The history of the German umlaut

If you live in Germany, you'll soon notice that some vowels seem to be wearing accessories. The letters ä, ö and ü appear everywhere: on street signs, in official letters and in everyday words such as schön (beautiful), Müll (rubbish) or über (over).

But those two dots are far more than decoration. The German umlaut has a long history, a practical purpose and a habit of changing meanings in ways that can easily catch learners out.

How umlauts work

In terms of pronunciation, an umlaut tells you that a vowel needs to be pronounced differently from usual. In modern German, ä, ö and ü aren’t regarded as an a, o or u with dots, but as distinct letters with their own sounds.

• ä sounds similar to the e in “bet” or, when long, closer to the vowel sound in “air”
• ö has no direct English equivalent and is produced with rounded lips, somewhere between o and e
• ü also does not exist in English and is made by saying ee while rounding the lips as if for oo (and yes, getting this right is exactly as complicated as it sounds).

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These sounds can be short or long, depending on the word, but the most important thing for learners is simply to attempt to pronounce the umlaut at all.

In German, leaving out the dots can change the meaning completely.

For example:

• schon means “already”, while schön means “beautiful”
• zahlen is “to pay”, while zählen means “to count”

Where did the umlaut come from?

The word Umlaut, which literally means “around sound”, was popularised by Jacob Grimm (one of the famous Grimm brothers) to describe a historical sound change in German.

In early German, many word forms – including plurals – ended in an “i” sound and over time this caused the vowel in the main part of the word to shift forward.

For example, the plural form of Mutter originally contained an “i” sound in the ending. In these early forms, the vowel u in the main part of the word was followed by a sound made at the front of the mouth.

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Because of this, speakers gradually began to adjust the pronunciation of the u in anticipation of that later sound. Slowly, the u shifted forward in the mouth until it eventually became ü.

Later still, the ending sound disappeared altogether. What remained was the altered vowel – now marked with an umlaut – distinguishing the plural from the singular: Mutter (mother) and Mütter (mothers).

The umlaut sound existed long before the dots did.

In the early stages of written German, scribes used the Latin alphabet which lacked letters for these new vowel sounds. Their solution was to add an e after the vowel: ae, oe and ue.

This practice is still used today when umlauts aren’t available. When someone’s name appears as Mueller in an email or newspaper, for example, there’s a good chance they’re actually called Müller.  

Later, to save space, scribes began writing a small e above the vowel instead of after it. This in turn became two small strokes, and then finally the two dots you’ll see today.

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What do umlauts do in German

Umlauts aren’t random. They play a clear grammatical role in German and commonly appear in:

• Plural forms: so that Stuhl (chair) becomes Stühle and Buch (book) becomes Bücher
• Verb conjugations: laufen (to run) becomes du läufst
• Comparatives and superlatives: groß (big) becomes größer (bigger) becomes am größten (biggest)

Umlauts beyond German

Although umlauts are mostly associated with German, the same symbol appears in other languages, where it usually has a different function.

For example, in French words like Noël (Christmas), the two dots (called a diaeresis) indicate that two neighbouring vowels should be pronounced separately (no-el). In Spanish words such as pingüino (penguin) they signal that a vowel normally left silent must be pronounced.

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You might also see the odd umlaut in English, particularly in band names such as Mötley Crüe or Motörhead. Here, they serve no linguistic purpose at all but just help make the name look a bit cooler.

Using umlauts in everyday life

Using umlauts correctly when you speak will improve both your pronunciation and clarity. After all, while the waiter or waitress in a restaurant will probably guess what you mean when you tell them you want to (zählen) count, it actually makes far more sense if you ask to (zahlen) pay.  

If you use a German keyboard, ä, ö and ü each have their own keys. On international keyboards, they can be typed using shortcuts, or replaced with ae, oe and ue if necessary.