The "German Beta" is not a beta at all, but a so called "Ringel S" which is
in fact a combination of the letters "sz". In medieval German (and Dutch as
well) the first one of these two looked a lot like a "f" without the bar in
the middle.

Gijs

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alfonso Pina" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 12:42 PM
Subject: Re: Umlaut


> Some precisions about umlauts:
>
> First -  As Franck says, in French, as well as in Spanish and I think in
all
> other Latin derived languages, it is called diaeresis, and I am not sure
it
> marks the same linguistic features as in German.
>
> Second - The way Patty indicates to get some diachritical marks works
> perfectly, and it is not HTML, just plain ASCII text: you can test it.
>
> Third - Unfortunately I don't speak German, but I always thought that
umlaut
> was an alternative way to indicate some diptongues, so you can write
> "Röding" or "Roeding" and both forms are perfectly correct. Same thing
> occurs to German beta, wich is the same as a double "s". And this is not a
> colateral effect of computer technology: you can find it in many printed
> text, modern or old. Surely there must be some German speaker out there
who
> could clarify this point.
>
> Fourth - I think that the use of diachritical marks is not allowed by the
> ICZN. Sure, not for species names (I'm unsure about authors names).
Anyway,
> the general trend is not to use them, wich leads to the fact that many of
> the authors names other than English are really bad written (curiously,
> English and Latin coincide at this point: none of them use this marks).
Use
> of diptongues instead of umlauts allows to avoid this errors for many
German
> names, so it could be advisable.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Alfonso Pina
> Málaga, Spain
> [log in to unmask]
> www.eumed.net/malakos
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andrew Grebneff" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 9:15 AM
> Subject: Re: Umlaut
>
>
> > >Dear Linda and other English-speaking people,
> > >
> > >Yes, that is correct Röding is the same as Roeding, for the time when
> > >computers would not do umlauts and other signs. Now, they all do, and
it
> > >just takes a little figuring out. Each program has it's own way of
> > >inserting these,
> >
> > Funny, all the other lists I'm on quite rightly reject any message
> > with HTML content; styled fonts require HTML. So for me, annotying
> > though it is, no umlauts (but I refuse to add an e instead!). Eudora
> > Light doesn't have the option anyway...
> >
> > I can't do umlauts with Macdraw either, which I use for labels.
> > --
> > Andrew Grebneff
> > 165 Evans St, Dunedin 9001, New Zealand
> > <[log in to unmask]>
> > Seashell, Macintosh, VW/Toyota van nut