TheGermanic umlaut (sometimes calledi-umlaut ori-mutation) is a type of linguisticumlaut in which aback vowel changes to the associatedfront vowel (fronting) or afront vowel becomes closer to/i/ (raising) when the following syllable contains/i/,/iː/, or/j/.
It took place separately in various Germanic languages starting around 450 or 500CE and affected all of the early languages[1] exceptGothic.[2] An example of the resulting vowel alternation is the English pluralfoot ~ feet (from Proto-Germanic*fōts, pl.*fōtiz). Germanic umlaut, as covered in this article, does not include other historical vowel phenomena that operated in the history of the Germanic languages such asGermanic a-mutation and the various language-specific processes ofu-mutation, nor the earlierIndo-European ablaut (vowel gradation), which is observable in the conjugation ofGermanic strong verbs such assing/sang/sung.
While Germanic umlaut has had important consequences for all modern Germanic languages, its effects are particularly apparent in German, because vowels resulting from umlaut are generally spelled with a specific set of letters:⟨ä⟩,⟨ö⟩, and⟨ü⟩, usually pronounced /ɛ/ (formerly /æ/), /ø/, and /y/. Umlaut is a form ofassimilation orvowel harmony, the process by which one speech sound is altered to make it more like another adjacent sound. If a word has two vowels with one far back in the mouth and the other far forward, more effort is required to pronounce the word than if the vowels were closer together; therefore, one possible linguistic development is for these two vowels to be drawn closer together.
Germanic umlaut is a specific historical example of this process that took place in the unattested earliest stages ofOld English andOld Norse and apparently later inOld High German, and some other old Germanic languages. The precise developments varied from one language to another, but the general trend was this:
The fronted variant caused by umlaut was originallyallophonic (a variant sound automatically predictable from context), but it later becamephonemic when the context was lost but the variant sound remained. The following examples show how, when final-i was lost, the variant sound-ȳ- became a newphoneme in Old English.
| Process | Language | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Original form[7] | Proto-Germanic | *mūs | *mūsiz | *fō(t)s | *fōtiz |
| Loss of final-z | West Germanic | *mūsi | *fōt | *fōti | |
| Germanic umlaut | Pre-Old English | *mȳsi | *fø̄ti | ||
| Loss ofi after aheavy syllable | mūs | mȳs | fōt | fø̄t | |
| Unrounding ofø̄ (>ē) | MostOld English dialects | fēt | |||
| Unrounding ofȳ (>ī) | Early Middle English | mīs | |||
| Great Vowel Shift | Early Modern andModern English | /maʊs/ ("mouse") | /maɪs/ ("mice") | /fʊt/ ("foot") | /fiːt/ ("feet") |
The following table surveys howProto-Germanic vowels which later underwent i-umlaut generally appear in modern languages—though there are many exceptions to these patterns owing to other sound changes and chance variations. The table gives twoWest Germanic examples (English and German) and twoNorth Germanic examples (Swedish, from the east, and Icelandic, from the west). Spellings are marked by pointy brackets (⟨...⟩) and pronunciation, given in theinternational phonetic alphabet, in slashes (/.../).
