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| O with Diaeresis | |
|---|---|
| Ö ö | |
 | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Latin script |
| Type | alphabetic |
| Language of origin | German |
| Sound values | |
| In Unicode | U+00D6, U+00F6 |
| History | |
| Development | |
| Transliterations | oe |
| Other | |
| Associated numbers | ASCII-8 / ALT Code(s): 246 (ö), 214 (Ö) |
| Writing direction | Left to right |
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
Ö, orö, is a character that represents either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter "o" modified with anumlaut ordiaeresis. Ö, or ö, is a variant of the letterO. In many languages, the letter "ö", or the "o" modified with anumlaut, is used to denote theclose- oropen-mid front rounded vowels[ø]ⓘ or[œ]ⓘ; compare the vowel in "girl", which in these languages phonetically could be written: /görl/. In languages without such vowels, the character is known as an "o withdiaeresis" and denotes a syllable break, wherein its pronunciation remains an unmodified[o].
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The lettero withumlaut (ö[1]) appears in theGerman alphabet. It represents the umlauted form ofo, resulting in[œ] or[ø]. The letter is oftencollated together witho in the German alphabet, but there are exceptions which collate it likeoe orOE. The letter also occurs in some languages that have adopted German names or spellings, but it is not normally a part of those alphabets. In Danish and Norwegian,ö was previously used in place ofø in older texts to distinguish betweenopen and closed ö-sounds. It is also used when confusion with other symbols could occur, on maps for instance. The Danish/Norwegianø is, like the German/Swedishö, a development ofoe and can be compared with the Frenchœ.In other languages that do not have the letter as part of the regular alphabet or in limitedcharacter sets such asASCII,o-umlaut is frequently replaced with thedigraphoe. For example, Germanhören (hear/listen) can be easily recognized even if spelledhoeren.
The letterö also occurs in two otherGermanic languages:Swedish andIcelandic, but it is regarded there as a separate letter, not as an orthographic variation of the lettero. Apart from Germanic languages, it occurs in theUralic languages such asFinnish,Karelian,Veps,Estonian,Southern Sami, andHungarian, in theTurkic languages such asAzeri,Turkish,Turkmen,Uyghur (Latin script),Crimean Tatar,Kazakh, and in theUto-Aztecan languageHopi, where it represents thevowel sounds[ø,œ]. Its name inFinnish,Swedish,Icelandic,Estonian,Azeri,Turkish,Turkmen,Uyghur,Crimean Tatar,Hungarian,Votic andVolapük isÖö[øː], not "O with two dots" since/ø/ is not a variant of the vowel/o/ but a distinct phoneme.
In mountain dialects ofEmilian, it is used to represent[ø], e.g.tött[tøtː] "all".
In theDutch language,⟨ö⟩ appears only as O-diaeresis - see below. The sound/øː/ is spelled with the digraph⟨eu⟩, as indeur/døːr/ 'door'. In the Dutch-based orthographies ofLow Saxon,Limburgish andRipuarian,⟨ö⟩ is used only for the short/œ/ (as inMaastrichtianbös/bœs/ 'bus'), whereas the long/œː/ (lowered to/ɶː/ in Maastricht) and/øː/ are typically written unambiguously with⟨äö⟩ (since it is often an umlauted form of⟨ao⟩,/ɔː/ in IPA) and⟨eu⟩, the latter following the Standard Dutch spelling. The example words (in Maastrichtian) areväöl/vɶːl/ 'a lot' andbeuk/bøːk/ 'beech'. The short close-mid/ø/ (which instead can be transcribed in IPA with ⟨ʏ⟩) tends to be spelled with⟨u⟩ (as in Maastrichtianstum/støm/ 'voice'), but this can also be used for/y(ː)/ in open syllables, again following the Standard Dutch spelling. On the German side of the border,⟨ö⟩ can be used for any of the/œ,œː,ø,øː/ (thusBös(s), vö(h)l, Stömm, Bö(h)k), whereas/y(ː)/ is always written distinctly, as⟨ü(h)⟩.⟨u⟩ is never used for any of the aforementioned front vowels; instead, it denotes theclose back rounded vowel/u(ː)/, as in Standard German. The length is usually disambiguated by doubling the following consonant (which denotes the short/œ,ø/), not doubling it or adding a silent⟨h⟩ after⟨ö⟩ (both denoting the long/œː,øː/). The exact height normally remains ambiguous, but the open-mid/œ(ː)/ can be disambiguated by adding agrave accent above⟨ö⟩, as in⟨ö̀⟩ (thusbö̀ss, vö̀(h)l), similarly to someSwiss German orthographies. This is not the usual practice, not least because the diacritics end up stacked on top of one another.
