changing rules of a language, but the pronunciation of u and ü is so different, it just freaks me out somehow...

Anyway, I was really delighted to see Roy vocalizing über-spell correctly in 532. Thanks Giant for an über-comic! :smallcool: I can't wait to get the next book in my hands!

[Ancalagon]

Well, over time one get's used to those genetically/magically enhanced evil Uber-Nazi-Soldiers you have to fight in those american games, no? I always was confused that they had some 5 to 10 million $ to code a game (back then, today that would be more) but noone bothered to find a way how to put those dots above the "u". ;)

[Bavarian itP]

Really, as a native German speaker, the only thing I find amusing about "über" is the ubiquitous misspelling. So amusing, in fact, that I say "uber" myself if I use it in this way.

But of course Roy does not make such a mistake.

[Zerkai]

... How the hell DO you put the dots above the 'u'?

[FujinAkari]

You have to use ASCII.

ü is (alt)129

[Trazoi]

On the Mac it's pretty easy: you press Option-U to do umlauts, then you press the vowel you want. Über-fantastic!

One problem for webcomic authors is that often your comic font of choice doesn't have umlauted and accented letters, so you have to make do with uber instead of über, and cliche instead of cliché. (Doesn't apply to Comic Sans, though.)

[Shhalahr Windrider]

On a Mac, if you hit the combination "Option-u", the next vowel you type will have the umlaut over it.

"Option-u a" = ä
"Option-u e" =ë
"Option-u i" = ï
"Option-u o" = ö
"Option-u u" = ü

[Helanna]

How exactly does the umlaut change pronunciation? Also, do you need to use the number pad (rather than the row of numbers across the top)?

[FujinAkari]

Yes, on a PC you have to use the numberpad, and make sure caps lock is on :)

[Jade Falcon]

"Uber" sounds pretty ridiculous for a german speaking being *g

[The Giant]

Anyway, I was really delighted to see Roy vocalizing über-spell correctly in 532. Thanks Giant for an über-comic! :smallcool: I can't wait to get the next book in my hands!

Thank you for noticing. I took two years of German in high school, so I knew my umlaut.

Mind you, I can't remember how to actually say almost anything in German except, "Die Katze ist schmutzig und hat drei Augen." Which, as you can imagine, is not the most useful sentence in casual conversation.

[NerfTW]

Well, over time one get's used to those genetically/magically enhanced evil Uber-Nazi-Soldiers you have to fight in those american games, no? I always was confused that they had some 5 to 10 million $ to code a game (back then, today that would be more) but noone bothered to find a way how to put those dots above the "u". ;)

Why would they make any decision? Because they put the resources elsewhere. Games back then did not cost 5 to 10 million to make. They often cost less than $10,000. And there were space concerns. We're talking the days of 32Mb RAM sticks here. The option was to either use a reduced character set with just letters, numbers, and basic punctuation, or spend time making thier own just to add in the umlaut.

Basically, it just wasn't worth the effort to bother with. And eventually, it became engrained in American language that "uber" was spelled without an umlaut.

So all in all, let's blame ID Software and thier shoddy pseudo-3d game (I kid, Wolfenstein, I kid) that could fit on a floppy for this abberation in language.

[Ancalagon]

... How the hell DO you put the dots above the 'u'?

The ways proposed work but I also have it on my keyboard. ;)

[Ancalagon]

Mind you, I can't remember how to actually say almost anything in German except, "Die Katze ist schmutzig und hat drei Augen." Which, as you can imagine, is not the most useful sentence in casual conversation.

Well, at least it is much more interesting than what many other people have to say. You have a lot to talk about if you start a conversation with that, if you start a conversation about your dog that is much smarter/faster than all other dogs you know... people will not be very interested in discussing it. ;)

[Woof]

How exactly does the umlaut change pronunciation?

The umlaut is a different sound entirely. It's closer to an i than to the u.

[Qov]

When an unschooled-in-German American says it, dots or no dots, it comes out oober, to rhyme with goober. What should we be saying?

[battleburn]

If you say it like "goober", then you are spelling it like you say it.
The u is spoken like "goober"
For the ü i cannot think of a good word.
Perhaps this approaches the right pronunciation?
The ü is spoken more like in "New"?

[Qov]

If you say it like "goober", then you are spelling it like you say it.
The u is spoken like "goober"
For the ü i cannot think of a good word.
Perhaps this approaches the right pronunciation?
The ü is spoken more like in "New"?
On that evidence, I can see another reason why English speakers are not attentive to the umlauts. Not only do we not have an ü on our keyboards, but the oo/ew distinction is not very important to us. I could say "I bought noo shoes," with exactly the same oo sound in new and shoe, and most people wouldn't notice. I can't think of any pair of words in English that is distinguished only by a difference like that in the oo sound.

[Woof]

It's not really the /ju/ sound either. It's difficult to explain because the sound doesn't exist in English, but it'd probably be closer to the correct pronunciation if you used a short /i/ instead of /u/.