| Proto-Germanic vowel | example word | usual modern reflex afteri-umlaut | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | German | Swedish | Icelandic | ||
| ɑ | *manniz ('people') | ⟨e⟩, /ɛ/ (men) | ⟨ä⟩, /ɛ/ (Männer) | ⟨ä⟩, /ɛ/ (män) | ⟨e⟩, /ɛ/ (menn) |
| ɑː | *gansiz ('geese'), which became*gą̄si in North Germanic andNorth Sea Germanic, though not in German | ⟨ea⟩, ⟨ee⟩, /iː/ (geese) | ⟨ä⟩, /ɛ/ (Gänse) | ⟨ä⟩, /ɛ/ (gäss) | ⟨æ⟩, /aɪ/ (gæs) |
| o | no single example in all languages[a] | ⟨e⟩, /ɛ/ (*obisu >eaves) | ⟨ö⟩, /øː/ (*oli >Öl) | ⟨ö⟩, /œ/ (*hnotiz >nötter) | ⟨e⟩, /ɛ/ (*komiz >kemur) |
| ɔː | *fōtiz ('feet') | ⟨ea⟩, ⟨ee⟩, /iː/ (feet) | ⟨ü⟩, /yː/ (Füße) | ⟨ö⟩, /œ/ (fötter) | ⟨æ⟩, /aɪ/ (fætur) |
| u | *fullijaną ('fill') | ⟨i⟩, /ɪ/ (fill) | ⟨ü⟩, /ʏ/ (füllen) | ⟨y⟩, /ʏ/ (fylla) | ⟨y⟩, /ɪ/ (fylla) |
| uː | *lūsiz ('lice') | ⟨i⟩, /aɪ/ (lice) | ⟨eu, äu⟩, /ɔʏ̯/ (Läuse) | ⟨ö⟩, /œ/ (löss) | ⟨ý⟩, /i/ (lýs) |
| ɑu | *hauzjaną ('hear') | ⟨ea⟩, ⟨ee⟩, /iː/ (hear) | ⟨ö⟩, /øː/ (hören) | ⟨ö⟩, /øː/ (höra) | ⟨ey⟩, /ɛɪ/ (heyra) |
| ɑi | *hailijaną ('heal') | ⟨ea⟩, ⟨ee⟩, /iː/ (heal) | ⟨ei⟩, /aɪ̯/ (heilen) | ⟨e⟩, /eː/ (hela) | ⟨ei⟩, /ɛɪ/ (heila) |
| eu, iu | *steurjaną ('steer') | ⟨ea⟩, ⟨ee⟩, /iː/ (steer) | ⟨eu⟩, /ɔʏ̯/ (steuern) | ⟨y⟩, /yː/ (styra) | ⟨ý⟩, /i/ (stýra) |
Whereas modern English does not have any special letters for vowels produced by i-umlaut, in German the letters⟨ä⟩,⟨ö⟩, and⟨ü⟩ almost always represent umlauted vowels (see further below). Likewise, Swedish⟨ä⟩,⟨ö⟩, and⟨y⟩ and Icelandic⟨æ⟩,⟨y⟩,⟨ý⟩, and⟨ey⟩ are almost always used for vowels produced by i-umlaut. However, German⟨eu⟩ represents vowels from multiple sources, which is also the case for⟨e⟩ in Swedish and Icelandic.
German orthography is generally consistent in its representation of i-umlaut. Theumlaut diacritic, consisting of two dots above the vowel, is used for the fronted vowels, making the historical process much more visible in the modern language than is the case in English:⟨a⟩ –⟨ä⟩,⟨o⟩ –⟨ö⟩,⟨u⟩ –⟨ü⟩,⟨au⟩ –⟨äu⟩. This is a neat solution when pairs of words with and without umlaut mutation are compared, as in umlauted plurals likeMutter –Mütter ("mother" – "mothers").
However, in a small number of words, a vowel affected by i-umlaut is not marked with the umlaut diacritic because its origin is not obvious. Either there is no unumlauted equivalent or they are not recognized as a pair because the meanings have drifted apart. The adjectivefertig ("ready, finished"; originally "ready to go") contains an umlaut mutation, but it is spelled with⟨e⟩ rather than⟨ä⟩ as its relationship toFahrt ("journey") has, for most speakers of the language, been lost from sight. Likewise,alt ("old") has the comparativeälter ("older"), but the noun from this is spelledEltern ("parents").Aufwand ("effort") has the verbaufwenden ("to spend, to dedicate") and the adjectiveaufwendig ("requiring effort") though the1996 spelling reform now permits the alternative spellingaufwändig (but not*aufwänden).[10] Fordenken, seebelow.
