https://xkcd.com/2912

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𝓘 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓴 𝓬𝓪𝓹𝓲𝓽𝓪𝓵 𝓛 𝓲𝓼 𝓹𝓻𝓸𝓫𝓪𝓫𝓵𝔂 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓶𝓸𝓼𝓽 𝓯𝓾𝓷 𝓽𝓸 𝔀𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓮, 𝓽𝓱𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓱 𝓵𝓸𝔀𝓮𝓻𝓬𝓪𝓼𝓮 𝓺 𝓲𝓼 𝓪𝓵𝓼𝓸 𝓪 𝓼𝓽𝓻𝓸𝓷𝓰 𝓬𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓷𝓭𝓮𝓻.

  • force@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    that’s because they are, umlauts came from writing vowel digraphs as the first letter with the second letter above it, for example ueber/veber -> uͤber/vͤber -> über/v̈ber -> über (although über in particular didn’t actually originally have the spelling ueber). “e” turned into two lines, which now is represented as two dots/a diaeresis on most computer fonts. that’s why, if you don’t have access to diacritics (e.g. on technology), you write ä/ö/ü like ae/oe/ue (and why you have names which are spelled like Goethe instead of Göthe)