[nih]

Wikipedia (well, Wiktionary) to the rescue! The IPA for ü is y, but I guess that doesn't really make sense for many native English speakers either. I don't think ü [y] exists in English, which is why über has been deformed into uber in the first place.

http://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/über has a sound sample, though at least for me, the ü appears to be swallowed.
http://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Tür has sound samples that clearly contain the sound of the ü.

Direct link to the sound sample for Tür. (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/De-Tür.OGG)

[BobTheDog]

You can look at it this way:

Müller is a German last name.

Miller is the English for Müller.

They sound very similar.

[mago]

Thank you for noticing. I took two years of German in high school, so I knew my umlaut.

Mind you, I can't remember how to actually say almost anything in German except, "Die Katze ist schmutzig und hat drei Augen." Which, as you can imagine, is not the most useful sentence in casual conversation.

DAMN! i always told him to stay clean... and where the hell is the third one comming from?

[Iranon]

Neither 'goober' nor 'new' cuts it. In German, umlauts are essentially a shift towards e; in fact if they can't have umlauts for whatever reason German speakers would spell it ueber. The German u is close to the english oo (long and short... as in book and loop).
Now think of that sound shifted towards e, as a single sound.

The sound is very rare in English; you're most likely to find it as a y, used as a vowel. 'Lyrical' comes close but the German ü is clearer. I've heard 'wyrm' prounced as with a German ü, but apparently English speakers disagree about the pronunciation of that one.

[Douglas Limmer]

You can look at it this way:

Müller is a German last name.

Miller is the English for Müller.

They sound very similar.
In German, umlauts are essentially a shift towards e; in fact if they can't have umlauts for whatever reason German speakers would spell it ueber.At the university I went to, we had both a Miller Hall and a Mueller Hall.

People ended up pronouncing the second one "Myooler".

[Chronos]

If you want to try to pronounce an umlauted vowel, pronounce the vowel as if there were an "r" right after it, but then stop just before you hit the "r" itself.


I've heard 'wyrm' prounced as with a German ü, but apparently English speakers disagree about the pronunciation of that one.That doesn't help much... Most English-speakers (or at least, that segment of English-speakers who would use the words to begin with, which is largely restricted to role-players and other nerds) would pronounce "worm", "wurm", and "wyrm" identically.

[Morgan Wick]

What this tells me is that Germans should be a lot more forgiving of English-speakers mangling uber.

And that all languages must die. [/semi-sarcasm]

[Raging_Pacifist]

As über intererting as this is it's getting a little of topic.

[RandomLogic]

Mind you, I can't remember how to actually say almost anything in German except, "Die Katze ist schmutzig und hat drei Augen." Which, as you can imagine, is not the most useful sentence in casual conversation.

Same here. Except the only sentance I remember is (spelling excluded) "Mein kopf tut mier vie" which is My head does to me pain. IIRC. Which I suppose is useful if I'm ever hungover in Germany.

[Chronos]

Don't feel too bad... I only know how to say "I am a jelly doughnut" in German, which is probably even less useful.

What's the translation of the Giant's sentence? It looks like it's something about a cat, but I didn't realize they knew how to schmutz.

[Qov]

I can say "Wasser, bitte," and "Wo ist mein Fahrahd?" but I'm not sure how to spell it. I've never been to Germany but I've cycled through Eastern European countries whose inhabitants preferred German over Russian as a lingua franca with tourists who didn't know their own.

If this is unacceptably off topic, let's drag it back on. I understand that Pax is almost universally known throughout the OotS world, but are there any creatures who consider it an imperialist, heathen, or otherwise objectionable tongue and speak it grudgingly?

[Yoritomo Himeko]

What exactly does "über" mean anyway?

[AyuVince]

It means "over" (proposition). It can also be added as a prefix to some nouns, as in Überbevölkerung (overpopulation).

[Silfir]

The suffix "über-" as it is in use in contemporary english was probably taken from "Über-Ich" as in Sigmund Freud's "Superego". (The latin "Super" has the same meaning as "Über-" in this respect: Situated above something as well as, in a sense, being superior to something.)

If you were to translate "Superhero" into German very strictly, you'd have to make him an "Überheld". Of course, in German we just say "Superheld" :)

[Fish]

Our German instructor (Herr Ward) told us that to pronounce ü correctly, purse your lips as if you're saying "ooo" and then say "rrr" instead.

[Luvlein]

Thank you, Giant, that proper ü makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

[Plactus]

Regarding pronunciation, I used to live in Würzburg and took German classes while I was there, so I used to know the difference.

Now I couldn't remember the difference if you paid me, and I say it like everyone on post did, "Vurtsburg." (At least, everyone who at least knew not to say "Wurzburg.") Ah, well.

[Chronos]

The suffix "über-" as it is in use in contemporary english was probably taken from "Über-Ich" as in Sigmund Freud's "Superego".There, or Nische's Übermensch (Superman). I'd consider Nische a bit more likely as the source, since Freud's terms are more familiar in the Latin form than in the German.