Some words have umlaut diacritics that do not mark a vowel produced by the sound change of umlaut. This includes loanwords such asKänguru from Englishkangaroo, andBüro from Frenchbureau. Here the diacritic is a purely phonological marker, indicating that the English and French sounds (or at least, the approximation of them used in German) are identical to the native German umlauted sounds. Similarly,Big Mac was originally speltBig Mäc in German.[11] In borrowings from Latin and Greek, Latin⟨ae⟩,⟨oe⟩, or Greek⟨αι⟩ai,⟨οι⟩oi, are rendered in German asä andö respectively (Ägypten, "Egypt", orÖkonomie, "economy"). However, Latin⟨y⟩ and Greek⟨υ⟩ are writteny in German instead ofü (Psychologie). There are also several non-borrowed words where the vowelsö andü have not arisen through historical umlaut, but due torounding of an earlier unroundedfront vowel (possibly from thelabial/labialized consonantsw/f/sch occurring on both sides), such asfünf ("five"; from Middle High Germanvinf),zwölf ("twelve"; fromzwelf), andschöpfen ("create"; fromschepfen).
When German words (names in particular) are written in thebasic Latin alphabet, umlauts are usually substituted with⟨ae⟩,⟨oe⟩ and⟨ue⟩ to differentiate them from simple⟨a⟩,⟨o⟩, and⟨u⟩.[12]
The German phonological umlaut is present in theOld High German period and continues to develop inMiddle High German. From the Middle High German, it was sometimes denoted in written German by adding an⟨e⟩ to the affected vowel, either after the vowel or, in the small form, above it. This can still be seen in some names:Goethe,Goebbels,Staedtler.[b]
Inblackletter handwriting, as used in German manuscripts of the later Middle Ages and also in many printed texts of the early modern period, the superscript⟨e⟩ still had a form that would now be recognisable as an⟨e⟩, but in manuscript writing, umlauted vowels could be indicated by two dots since the late medieval period.
Unusual umlaut designs are sometimes also created for graphic design purposes, such as to fit an umlaut into tightly-spaced lines of text.[13] This may include umlauts placed vertically or inside the body of the letter.[14][15][16]
Although umlaut was not a grammatical process, umlauted vowels often serve to distinguish grammatical forms (and thus show similarities to ablaut when viewed synchronically), as can be seen in the English wordman. In ancient Germanic, it and some other words had the plural suffix*-iz, with the same vowel as the singular. As it contained an*i, this suffix caused fronting of the vowel and, when the suffix later disappeared, the mutated vowel remained as the only plural marker:men. In English, such plurals are rare:man, woman, tooth, goose, foot, mouse, louse, brother (archaic or specialized plural inbrethren), andcow (poetic and dialectal plural inkine). This effect also can be found in a few fossilizeddiminutive forms, such askitten fromcat,kernel fromcorn, and the femininevixen fromfox. Umlaut is conspicuous when it occurs in one of such a pair of forms, but there are many mutated words without an unmutated parallel form. Germanic actively derivedcausative weak verbs from ordinarystrong verbs by applying a suffix, which later caused umlaut, to a past tense form. Some of these survived into modern English as doublets of verbs, includingfell andset versusfall andsit. Umlaut could occur in borrowings as well if a stressed vowel was coloured by a subsequent front vowel, such as GermanKöln, "Cologne", from LatinColonia, orKäse, "cheese", from Latincaseus.
