linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...

, umlaut (from German "sound alternation") is a sound change in which a

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (l ...

is pronounced more like a following vowel or

semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the ...

. The term ''umlaut'' was originally coined in connection with the study of

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...

, as it had occurred prominently in the history of many of them (see

Germanic umlaut The Germanic umlaut (sometimes called i-umlaut or i-mutation) is a type of linguistic umlaut in which a back vowel changes to the associated front vowel (fronting) or a front vowel becomes closer to ( raising) when the following syllable co ...

). While a common English plural is umlauts, the German plural is Umlaute. Umlaut is a form of

assimilation Assimilation may refer to: Culture *Cultural assimilation, the process whereby a minority group gradually adapts to the customs and attitudes of the prevailing culture and customs **Language shift, also known as language assimilation, the progre ...

, the process of one speech sound becoming more similar to a nearby sound. If a word has two vowels, one back in the mouth and the other forward, it takes more effort to pronounce. If the vowels were closer together, it would take less effort. Thus, one way the language may change is that these two vowels get drawn closer together. The phenomenon is also known as

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, me ...

, the complete or partial identity of vowels within a domain, typically a word. Thus, in

Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...

, the word ''gast'' 'guest' had the plural form ''gesti'' 'guests': the plural ending ''-i'' caused the vowel in the stem to be a front vowel ''e''. The vowel alternation remained in the language, so that present-day

Standard German Standard High German (SHG), less precisely Standard German or High German (not to be confused with High German dialects, more precisely Upper German dialects) (german: Standardhochdeutsch, , or, in Switzerland, ), is the standardized variety ...

displays the forms ''Gast'' ast– ''Gäste'' ɛstə although the final front vowel has been reduced to the central schwa vowel. The most commonly seen types of umlaut are the following: *Vowel raising, triggered by a following

high vowel A close vowel, also known as a high vowel (in U.S. terminology), is any in a class of vowel sounds used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of th ...

(often specifically a high front vowel such as /i/). *Vowel fronting, triggered by a following front vowel (often specifically a high front vowel such as /i/). *Vowel lowering, triggered by a following non-high vowel (often specifically a low vowel such as /a/). *Vowel rounding, triggered by a following rounded vowel (often specifically a high rounded vowel such as /u/). All of these processes occurred in the history of the

; see

for more details. ''I-mutation'' is the most prominent of the processes, to the extent that it is often referred to simply as "umlaut". Similar processes also occurred in the history of the

Celtic languages The Celtic languages (usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edwar ...

, especially

Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writte ...

. In this context, these processes are often referred to as '' affection''. Vowel-raising umlaut occurred in the history of many of the

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language f ...

, in which it is normally termed '' metaphony''.

References

Assimilation (linguistics) German words and phrases {{phonology-stub

See also

References