[Iranon]

German language nazi checking in again... the poor guy is called Nietzsche (which is a horrible-looking name even to Germans).

Regarding mangling über and being more forgiving: Some people simply dislike careless cruelty towards foreign languages. It's one thing to struggle with unfamiliar orthography and pronunciation, another to ignore the conventions of another language altogether.
Germans do it all the time to English and French, much to my annoyance.

P.s.: Why the Giant would have a particular recollection of the sentence 'The cat is dirty and has three eyes' is beyond me, and I do not wish to ponder that in depth.

[Chronos]

Regarding mangling über and being more forgiving: Some people simply dislike careless cruelty towards foreign languages. It's one thing to struggle with unfamiliar orthography and pronunciation, another to ignore the conventions of another language altogether.Änd ït's ÿët änöthër thïng whën thëÿ jüst prëtënd tö knöw thë cönvëntïöns öf änöthër längüägë, änd üsë thë fünnÿ-löökïng lëttërs ëvërÿwhërë thëÿ cän bëcäüsë ït lööks cööl.

[Kalatash]

Änd ït's ÿët änöthër thïng whën thëÿ jüst prëtënd tö knöw thë cönvëntïöns öf änöthër längüägë, änd üsë thë fünnÿ-löökïng lëttërs ëvërÿwhërë thëÿ cän bëcäüsë ït lööks cööl.

That is simply... ëpic.

[EricDerKonig]

Änd ït's ÿët änöthër thïng whën thëÿ jüst prëtënd tö knöw thë cönvëntïöns öf änöthër längüägë, änd üsë thë fünnÿ-löökïng lëttërs ëvërÿwhërë thëÿ cän bëcäüsë ït lööks cööl.

Like faux-cyrillic. Ugh.

And as my handle suggests, I do know some german, and spent some time in Berlin.
And yes, it should be König. I couldn't get umlauts to work when I first used this name long, long ago, and misspelled it Konig, not koenig. Ah well, at least its unique.

[David Argall]

Thank you for noticing. I took two years of German in high school, so I knew my umlaut.

Mind you, I can't remember how to actually say almost anything in German except, "Die Katze ist schmutzig und hat drei Augen." Which, as you can imagine, is not the most useful sentence in casual conversation.

Gosh, I feel a lot better about my 2 years of Spanish.

I learned
"No hablo Espanol."

[Spiky]

Well, David. If only you had learned "no hablo Español", that would've been an improvement.

So, from this interesting thread, I have learned the following:
1) The ü in über should be close to an i sound.
2) The ü in über should be close to an e sound.
3) The ü in über should be close to a y sound.
4) The ü in über should be close to an r sound.

You're freaking me out!!!

Oh, and somebody doesn't know what a suffix is. Or a prefix, presumably.

[Woof]

That's a common occurence if you don't continually use the language. I had 3 years of French at school and remember nothing except some personal pronouns and a few random verb forms of "have" and "be".

[The Vanishing Hitchhiker]

Thank you for noticing. I took two years of German in high school, so I knew my umlaut.

Mind you, I can't remember how to actually say almost anything in German except, "Die Katze ist schmutzig und hat drei Augen." Which, as you can imagine, is not the most useful sentence in casual conversation.

Better than my high school Latin. All I've got left is "Habitamus omnes in flava nave sub aqua."

The only German I know is the name of the town my mom was stationed in when I five years old - Bad Kreuznach, which apparently has something to do with a bath and apparently roses? (I have no idea what the -nach is for). Oh, and to count to five.

Anyway, back to umlauts (before I get into a tangent on Tagalog or something), I'm one of those people who know there should be an umlaut in "uber" and an accent markity thing in "cliche", but can't be arsed to remember some secret secure four-digit passkey code every time I have to use a word that requires one. Either that or I could go look up on Google some page that has the character I need (an ASCII table would do the trick, actually), and copypasta...but I'm usually too lazy for that as well. As such I assume any non-umlauted or unaccented usages I encounter on the Internet to be a result of the same dilemma, and thus pay it little mind.

[Douglas Limmer]

I'm one of those people who know there should be an umlaut in "uber" and an accent markity thing in "cliche", but can't be arsed to remember some secret secure four-digit passkey code every time I have to use a word that requires one.Are you using Firefox? If so, get the abcTajpu add-on. Then, at worst, you are a right-click and a few menu choices away from accented über-goodness.

[Chazar]

Wow, I am amazed by all those responses, I thought no one would care! :smallsmile:

Semantical importance:
For completeness, I have to point out that the dots can entirely change the meaning of German words, for example schön=beautiful and schon=already (taken from Wikipedia, there are surely more examples, but I could not make up one for ö quickly). So these dots are vital to understanding in some cases! Whether or not this is a good things is another question.
.
How to get dots on your Ä, Ö & Ü:
Don't. Just write ue for ü, oe for ö and ae for ä and ss for ß. It's ueber-easy to do, with any keyboard on any system using the Latin alphabet. Really!
Personally, on my US-keyboard, I use Compose-"-u to get ü, but the Compose-key is a Linux feature. If I am traveling or not using Linux, I may sometimes copy and paste from a personal website just displaying those letters, but I have to admit that this is rather cumbersome.
.
Pronunciation:
If I pronounce the English word "Lyrics" slowly, I will get an Ü, but being a native German speaker working in the UK for some years, my English pronunciation may still be way off. I can see some distant relation of Ü to E (via UE) and I, but not to R, but I guess the previous posters were referring to mechanical aspects of using your mouth and tongue rather than the actual sound.
.
The Giant's three eyed cat is freaking me out somehow :smallbiggrin: I wonder what etched this weird sentence in his mind?