| Germanic | German | English | Dutch | Limburgish | Swedish | Faroese |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *fallaną –*fallijaną | fallen –fällen | to fall –to fell | vallen –vellen | valle –velle | falla –fälla | falla –fella |
| *fōts –*fōtiz | Fuß –Füße | foot –feet | voet –voeten (no umlaut) | voot –veut | fot –fötter | fótur –føtur |
| *aldaz –*alþizô –*alþistaz | alt –älter –am ältesten | old –elder –eldest | oud –ouder –oudst (no umlaut) | aad –ajer –aadjst (no umlaut) | gammal –äldre –äldst (irregular) | gamal –eldri –elstur (irregular) |
| *fullaz –*fullijaną | voll –füllen | full –fill | vol –vullen | vol –völle | full –fylla | fullur –fylla |
| *langaz –*langīn/*langiþō | lang –Länge | long –length | lang –lengte | lank –lengde | lång –längd | langur –longd |
| *lūs –*lūsiz | Laus –Läuse | louse –lice | luis –luizen (no umlaut) | loes –luus | lus –löss | lús –lýs |
The Standard Dutch pairluis –luizen differs from the rest in that it already features a front diphthong/œy/ (/lœys/ –/ˈlœyzə(n)/), which ultimately comes from a long close back monophthong/uː/, retained in Limburgish dialects in the singular form. In the Dutch-based orthography usually used to write Limburgish, the digraph⟨eu⟩ and the double⟨uu⟩ have the same phonetic values as the long versions of⟨ö⟩ and⟨ü⟩ in German, that is/øː/ and/yː/, whereas⟨oe⟩ is/uː/, the back counterpart of/yː/.
Some interesting examples of umlaut involve vowel distinctions in Germanic verbs. Although these are often subsumed under the heading "ablaut" in tables of Germanic irregular verbs, they are a separate phenomenon.
A variety of umlaut occurs in the second and third person singular forms of the present tense of someGermanic strong verbs. For example, Germanfangen ("to catch") has the present tenseich fange, du fängst, er fängt. The verbgeben ("give") has the present tenseich gebe, du gibst, er gibt, but the shifte→i would not be a normal result of umlaut in German. There are, in fact, two distinct phenomena at play here; the first is indeed umlaut as it is best known, but the second is older and occurred already in Proto-Germanic itself. In both cases, a following*i triggered a vowel change, but in Proto-Germanic, it affected only*e. The effect on back vowels did not occur until hundreds of years later, after the Germanic languages had already begun to split up:*fą̄haną,*fą̄hidi with no umlaut of*a, but*gebaną,*gibidi with umlaut of*e.
The German wordRückumlaut ("reverse umlaut"), sometimes known in English as "unmutation",[17] is a term given to the vowel distinction between present and preterite forms of certainGermanic weak verbs. These verbs exhibit the dental suffix used to form the preterite of weak verbs, and also exhibit what appears to be the vowel gradation characteristic of strong verbs. Examples in English are think/thought, bring/brought, tell/told, sell/sold. The phenomenon can also be observed in some German verbs includingbrennen/brannte ("burn/burnt"),kennen/kannte ("know/knew"), and a handful of others. In some dialects, particularly of western Germany, the phenomenon is preserved in many more forms (for exampleLuxembourgishstellen/gestallt, "to put", andLimburgishtèlle/talj/getaldj, "to tell, count"). The cause lies with the insertion of the semivowel/j/ between the verb stem and inflectional ending.[18] This/j/ triggers umlaut, as explainedabove. In short-stem verbs, the/j/ is present in both the present and preterite. In long-stem verbs however, the/j/ fell out of the preterite.[18] Thus, while short-stem verbs exhibit umlaut in all tenses, long-stem verbs only do so in the present. When the German philologist Jacob Grimm first attempted to explain the phenomenon, he assumed that the lack of umlaut in the preterite resulted from the reversal of umlaut.[18] In actuality, umlaut never occurred in the first place. Nevertheless, the term "Rückumlaut" makes some sense since the verb exhibits a shift from an umlauted vowel in the basic form (the infinitive) to a plain vowel in the respective inflections.
In German, some verbs that display a back vowel in the past tense undergo umlaut in thesubjunctive mood:singen/sang (ind.) →sänge (subj.) ("sing/sang");fechten/focht (ind.) →föchte (subj.) ("fence/fenced"). Again, this is due to the presence of a followingi in theoptative verb endings in theOld High German period.