In certain languages, the letterö cannot be written as "oe" becauseminimal pairs exist betweenö andoe (and also withoo,öö andöe), as in Finnisheläinkö "animal?" (interrogative) vs.eläinkoe "animal test" (cf.Germanic umlaut). If the characterö is unavailable,o is substituted and context is relied upon for inference of the intended meaning. In Volapük,ö can be written asoy, but never asoe. In the aforementioned Dutch-based orthographies of Low Saxon, Limburgish and Ripuarian,⟨ö⟩ also cannot be written with⟨oe⟩ because the latter denotes the close back/u(ː)/, as in Standard Dutch. Thus, Maastrichtianbös/bœs/ 'bus' cannot be spelled *boes because it is not pronounced */buːs/ (cf.moes/muːs˦/ 'mouse'). The German-based orthographies, in which/u(ː)/ is always spelled⟨u(h)⟩, have no such limitation. In those,⟨oe⟩ is read as identical with⟨ö⟩, same as in Standard German.
InRomagnol,ö is used to represent[ɔə~ɔː], e.g.cöt[kɔət~kɔːt] "cooked".
In theSeneca language,ö is used to represent[ɔ̃], a back mid rounded nasalized vowel.
In Swedish, the letterö is also used as the one-letter word for anisland, which is not to be mixed with the actual letter.Ö in this sense is also a Swedish-language surname.[2]
In theSeri language,ö indicates thelabialization of the previous consonant, e.g.cöihiin/kʷiˈʔiin/ "sanderling".
In some alphabets it iscollated as an independent letter, sometimes by placing it at or near the end of the alphabet, such as afterZ,Å andÄ in Swedish and Finnish, afterÝ, (Z),Þ andÆ in Icelandic, and afterV, (W),Õ andÄ in Estonian (thus fulfilling the place ofomega, for example in the Finnish expressionaasta ööhön "from A to Z", literally "from A to Ö"). However, in Hungarian, and in theTurkish alphabet and otherTurkic alphabets that haveö, it is an independent letter betweeno andp.
O withdiaeresis occurs in several languages that use diaereses. In these languages the letter represents the fact that thiso is the start of a new syllable (e.g. in theDutch/Afrikaans wordcoöperatief [cooperative]), instead of the generaloo (e.g. In theDutch worddoorn [thorn]) .
Some writers and publications, such asThe New Yorker, use it in English words such aszoölogy andcoöperate to indicate that the second vowel is pronounced separately. It is also employed in names such asLaocoön,Coös County, and theconstellationBoötes. This is also done in Dutch.
In theRheinische Dokumenta, a phonetic alphabet for manyWest Central German, theLow Rhenish, and few relatedvernacular languages,ö represents theclose-mid front rounded vowel with theIPA notation[ø]. Theopen-mid front rounded vowel[œ] is transcribed as⟨ö⟩ with anogonek below, thus⟨ǫ̈⟩.
TheUralic phonetic alphabet uses⟨Ö⟩ as in Finnish to denote the front vowel[ø].
Historically[when?]O-diaeresis was written as ano with two dots above the letter. O-umlaut was written as ano with a smalle written above in cursive old German (Gothic) script (Oͤ oͤ): this tinye is represented by two vertical bars connected by a slanted line, which then degenerated to two vertical bars in early modernhandwritings. In most later handwriting, these bars in turn nearly became dots. The origin of the letterö was a similarligature for thedigraph OE:e was written aboveo and degenerated into two small dots.[citation needed]
In some inscriptions anddisplay typefaces,ö may be seen represented as ano with a small lettere inside.
Inmodern typography there was insufficient space ontypewriters and latercomputer keyboards to allow for both an O-with-dots (also representingö) and ano-with-bars[clarification needed]. Since they looked nearly identical, the two glyphs were combined, which was also done in computercharacter encodings such asISO 8859-1. As a result, there was no way to differentiate between the different characters.
Other alphabets containingo-diaeresis include theWelsh alphabet.
Other alphabets containingo-umlaut include: theTurkmen alphabet (for the vowel [ø]), theAzerbaijani alphabet (for the vowel [œ]), theYapese alphabet (for [œ]), theLuxembourgish alphabet (when writing loanwords from Standard German), theSlovenian alphabet (when writing loanwords from German, Hungarian and Turkish), and theDinka alphabet. TheHungarian alphabet contains bothö andő:double acute o is the longer pair ofö. Seedouble acute accent.
The character has the Unicodecodepoints