Then again, a friend and me used to teach the useful sentence "Guck'emol wie die dem de Bembel werre de Kopp gekloppt hod!", which is Hessian slang for "Schau einmal wie die (Frau) ihm den traditionellen Apfelwein-Tonkrug gegen den Kopf geschlagen hat!" meaning "Look how this Lady battered the Gentleman's head with the traditional earthenware cider pitcher!" to our UK friends for fun, so I can only hope that the source was a prank like this. :smalltongue:

[Edna]

Well, David. If only you had learned "no hablo Español", that would've been an improvement.

So, from this interesting thread, I have learned the following:
1) The ü in über should be close to an i sound.
2) The ü in über should be close to an e sound.
3) The ü in über should be close to a y sound.
4) The ü in über should be close to an r sound.


One way to think about the ü sound for an American:

A. Purse your lips as if you were going to say "ooo" (as in "who").
B. While keeping your lips in that "oo" shape, say "ee" (as in "three") inside your mouth.

Regarding number 3 above, that has to do with IPA, the International Phonetic Alphabet, which represents the ü sound as a [y] (note the square brackets). It's a way to notate similar sounds regardless of the language of the reader. The "oo" sound notated in step A is transcribed as [u], and the "ee" sound in step B is [i].

Edna (choral geek)

[Belkar Rocks]

Änd ït's ÿët änöthër thïng whën thëÿ jüst prëtënd tö knöw thë cönvëntïöns öf änöthër längüägë, änd üsë thë fünnÿ-löökïng lëttërs ëvërÿwhërë thëÿ cän bëcäüsë ït lööks cööl.
Man̈, that totally rocks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_umlaut)! :smallcool:

[Souju]

i've always seen umlaut-less "Uber" as an internet memes...

[WalkingTarget]

One way to think about the ü sound for an American:

A. Purse your lips as if you were going to say "ooo" (as in "who").
B. While keeping your lips in that "oo" shape, say "ee" (as in "three") inside your mouth.

Regarding number 3 above, that has to do with IPA, the International Phonetic Alphabet, which represents the ü sound as a [y] (note the square brackets). It's a way to notate similar sounds regardless of the language of the reader. The "oo" sound notated in step A is transcribed as [u], and the "ee" sound in step B is [i].

Edna (choral geek)

Dang, and I was hoping that I'd be the one to bring this stuff up. That's what I get for reading a thread before just hitting "reply".

[Qov]

Tajpu rules. I don't know why it's called that, but it's one character different from the Klingon for "sentient knives" which was a good enough reason to install it for me.

Now I can type en français, en español, and по-русски, while looking über-cool. It's a shame the character-accent-insert mode doesn't work with the double quote. I was expecting to get ü from u"INS, but I get ű. Think it could catch on?

[Chronos]

I can see some distant relation of Ü to E (via UE) and I, but not to R,It's not that umlauted vowels actually have any r-ness about them, just that, for whatever reason, those vowels most often show up in English immediately before an R, as in your example of "lyric". So if you start to say something with an R, like "lyric", but stop before you get to the R itself, you're left with an umlauted vowel.

[Mr._Michael]

I can't think of any pair of words in English that is distinguished only by a difference like that in the oo sound.
If a member of the opposite sex is talking about you, and they go "uuuuuuuu" (pronounced "Oooooooo!" you may be in for a good time. If, on the other hand, they say "üüüüüüü" (Pronounced "Ewwwwwww") then you most likely aren't. ;)

Granted, "Ooooo!" and "Ewwww!" are not really words beyond the onomatopoetic, but that's how I was taught the difference... and it works enough for me to show I'm trying and stuff.

And can't an artist just draw those in, or do they have to be correctly entered into the text?

Oh, and the most clumsy way to get to ü in Windows is to go to Programs==>Accessories==>System Tools==>Character Map and hunt around, copy/paste. If you are one handed and using a mouse (don't ask) it's the only way. You also find some other wierd stuff that can be fun in moderation. ♫

[Qov]

Granted, "Ooooo!" and "Ewwww!" are not really words beyond the onomatopoetic.
Marvellous. I fully accept that as a minimal pair.

[Demented]

Semantical importance:
For completeness, I have to point out that the dots can entirely change the meaning of German words, for example schön=beautiful and schon=already (taken from Wikipedia, there are surely more examples, but I could not make up one for ö quickly). So these dots are vital to understanding in some cases! Whether or not this is a good things is another question.