Although umlaut functioned similarly across the West Germanic languages, the specific words affected and the outcomes of the process vary between them. One notable factor is the loss of word-final-i after heavy syllables: in the southern languages (Old High German, Old Dutch, Old Saxon), this often resulted in no umlaut, whereas in the northern languages (Old English, Old Frisian), umlaut frequently remains present. Compare Old Englishġiest "guest", which shows umlaut, and Old High Germangast, which does not, both from Proto-Germanic*gastiz. That may mean that there was dialectal variation in the timing and spread of the two changes, with final loss happening before umlaut in the south but after umlaut in the north. On the other hand, umlaut may have still been partly allophonic, and the loss of the conditioning sound may have triggered an "un-umlauting" of the preceding vowel. Nevertheless, medial*-ij- consistently triggers umlaut although its subsequent loss is universal in West Germanic except for Old Saxon and early Old High German.
I-mutation generally affected Old English vowels as follows in each of the main dialects.[19] It led to the introduction into Old English of the new sounds/y(ː)/,/ø(ː)/ (which, in most varieties, soon turned into/e(ː)/), and a sound written in Early West Saxon manuscripts as⟨ie⟩ but whose phonetic value is debated.
| Original | i-mutated | Examples and notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| West Saxon | Anglian | Kentish | ||
| a | æ, e | æ, e >e | bacan "to bake",bæcþ "(he/she) bakes".a >e particularly before nasal consonants:mann "person",menn "people" | |
| ā | ǣ | lār "teaching" (cf. "lore"),lǣran "to teach" | ||
| æ | e | þæc "covering" (cf. "thatch"),þeccan "to cover" | ||
| e | i | not clearly attested due to earlier Germanic*e >*i before*i,*j | ||
| o | ø >e | Latinolium, Old Englishøle >ele. | ||
| ō | ø̄ >ē | fōt "foot",fø̄t >fēt "feet". | ||
| u | y | y >e | murnan "to mourn",myrnþ "(he/she) mourns" | |
| ū | ȳ | ȳ >ē | mūs "mouse",mȳs "mice" | |
| ea | ie >y | e | eald "old",ieldra,eldra "older" (cf. "elder") | |
| ēa | īe >ȳ | ē | nēah "near" (cf. "nigh"),nīehst "nearest" (cf. "next") | |
| eo | io >eo | examples are rare due to earlier Germanic*e >*i before*i,*j.io becameeo in most later varieties of Old English | ||
| ēo | īo >ēo | examples are rare due to earlier Germanic*e >*i before*i,*j.īo becameēo in most later varieties of Old English | ||
| io | ie >y | io,eo | *fiohtan "to fight",fieht "(he/she) fights".io becameeo in most later varieties of Old English, giving alternations likebeornan "to burn",biernþ "(he/she) burns" | |
| īo | īe >ȳ | īo,ēo | līoht "light",līehtan "illuminate".īo becameēo in most later varieties of Old English, giving alternations likesēoþan "to boil" (cf. "seethe"),sīeþþ "(he/she) boils" | |
I-mutation is particularly visible in the inflectional and derivationalmorphology of Old English since it affected so many of the Old English vowels. Of 16 basic vowels and diphthongs inOld English, only the four vowelsǣ, ē, i, ī were unaffected by i-mutation. Although i-mutation was originally triggered by an/i(ː)/ or/j/ in the syllable following the affected vowel, by the time of the surviving Old English texts, the/i(ː)/ or/j/ had generally changed (usually to/e/) or been lost entirely, with the result that i-mutation generally appears as a morphological process that affects a certain (seemingly arbitrary) set of forms. These are most common forms affected:
A few hundred years after i-umlaut began, another similar change called double umlaut occurred. It was triggered by an/i/ or/j/ in the third or fourth syllable of a word and mutatedall previous vowels but worked only when the vowel directly preceding the/i/ or/j/ was/u/. This/u/ typically appears as⟨e⟩ in Old English or is deleted:
As shown by the examples, affected words typically had/u/ in the second syllable and/a/ in the first syllable. The/æ/ developed too late to break toea or to trigger palatalization of a preceding velar.
