Diaeresis (diacritic)

Uncommon card · No. 133600

Diaeresis ( dy-ERR-ə-siss, -⁠EER-) is a diacritical mark consisting of two dots (◌̈) that indicates that two adjacent vowel letters are separate syllables – a vowel hiatus (which is also named diaeresis in linguistics terminology) – rather than a digraph or diphthong. It consists of a two dots diacritic placed over a letter, generally a vowel. The diaeresis diacritic indicates that two adjoining letters that would normally form a digraph and be pronounced as one sound, are instead to be read as separate vowels in two syllables. For example, in the spelling "coöperate", the diaeresis reminds the reader that the word has four syllables, co-op-er-ate, not three, *coop-er-ate. In British English this usage has been considered obsolete for many years, and in US English, although it persisted for longer, it is now considered archaic as well. Nevertheless, it is still used by the US magazine The New Yorker. In English language texts it is perhaps most familiar in the loan words naïve, Noël...

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