The english language has so many homonyms that I suspect most of us native english-speakers find the use of umlauts to be a luxury. We'd rather figure out a word's definition by context than bother to use special characters, both because of laziness and the percieved lack of value in something which we've schon become accustomed to living without. (I'm also not above butchering someone else's language for my own amusement, but that's a personal matter.)


One way to think about the ü sound for an American:

Bear in mind that not all Americans speak with the same accent.
We've got southerners, northerners, westerners, mid-westerners, easterners... Not a two of them who can speak a vowel alike without extensive tutoring. Hence why there's always so much disagreement about how the dear... *extensive pause while I open up Character Map and then search for the "Latin Small Letter U With Diaeresis" and copy/paste it into this text box* ...'ü' should be pronounced, and that's (a rather broad and smudgy picture) in the US alone.[/size]

[Iranon]

That depends on your perspective. In German use, the umlauts are distinct letters rather than regular vowels with a diacritic ('accent' on a letter).
Schon and schön are not homonyms at all.
For pronunciation... The ö is somewhat akin to the sound in 'earth' while the o is the same as in the English 'no'.

German is far more rigorous than English when it comes to the relationship between spelling and pronunciation. You won't always know how to spell a word from hearing it, but reading one usually gives you a good idea of what it sounds like.
When learning English, Germans have a hard time accepting that tomato and potato don't rhyme, to say nothing of words such as cough, plough, rough, thorough. In comparison, English spelling really is a total illogical mess... but then, so is German grammar.

[Cywar]

Änd ït's ÿët änöthër thïng whën thëÿ jüst prëtënd tö knöw thë cönvëntïöns öf änöthër längüägë, änd üsë thë fünnÿ-löökïng lëttërs ëvërÿwhërë thëÿ cän bëcäüsë ït lööks cööl.

Pronounce it with a german accent !

Hilarious

[skyclad]

Don't you guys have a button for these characters on your keyboard?

¨ ^ and ~ (normal, shift and alt gr)

Fëanor
Cân't thînk ôf â wôrd fôr thîs ônê
Hõla

It's next to your "Å"... Oh nevermind :D

And I didn't realise the pronunciation of ü was so complicated for you, guess we hear some more german here than you do :D

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Bear in mind that not all Americans speak with the same accent.
We've got southerners, northerners, westerners, mid-westerners, easterners... Not a two of them who can speak a vowel alike without extensive tutoring.
Yeah! We even have songs about that. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let's_Call_the_Whole_Thing_Off)

And if you wanna hear it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ3fjQa5Hls


When learning English, Germans have a hard time accepting that tomato and potato don't rhyme...
Certainly didn't learn that from me. 'Cause as far as I'm concerned, as well as most folks from this region, they do. (See above links.)

[Qov]

In comparison, English spelling really is a total illogical mess... but then, so is German grammar.
Sadly, English grammar is mostly German grammar after a couple of millennia of mistreatment in the mouths of Anglo Saxons and French. When I first picked up a German grammar textbook it felt like visiting the parents of an good friend. There was an overriding feeling of, "so that's why you're like this."

English lost its dative case before the invention of the novel, stopped capitalizing all nouns only in the last few hundred years, and we're sloppy about out verb tenses. The language is almost unrecognizable as Germanic because it's festooned with so much French vocabulary, but there it is.

[Cpt. Sqweky]

As a linguist, I really can't let the ignorance continue.

First off... there is nothing wrong at all with anglicizing a foreign word. We do it all the time. If we were to keep the original spellings and diacritic marks of all of the foreign words we have, we'd have kanji and little dots surrounding certain words in our language. If you prefer the umlaut that's fine, but please do not get mad at other people who do not speak German for not putting it there. If you put it there that's your perogative. If I don't use it, that mine.


Also... UGH! I hate it when people don't take the time to actually learn the history of their language. Granted, that's really the fault of high school, but still. If you actually study the history of the English language, it does make sense, it's only when you look at the grammar of Old English (From the time of Beowulf, NOT Shakespeare) and Present Day English that it makes no sense. But that's ignoring over 1000 years of change. A lot happened in that time, but when you follow the linguistic changes, step by step, it actually makes a lot of sense. ANYTHING taken out of context doesn't make sense. The same is same with languages. So please, before you make a statement such as "What is English" study up on it. ARGH!

*deep breaths*


Sorry about that. Midterms and stress are getting to me, and I kinda snapped.
Still... Personal preference does not equate correctness. Neither does a half-informed opinion. Sure there's a lot of information that is correct being tossed about but there's also some incorrect stuff and all of it is only a small part of what happened. It's just that I have studied Old English, and I have studied the history and changes of the language from a linguistic standpoint, and it really bugs me that so few people in our country know anything about their language beyond the only mostly correct grammar they learn in our under-funded public school systems. But that's another rant for another time.

[kingpain]

Don't feel too bad... I only know how to say "I am a jelly doughnut" in German, which is probably even less useful.