I-mutation is visible inOld High German (OHG), c. 800 CE, only on short/a/, which was mutated to/e/ (the so-called "primary umlaut"), although in certain phonological environments the mutation fails to occur. By then, it had already become partly phonologized, since some of the conditioning/i/ and/j/ sounds had been deleted or modified. The later history of German, however, shows that/o/ and/u/, as well as long vowels and diphthongs, and the remaining instances of/a/ that had not been umlauted already, were also affected (the so-called "secondary umlaut"); starting in Middle High German, the remaining conditioning environments disappear and/o/ and/u/ appear as/ø/ and/y/ in the appropriate environments.
That has led to a controversy over when and how i-mutation appeared on these vowels. Some (for example, Herbert Penzl)[20] have suggested that the vowels must have been modified without being indicated for lack of proper symbols and/or because the difference was still partly allophonic. Others (such as Joseph Voyles)[21] have suggested that the i-mutation of/o/ and/u/ was entirely analogical and pointed to the lack of i-mutation of these vowels in certain places where it would be expected, in contrast to the consistent mutation of/a/. Perhaps[original research?] the answer is somewhere in between — i-mutation of/o/ and/u/ was indeed phonetic, occurring late in OHG, but later spread analogically to the environments where the conditioning had already disappeared by OHG (this is where failure of i-mutation is most likely).[citation needed] It must also be kept in mind that it is an issue of relative chronology: already early in the history of attested OHG, some umlauting factors are known to have disappeared (such as word-internal/j/ after geminates and clusters), and depending on the age of OHG umlaut, that could explain some cases where expected umlaut is missing. The whole question should now be reconsidered in the light ofFausto Cercignani's suggestion that the Old High German umlaut phenomena produced phonemic changes before the factors that triggered them off changed or disappeared, because the umlaut allophones gradually shifted to such a degree that they became distinctive in the phonological system of the language and contrastive at a lexical level.[22]
However, sporadic place-name attestations demonstrate the presence of the secondary umlaut already for the early 9th century, which makes it likely that all types of umlaut were indeed already present in Old High German, even if they were not indicated in the spelling. Presumably, they arose already in the early 8th century.[23]Ottar Grønvik, also in view of spellings of the type⟨ei⟩,⟨ui⟩, and⟨oi⟩ in the early attestations, affirms the oldepenthesis theory, which views the origin of the umlaut vowels in the insertion of/j/ after back vowels, not only in West, but also in North Germanic.[24]Fausto Cercignani prefers the assimilation theory and presents a history of the OHG umlauted vowels up to the present day.[25]
In modern German, umlaut as a marker of the plural of nouns is a regular feature of the language, and although umlaut generally is no longer a productive force in German, new plurals of this type can be created by analogy. Likewise, umlaut marks the comparative of many adjectives and other kinds of inflected and derived forms. Borrowed words have acquired umlaut as inChöre 'choirs' oreuropäisch 'European.' Umlaut seems to be totally productive in connection with diminutive suffix-chen, as inSkandäl-chen 'little scandal.'
Because of the grammatical importance of such pairs, the Germanumlaut diacritic was developed, making the phenomenon very visible. The result in German is that the vowels written as⟨a⟩,⟨o⟩, and⟨u⟩ become⟨ä⟩,⟨ö⟩, and⟨ü⟩, and the diphthong⟨au⟩/aʊ/ becomes⟨äu⟩/ɔʏ/:Mann[man] "man" vs.Männer[ˈmɛnɐ] "men,"Fuß[fuːs] "foot" vs.Füße[ˈfyːsə] "feet,"Maus[maʊs] "mouse" vs.Mäuse[ˈmɔʏzə] "mice."
