umlauted

Umlauded is the past participle adjective form of the verb umlaut, used to describe a word into which an umlaut has been applied or the vowel alterations produced by umlaut phenomena. In writing, umlauts are the diacritic marks consisting of two dots placed over the vowels a, o, and u, yielding ä, ö, and ü. The term umlaut and its derivative umlauted are most often encountered in linguistics, typography, and discussions of Germanic languages.

In German orthography, umlaut is a productive vowel alternation that changes the stem vowel in certain word forms, often affecting meaning or grammatical form. Common examples include Vater becoming Väter, Haus becoming Häuser, and Mann becoming Männer. Historical umlaut, sometimes called i-umlaut, refers to a broader sound change that affected stem vowels in many Germanic languages; modern umlauted vowels retain traces of this history in pronunciation and spelling.

In English usage, to umlaut a word is uncommon; umlauted is typically used as a descriptive phrase, such as “an umlauted vowel,” rather than as a regularly conjugated verb. The concept is most relevant in linguistics, language education, and discussions of Germanic phonology and orthography.

Typography and encoding contexts note that umlauted characters can be written directly (ä, ö, ü) or represented transliteratively as ae, oe, ue in environments that lack diacritics. The idea of umlauted letters also appears in discussions of diacritics and diaeresis in various languages.

See also: umlaut, diacritic, diaeresis.