What's the translation of the Giant's sentence? It looks like it's something about a cat, but I didn't realize they knew how to schmutz.

My cat is dirty, and has three eyes.

[Edna]

Bear in mind that not all Americans speak with the same accent.
We've got southerners, northerners, westerners, mid-westerners, easterners... Not a two of them who can speak a vowel alike without extensive tutoring. Hence why there's always so much disagreement about how the dear... *extensive pause while I open up Character Map and then search for the "Latin Small Letter U With Diaeresis" and copy/paste it into this text box* ...'ü' should be pronounced, and that's (a rather broad and smudgy picture) in the US alone.[/size]

Believe me, I know about the variety of accents! I've worked with singers from all over the US, who pronounce "American" English in all sorts of ways. I tried to pick example words ("who" and "three") that seem to me to be pronounced a little more consistently across the country, but I could be completely wrong about those. :-)

Edna

[Wender]

One trick I learned on USENET: You can spell any vowel with an umlaut as the same vowel followed by an 'e'. It's archaic German, but recognizable and technically correct. So über becomes ueber, Müller becomes Mueller, Schönberg becomes Schoenberg, etc.

[Qov]

If you prefer the umlaut that's fine, but please do not get mad at other people who do not speak German for not putting it there.
It's a loan word. He's the one loaning it. He just doesn't know he's never getting it back, and that we're going to renovate it beyond recognition. I didn't see him getting mad in the least, just appreciative of the unexpected presence of the umlaut, and many of us learned something.


Also... UGH! I hate it when people don't take the time to actually learn the history of their language. Granted, that's really the fault of high school, but still. If you actually study the history of the English language, it does make sense, it's only when you look at the grammar of Old English (From the time of Beowulf, NOT Shakespeare) and Present Day English that it makes no sense. But that's ignoring over 1000 years of change. A lot happened in that time, but when you follow the linguistic changes, step by step, it actually makes a lot of sense. ANYTHING taken out of context doesn't make sense. The same is same with languages. So please, before you make a statement such as "What is English" study up on it. ARGH!

I went through the whole thread again trying to determine who you were responding to. I thought it might be me, but you didn't take specific issue with the idea of Germanic grammar padded with French vocabulary. But I couldn't find anyone saying English or its history of linguistic change didn't make sense. Oh wait, surely you're not defending English spelling. Are you? I love English spelling, but wow is it broken. Even the Greeks managed a spelling reform, but we hold out.

I couldn't find the "what is English?" statement in the thread either, but in context of people trying to find a single pronunciation to compare to the German sounds, it seems a very fair question. Do you dispute the differences among RP English, American newscasters, Texas farmers, and East Indian technical support personnel?

I know that as a linguist you've sworn fealty to the church of descriptivism; why not accept that precsriptionist drivel is part of the language you've signed up to describe. Enjoy the irony that language change is driven by errors and ignorant hypercorrection.

[battleburn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ3fjQa5Hls
That...
Was awesome. Thank you.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

Die Katze ist schmutzig und hat drei Augen.

Nein nein nicht Herr Genick-y

[Shhalahr Windrider]

It's a loan word. He's the one loaning it. He just doesn't know he's never getting it back, and that we're going to renovate it beyond recognition.
Renovate, eh?

That's a kinder analogy than the celebrated James D. Nicoll quote. :smallwink:


That...
Was awesome. Thank you.
You're welcome! :smallbiggrin:

[Qov]

That's a kinder analogy than the celebrated James D. Nicoll quote.
I was pretty sure Sqweky was already familiar with the concept.

[The Vanishing Hitchhiker]

Believe me, I know about the variety of accents! I've worked with singers from all over the US, who pronounce "American" English in all sorts of ways. I tried to pick example words ("who" and "three") that seem to me to be pronounced a little more consistently across the country, but I could be completely wrong about those. :-)

I remember when I first moved from Texas to Colorado, a few of my friends teased me for using hour and are as homonyms. I don't anymore, but since I'm moving back to the same part of Texas in a couple weeks, I guess it's time to be teased until my accent changes again. :smallsigh:

I can't believe no one's bothered to comment on my Latin phrase yet. :smallannoyed:

Oh well. Off to download ye add-on. It'll come in handy anyway; I've been on a World of Warcraft story kick lately and I've got this death knight character from the Howling Fjords named Slartibartfast Blå... That's not his real name of course, he has amnesia. Same explanation for his buddy Tod Ritter.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

Believe me, I know about the variety of accents! I've worked with singers from all over the US, who pronounce "American" English in all sorts of ways. I tried to pick example words ("who" and "three") that seem to me to be pronounced a little more consistently across the country, but I could be completely wrong about those. :-)

Edna

Hoodat dat canst sez tree? Doze peeple don tawk no good I tell ya.

[Dex Stewart]

I think I read the entire thread and didn't see this anywhere.
I think the best English comparison for the ü sound is the word "cue".

Just saying.