In various dialects, the umlaut became even more important as a morphological marker of the plural after the apocope of final schwa (-e); that rounded front vowels have become unrounded in many dialects does not prevent them from serving as markers of the plural given that they remain distinct from their non-umlauted counterparts (just like in Englishfoot –feet,mouse –mice). The exampleGast "guest" vs.Gäst(e) "guests" served as the model for analogical pairs likeTag "day" vs.Täg(e) "days" (vs. standardTage) andArm "arm" vs.Ärm(e) "arms" (vs. standardArme). Even plural forms likeFisch(e) "fish," which had never had a front rounded vowel in the first place, were interpreted as such (i.e., as if from Middle High German **füsche) and led to singular forms likeFusch[fʊʃ], which are attested in some dialects.
InOld Saxon, umlaut is much less apparent than in Old Norse. In extant texts, the only vowel that is regularly fronted before an/i/ or/j/ is short/a/:gast –gesti,slahan –slehis. Umlaut must have had a greater effect than the orthography shows, however, since all later dialects have a regular umlaut of both long and short vowels, and in many instances the triggering sound had been lost from affected words by the time they came to be written in Old Saxon.
Late Old Dutch saw a merger of/u/ and/o/, causing their umlauted results to merge as well, giving/ʏ/. The lengthening in open syllables in early Middle Dutch then lengthened and lowered this short/ʏ/ to long/øː/ (spelled⟨eu⟩) in some words. This is parallel to the lowering of/i/ in open syllables to/eː/, as inschip ("ship") –schepen ("ships").
In general, the effects of the Germanic umlaut in plural formation are limited.[26] One of the defining phonological features of Dutch is the general absence of the I-mutation or secondary umlaut when dealing with long vowels. Unlike English and German, Dutch does not palatalize the long vowels, which are notably absent from the language.[27] Thus, for example, where modern German hasfühlen/ˈfyːlən/ and English hasfeel/fiːl/ (from Proto-Germanic*fōlijaną), standard Dutch retains a back vowel in the stem invoelen/ˈvulə(n)/. Thus, only two of the original Germanic vowels were affected by umlaut at all in Dutch:/a/, which became/ɛ/, and/u/, which became/ʏ/ (spelled⟨u⟩). As a result of this relatively sparse occurrence of umlaut, standard Dutch does not use umlaut as a grammatical marker. An exception is the nounstad "city" which has the irregular umlauted pluralsteden.
Later developments in Middle Dutch show that long vowels and diphthongs were not affected by umlaut in the more western dialects, including those in westernBrabant andHolland that were most influential for standard Dutch. However in what is traditionally called theCologne Expansion (the spread of certainWest German features in the south-easternmost Dutch dialects during the High Medieval period) the more eastern and southeastern dialects of Dutch, including easternmost Brabantian and all ofLimburgish have umlaut of long vowels (or in case of Limburgish, all rounded back vowels), however.[28] Consequently, these dialects also make grammatical use of umlaut to form plurals and diminutives, much as most other modern Germanic languages do. Comparevulen/vylə(n)/ andmenneke "little man" fromman.
Umlaut is a feature of Icelandic, in which both i-umlaut and a-umlaut exist.[29] The situation in Old Norse is complicated as there are two forms of i-mutation. Of these two, only one is phonologized.[clarification needed] I-mutation in Old Norse is phonological:
I-mutation isnot phonological if the vowel of a long syllable is i-mutated by a syncopatedi. I-mutation does not occur in short syllables.
| Original | Mutated | Example |
|---|---|---|
| a | e (ę) | fagr (fair) /fegrstr (fairest) |
| au | ey | lauss (loose) /leysa (to loosen) |
| á | æ | Áss / Æsir |
| o | ø | koma (to come) /kømr (comes) |
| ó | œ | róa (to row) /rœr (rows) |
| u | y | upp (up) /yppa (to lift up) |
| ú | ý | fúll (foul) /fýla (filth) |
| jú | ljúga (to lie) /lýgr (lies) | |
| ǫ | ø | sǫkk (sank) /søkkva (to sink) |
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)