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Comment by nerdponx | Hacker News Reader

Fun fact, the "ï" in "naïve" is not an umlaut, but a totally different use of the same notation called a diaresis! It's meant to inform the reader that the "a" and "i" are pronounced separately, rather than being combined into a single vowel sound. It's a bit old-fashioned in English, but you sometimes will see it in older texts on words like "coöperation". So "naieve" is not a valid spelling of "naïve" (but that's okay because English spelling has historically been a mess and everyone knew what you meant). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)

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>It's a bit old-fashioned in English, but you sometimes will see it in older texts on words like "coöperation".

You don't even need to search for older texts! The New Yorker actually uses the diaresis in their print edition. It's certainly a bit anachronistic, but I do think English spelling can be a bit obtuse to say the least, so the orthographic hint can sometimes be useful.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-...

https://www.arrantpedantry.com/2020/03/24/umlauts-diaereses-...

How coöperative of you to help out with spreading the knowledge

Fun fact: since a relatively recent reform the position of the diaeresis (in french: "tréma") kinda changed (at least for quite a few words). For example in the word "aigue", the diacritic sign can be put either on the 'e' (as used to be the case previously) or the 'u' (which is now recommended but not mandatory: you can still put it on the 'e' instead). So both "aigüe" and "aiguë" are correct AFAICT.

Although I'm a native french speaker TIL, thanks to you, that it's role was to inform that the letters are to be pronounced separately.

TIL that "coöperation" is an actual word.

The diaeresis is very important in French (we call it tréma). Without this the word naïve instead of "na-iv" would sound "nev". The first name Loïc instead of "lo-ik" would be "looak" (it is even hard to say it loud for me). And many others.

Fortunately we still have the word for waters which is eaux and that we pronounce "o"

It's important in French because French tries very hard to have a consistent mapping between spelling and pronunciation. When you read a word you don't know, the spelling tells you how to pronounce it. English seems to have largely given up on this concept.

Your comment got me thinking, this concept is not obvious for a native French speaker.

So we have several words that are pronounced "unexpectedly" (What You Read Is Not What You Pronounce). An example would be the name if the physicist Louis de Broglie, pronounced [dəbʁɔj]. OK, that's a family name so there is some history behind.

Then we have words that different people pronounce differently: ananas (pineapple) - some pronounce the "s", some do not. Or the village Avoriaz, same but for the "z". Or Chamonix.

But now that I think about this, what you are saying is indeed a thing. My wife's primary languages do not include French and she did not have, I think, major issues when choosing a pronunciation (she had Himalayas of other problems, though).

> Then we have words that different people pronounce differently: ananas (pineapple) - some pronounce the "s", some do not. Or the village Avoriaz, same but for the "z". Or Chamonix.

As someone who is only fluent in English but tried to study French for a couple weeks before visting Paris many years ago... Spoken French has institutionalized mumbling; what I read is you're supposed to form the final consonants of words with your mouth, but not voice them... Which ends up in practice with the consonants being pretty much voiced if the next word starts with a vowel and not if not... But I'm not surprised there's some variance.

The best written reference I could find (which sadly, I can't find again) was from a Hong Kong university where the writers seemed to have learned both English and French analytically rather than natively, so they would explain the rule for French and compare with the rule(s) for English and expose me to the rules I unconciously followed without knowing they existed.

Studying written and spoken French simultaneously was pretty helpful for me, otherwise it was too hard to fill in the ending letters of many words as needed.

Interestingly, all of the Romance languages exhibited consonant-dropping in their development. In Spanish and Italian for example, the Latin ending -us became -o. And even as far back as classical Latin, it is believed that the "m" at the end of a word was often nasalized. Apparently this hasn't been a thing for millennia.

There are other examples that are much worse for French learners! In _fils_ (son) the _l_ is mute, but the _s_ is pronounced. In _août_ (August), tha _a_ is mute. In _tous_ (all, plural) the _s_ can be mute or not, depending on the sentence. And in _oeuf_ (egg) the f is pronounced, but in the plural _oeufs_ it isn't! A special mention to _Monsieur_ (Mister), which is pronounced as if it was written _Messieur_.

> diaresis

It’s diaeresis. (Not sure if ‘ae’ can be replaced by the umlaut here.)

in British English. the former perhaps intended the variant (or American) dieresis

still, neither are diuresis, which nobody wants

Just as there was a "slashdot effect", I think we should apply for an "HN Tangent" - the effects being something like whiplash to the brain as the discussion veers off in directions undreamt of.

Thank you for enlightening me.

It's not ä but æ like in encyclopædia and archæology. British English generally simplified to ae. American English generally simplified to e. Wikipedia page has more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86

If diaeresis is too hard a word to deal with, we can just call it trema.

I just had diaresis. Painful at my age.

You should check your vitamin D levels

Username checks out gloriously for assisting with my drastic medical condition

lol we should unite

More fiber and less umlauts for breakfast 'll fix that.

An Oxford comma a day keeps the diaresis at bay.

Lol thanks, whippersnappers. I’ll try these totally legit treatments for my totally legit disorder

Well, it's especially because it's a French word.

In my dictionary (Collins Cobuild), it’s spelled “naive”. But yeah, who wants to use an English word when you can use a French one.

This is a surprisingly fun fact

I refuse to co-operate with those who use diaresis to separate vowels.

I've never seen naive with a diaresis, but now I'm curious if anyone unironically uses "na-ive"

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