[schwarzc]

btw:
here, in native german speaking countries, "ubar" oder "uber" is a running gag among nerds, ..... pronounced "u-bar", "you-bar", or "you-ber"

;)

[Chazar]

Thank you Qov! :smallsmile: Especially for your post #66 above. I have no idea what Cpt.Sqweky was talking about. He is ranting on without actually providing any information on the topic to us heathens/laymens.

As I already wrote in the very first post of this thread: language is a tool. Tools get tweaked and adjusted all the time, to fit the need. This is natural and makes sense, even without studying the entire history of a language. So I perfectly agreed to that right from the start. Furthermore, I have been a victim of german-language-nazis (an ugly but appropriate term) myself very often, because of my own mangled German, for I proudly display the little pieces of my native slang that I can master (at home, the say that I cannot speak any slang at all, elsewhere, people still know where I am coming from after a few sentences). I am not strict with grammatic and spelling at all, ask all my friends!

HOWEVER, the "Uber" without dots is different though: It is not mangled enough! Words like "Abseiling" are fun and pleasant. It has a nice ring to it. Even Germans take German words and add the English "-ing" to them now. It's fun! But the "Uber" is too close to a minor spelling error and people do not realize that "U" and "Ü" are truly different letters nowadays, that happen to have a similar symbol somehow. It just does not feel right.

So I was just happy to see the Giant displaying the umlaut correctly, instead of following the internet fashion of leaving them out. I just wanted to express my appreciation by starting a small thread. Nothing else.


PS:
Just looked up James D. Nicoll. Pretty unimpressive quote, since all languages that I know do it just as bad, IMHLO.

[Tass]

Strangely no one has mentioned the ubermagic in #399 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0399.html)

[Shhalahr Windrider]

PS:
Just looked up James D. Nicoll. Pretty unimpressive quote, since all languages that I know do it just as bad, IMHLO.
Well, the statement was specifically directed at people with a bug up their butts about the English language in particular. Near as I can tell, Nicoll made no claim in that statement that such practices were exclusive to English.

In any case, it just gets so much attention due to the phrasing rather than the general idea. :smallwink:


Strangely no one has mentioned the ubermagic in #399 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0399.html)
Clearly, Haley's prounouncing it all wrong then. :smalltongue:

[Chronos]

Really, does it surprise anyone to learn that Roy is apparently better educated than Haley?

[kabbor]

Um: Freaky!- have you all ckecked out the latest efworld? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0097.html)

Gölem! What is that umlaut doing on the O?

[Qov]

Just looked up James D. Nicoll. Pretty unimpressive quote, since all languages that I know do it just as bad, IMHLO.
I think English has a head start in the thievery department, in that it has very no gender and such a wide variety of spelling, so words can be dropped in without any modification. A couple of examples:

1. A native Norwegian speaker was surprised to learn that fjord as also an English word. She insisted, that J is not a vowel in English. For some reason that doesn't bother English. J gets to be a vowel in fjord. W gets to be a vowel in (Welsh-derived) cwm. And we don't need to worry if either is masculine, feminine or neuter, or provide declensions.

2. A bilingual French-English speaker was helping me improve my French vocabulary. For almost every word I would think for a moment and come up with a word with the same root in English, e.g fenêtre -> fenestration, "Did you have to steal our WHOLE language?" she finally asked me?

Sure other languages steal too. I laughed when I learned words like одэкалон and мантo in Russian (odekaLŎN and manTŌ --if you speak French, think about it). I'm willing to believe English steals more.

Anyway, the Nicoll quote to me is not so much a declaration that English is the champion of theft, just a really funny way to say it. And I love this thread.

[Chazar]

And I love this thread.
:biggrin:

Besides, aren't there also many reimports? I think that at least the German language has some words borrowed from the French tongue, which themeselves were borrowed from German in the first place. I forgot the examples, but I will ask a friend of mine who studied languages...

------------


Really, does it surprise anyone to learn that Roy is apparently better educated than Haley? Oh no, somehow I fear that Haley will now continue that way... :smallyuk: ...but I'll have to admit that it sure makes sense to view it that way in retrospectively.

------------

EDIT:

Um: Freaky!- have you all ckecked out the latest efworld? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0097.html)
Gölem! What is that umlaut doing on the O?
Judging from the picture, I suppose this is an example of the heavy-metal-umlaut already mentioned above in post #49 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3984203&postcount=49).

[Tass]

Um: Freaky!- have you all ckecked out the latest efworld? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0097.html)

Gölem! What is that umlaut doing on the O?

Well thats how an Ø (the letter two spaces after Z) is made in Sweeden. An Erfworld Golem is obviously a Gølem :p. Sorry I can't tell you how it is pronouced using text unless you already know a scandinavian language.


[QUOTE=Qov;40020531. A native Norwegian speaker was surprised to learn that fjord as also an English word. She insisted, that J is not a vowel in English. For some reason that doesn't bother English. J gets to be a vowel in fjord. W gets to be a vowel in (Welsh-derived) cwm. And we don't need to worry if either is masculine, feminine or neuter, or provide declensions.
[/QUOTE]

Hehe, in the Danish version of "Fjord" the J is a consonant, pronounced like an english consonantal Y. Incidentally it always amused me that you english speakers pronounce a D behind your J's... "Little Dyack went up the hill".

