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O with diaeresis occurs in several languages that use diaereses. In these languages the letter represents the fact that this o is the start of a new syllable (e.g. in the Dutch/Afrikaans word coöperatief [cooperative]), instead of the general oo (e.g. In the Dutch word doorn [thorn]) .
The name open-o represents the sound, in that it is like the sound represented by o , the close-mid back rounded vowel, except it is more open. It also represents the symbol, which can be remembered as an o which has been "opened" by removing part of the closed circular shape.
There was also a pair of back vowels of mid-height, /o/ and /oː/, both of which were written o (the longer vowel is often ō in modern editions). The same four vowels existed in the Middle English system. The short vowels were still written u and o , but long /uː/ came to be spelt as ou , and /oː/ as oo .
The letter o is the fourth most common letter in the English alphabet. [4] Like the other English vowel letters, it has associated "long" and "short" pronunciations. The "long" o as in boat is actually most often a diphthong / oʊ / (realized dialectically anywhere from [o] to [əʊ]).
A word such as 'voi' would instead be pronounced and syllabified as ['vo.i], yet again without a diphthong. In general, unstressed /i e o u/ in hiatus can turn into glides in more rapid speech (e.g. biennale [bi̯enˈnaːle] 'biennial'; coalizione [ko̯alitˈtsi̯oːne] 'coalition') with the process occurring more readily in syllables further ...
The Great Vowel Shift was a series of chain shifts that affected historical long vowels but left short vowels largely alone. It is one of the primary causes of the idiosyncrasies in English spelling. The shortening of ante-penultimate syllables in Middle English created many long–short pairs. The result can be seen in such words as,
o: Nothing [ō—letter o with overbar] O 2: oxygen: OA: osteoarthritis: OAB: Overactive bladder: OAF: osteoclast activating factor OB: Occult blood OB OB-GYN ob-gyne: obstetrics and gynecology: Obl: oblique OBS: organic brain syndrome: Occ: occasional OCD: obsessive-compulsive disorder: OCG: oral cholecystogram: OCNA: Orthopedic Clinics of ...
Note that some words contain an ae which may not be written æ because the etymology is not from the Greek -αι-or Latin -ae-diphthongs. These include: In instances of aer (starting or within a word) when it makes the sound IPA [ɛə]/[eə] (air). Comes from the Latin āër, Greek ἀήρ. When ae makes the diphthong / eɪ / (lay) or / aɪ ...