diaeresis

Wikipedia

English

Alternative forms

• dieresis, diaresis (US); diæresis (obsolete)

Etymology

From Ancient Greek διαίρεσις (“division, split”), from διά (dia, “apart”) + αἱρέω (aireō, “I take”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /daɪəˈɹiːsɪs/

Noun

diaeresis (plural diaereses)

1. (orthography) A diacritic ( ¨ ) placed over a vowel letter (especially the second of two consecutive ones) indicating that it is sounded separately, usually forming a distinct syllable, as in the English words naïve, Noël and Brontë, the French haïr and the Dutch ruïne.
2. (linguistics, prosody) The separation of a vowel, often a diphthong, into two distinct syllables.
3. (prosody) A natural break in rhythm when a word ends at the end of a metrical foot, in a line of verse.

Usage notes

• The umlaut is an often visually identical diacritic which alters the sound of a single vowel (as in German Schön). Properly speaking, the terms diaeresis and umlaut are not interchangeable, though speakers frequently use the term umlaut to refer to a diaeresis.

Synonyms

• tréma, trema

Translations

diacritic placed over a vowel letter

• Catalan: dièresi (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 分音符號 (cmn), 分音符号 (cmn) (fēnyīn fúhào), 分音符 (cmn) (fēnyīnfú)

• Czech: dvě tečky (cs) f pl
• Dutch: trema (nl) n
• Esperanto: tremao (eo)
• Finnish: treema (fi)
• French: diérèse (fr) f, tréma (fr) m
• German: Umlaut (de) m, Trema (de) m, Diärese (de) f, Diäresis (de) f
• Greek: διαλυτικά (el) (dialytiká) n pl
• Japanese: 分音記号 (ja) (ぶんおんきごう, bun'on kigō), 分音符号 (ja) (ぶんおんふごう, bun'on fugō), トレマ (ja) (torema) (of French), ダイエリシス (ja) (daierishizu), ウムラウト (ja) (umurauto) (of German)

• Polish: dwie kropki (pl) f pl, diereza (pl) f, umlaut (pl) m
• Portuguese: trema (pt) f
• Russian: умлаут (ru) (umláut) m, умляут (ru) (umljáut) (of German), трема (ru) (tremá) f (of French), диерезис (ru) (dijerézis) m, две точки (ru) (dve tóčki) f pl
• Scottish Gaelic: dà-lid (gd) f
• Slovak: dve bodky (sk) f pl
• Spanish: diéresis (es) f, crema (es) f

separation of a vowel into two distinct syllables

• Esperanto: dierezo (eo)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

• Italian: dieresi (it) f
• Korean: 분음 기호 (ko)

• Portuguese: diérese (pt) m
• Spanish: diéresis (es) f

See also

• umlaut