The danish Y is of course always a wowel pronounced like the german Ü. And that completes the circle.

[ShinyRocks]

I remember reading a truly awful fanfic, where the writer not only

Insisted On Capitalising Every Single Word For No Apparent Reason Other Than To Give Her Readers A Headache

but entitled her story with a mixture of Greek and Roman letters, presumably because she thought they looked pretty: for example using a middle-of-word sigma instead of an 'o', failing to realise that Greek letters aren't just pretty ornamented Roman ones and in fact make their own sounds. Sure, u and ü are different sounds, but they're a lot closer than o and σ could ever be!

[Decoy Lockbox]

Um: Freaky!- have you all ckecked out the latest efworld? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0097.html)

Gölem! What is that umlaut doing on the O?


Look at the four golems shown here: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0088.html

And notice the listing of the types of golems here:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0084.html

And then read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_umlaut

Long story short, in the 70s and 80s many American/british hard rock bands used umlauts in their band name to "toughen up" their image (i.e. Hüsker Dü, Mötley Crü, Mötorhead). This became an overused stereotype that was parodied most notably in the movie This Is Spinal Tap (in which the umlaut was placed over the 'n'), as well as used for humor in the erfworld strip in question. The four hard rock golems being pictured here resemble the members of the rock band Kiss, and so for humor the world Gölem is used to refer to their "band" if you will.

As a huge heavy metal nerd, I can't wait to see what kind of nastiness the lone metal golem has in store for the the assaulting forces :smallbiggrin: From the looks of his outfit he is probably more of a thrash metal golem -- if only he was a black metal golem, he truly could have brought some sort of unholy beatdown onto any attackers he might have encountered.

[WalkingTarget]

Hehe, in the Danish version of "Fjord" the J is a consonant, pronounced like an english consonantal Y. Incidentally it always amused me that you english speakers pronounce a D behind your J's... "Little Dyack went up the hill".

The English J is an affricate, it's a [d] followed immediately by the voiced alveolar fricative (which I can't find the IPA symbol for on character map, a cursive lower-case z, similar to the Cyrillic "ze"). Think of the difference between [s] and [z] and then apply it to [∫] (the "sh" sound). The word "genre" starts with it.

It's the voiced version of the "ch" sound in English words (like both ends of "church") where the sound is [t∫].

Or at least this all holds for my mid-western American form of English.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

The English J is an affricate, it's a [d] followed immediately by the voiced alveolar fricative (which I can't find the IPA symbol for on character map, a cursive lower-case z, similar to the Cyrillic "ze"). Think of the difference between [s] and [z] and then apply it to [∫] (the "sh" sound). The word "genre" starts with it.
I can never follow those IPA pronounciation guides. I only have any idea what you're talking about because I'm from Wisconsin. :smalltongue:

[kabbor]

Besides, aren't there also many reimports? I think that at least the German language has some words borrowed from the French tongue, which themeselves were borrowed from German in the first place. I forgot the examples, but I will ask a friend of mine who studied languages...

A Classic re-import is the word "pedigree". It started out as the French "pied de grue" or 'crane's foot'. It was the name given to the many-branched upside-down 'Y' used on old family tree diagrams.
This phrase migrated to England where, stripped of all remnants of French pronunciation, became "Pedigree", which was very important to those Englishmen, what with their finely-bred horses and hounds.
It was then re-assimilated into French, meaning "breeding".
Language is indeed a funny, and intriguing, thing.

[Chronos]

I remember reading a truly awful fanfic, where the writer not only

Insisted On Capitalising Every Single Word For No Apparent Reason Other Than To Give Her Readers A HeadacheProbably, the story was originally typed in all caps. The software on many fora, blogs, and the like will automatically convert an all-caps message into the format you describe.

And I've never seen a lower-cased sigma used as an o, but upper-case sigma used as an E bugs me no end. "My big fat grssk wedding"? What's that supposed to mean?

Oh, and in physics classes, I'm forever contending with students who call mu and nu "u" and "v", but there, I'm more concerned about whether they use them correctly, than what they're calling them.

[wojonatior]

i dont know if its been mentioned(beacuse im too lazy to go through all th posts) but most people are too lazy to find the u dots or dont know how to do it.

[Qov]

"My big fat grssk wedding"?
Yes! Like "Toys I Us."

[Chronos]

Well, that one isn't the Cyrillic letter; that's an English-language R that's drawn backwards, like a child who's just learning to write might do.

[Jokes]

I was playing Team Fortress 2 yesterday and I noticed the umlauts over 'übercharge.' Now I am tempted to join a german server and hope there is someone playing with a mic, to see how they pronounce it.

[serow]

I've only read the first page, so please don't blame me if this has already been written.

ü can be pronounced "yu1", for those who speak Mandarin. (as in, the first sound when pronouncing "yu")