
So those sounds became “aj”, “oj”, and “uj”.įurther down in time, the sounds evolved and are now the three German umlauts, which are written as “ae”, “oe”, and “ue”. So to make things easier for themselves, people initially started pronouncing the “i” as “j”. The umlauts are more common when the word contains two vowels one after the other, with the second vowel being “i”.įor example, saying the sound “ai”, “oi”, or “ui” is more difficult because the first letter is pronounced by a sound in the front of the mouth, while the “i” is pronounced in the back.

For example, if we say two vowels with one in the front part of the mouth and the other in the far back of the mouth, it will require us to put more effort than if we pronounced them closer together.īy trying to pronounce these vowels together, the Germanic language got umlauts. This means that one of the sounds was changed to make another similar sound that is easier to say. Umlauts are assimilations or vowel harmonies. When it is very difficult for two sounds to connect to one another, we try to make them easier and simplify them. Learning a new language is difficult, especially if it has sounds which your mouth might not have been used to pronouncing.
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HOW TO WRITE OUT A WITH UMLAUT HOW TO
These additional letters are called umlauts and this article will explain what they are and how to pronounce them. More specifically, the three additional letters of its alphabet make it quite unique. One interesting characteristic that the German language has is its letters.
