Unnecessary Umlauts

Alex Briffett — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:06:27 +0000

The umlaut is a diacritic mark used to represent a sound shift in spoken language [see: wikipedia:umlaut] It is usually represented by a pair of dots above the affected letter. In German you often see it used in the the following characters Ö, Ä, Ë. Words like schön (nice) in German are sometimes written with an extra 'e' as in 'schoen' to represent the umlaut where the umlauted character is not available. It is perhaps because of this German / European use of the umlaut that is has achieved a cool status in design, music and social networking.

The umlaut is now appearing, unnecessarily, in many modern trademarks and names. None of these words actually require an umlaut to represent any vocal sound shift, rather it is purely an aid to design. Blogger and designer ultamagnus79 also noticed this and has used the umlaut device to great effect in his visual experiments. I took the 'graffiti' picture below in Horsham park and interestingly this example includes an umlaut over a letter 'g' with no pretence at following any rules of grammar, it is purely a fashionable adornment to the 'nothing ever matters' statement.

So, if you are a graphic designer, a member of a band looking for a name or the developer of a Web 2 style app or site, please consider the humble umlaut. It could add a 'street' element with yet an air of European sophistication to your product. Also, you do not have to learn German to use it properly; the old rules no longer apply.

Graffiti featuring umlauts

Bunker Bar logo featuring umlaut over the 'u'

Snatptu Logo with smiley umlaut

Motorhead logo with umlaut over the 'o'

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Alex Briffett » linguistics

Unnecessary Umlauts