The spacing character U+00A8 is retained for compatibility with pre-Unicode encodings. It is equivalent to ◌̈ docked to a space, U+0020 (i.e.⟨ ̈⟩), and there is no need for it in modern typography except to refer to itself.
Retained in foreign (mostly French) loan words where vowels are pronounced separately:naïve (ornaive),Noël (orNoel), but also for umlaut in GermanGötterdämmerung,Führer, and terms derived from given names, such asMöbius strip
This diacritic is called atrema, also adiaeresis (ordieresis) after its use in separating syllables, or anumlaut after its use in marking vowel change in German and similar orthographies.
In all cases apart from family names, usage is optional. For German loans, there is the additional option of replacing the umlaut with adigraph ine, e.g.Fuehrer.
⟨◌́⟩ is more commonly used to indicate that a finale is pronounced, e.g.animé, but in the case of a name likeChloe that might imply the wrong stress or vowel quality (e.g. spurious "kloh-AY" rather than "KLOH-ee").
Adiacritical mark of theGreek script, calledδιαίρεσις(diaíresis,“division”) in Ancient Greek, and found onΪ/ϊ andΫ/ϋ. It is also known by the namesδιαλυτική(dialutikḗ,“severing”) orτρῆμα(trêma,“dots on a die”). It was used to indicate that the vowel letterι(i) orυ(u) formed a separate syllable rather than a diphthong when written after another vowel letter.
The diaeresis is used to indicate that two vowels are to be pronounced separately as two syllables, rather than as a diphthong or single vowel. For example,geïnd (collected),reëel (realistic),zeeën (seas). In compound words, a hyphen- is used between the syllables instead. The same occurs when a word is hyphenated at the end of a line of print, e.g.ge-ind, re-eel, zee-en for the previous.
The umlaut is used only in words of German origin, such asföhn.
2015 April 11, Tovin Lapan, “California birth certificates and accents: O’Connor alright, Ramón and José is not”, inThe Guardian[1] (in English), archived fromthe original on4 April 2025:
California, like several other states, prohibits the use of diacritical marks or accents on official documents. That means no tilde (~), no accent grave (`), no umlaut (¨) and certainly no cedilla (¸).
Formerly used, in the letteru, formedü, in the syllablesqüe,qüi,güe andgüi. In these syllables, the letteru without a trema would besilent; with the trema it would have the sound of thesemivowel/w/.
Marcel Courthiade (2009), “DECISION : "THE ROMANI ALPHABET"”, in Melinda Rézműves, editor,Morri angluni rromane ćhibǎqi evroputni lavustik = Első rromani nyelvű európai szótáram : cigány, magyar, angol, francia, spanyol, német, ukrán, román, horvát, szlovák, görög [My First European-Romani Dictionary: Romani, Hungarian, English, French, Spanish, German, Ukrainian, Romanian, Croatian, Slovak, Greek] (overall work in Hungarian and English), Budapest: Fővárosi Onkormányzat Cigány Ház--Romano Kher,→ISBN, page499
Adiacritical mark of theLatin script, calleddiéresis(“diaeresis”) in Spanish, and found onÜ/ü. Indicate that the 'u' is pronounced between a 'c' or 'g' and a vowel 'e' or 'i', as inMalagüez.
