For German characters, I use both the ASCII and HTML codes, as appropriate, but there is nothing wrong with using ae for ä, oe for ö, and ue for ü.

The German Rail website recognizes this convention and many businesses with umlauted letters in their names use that convention in their URLs.

The umlauted vowels (called "vorderzunge gerundete Vocale") were originally written as the vowel (a, o, or u) with a superscript e. In the old German handwriting (Sütterlin ), this e looks like two vertical strikes with serifs. It was replaced with just two slashes above the vowel and eventually with the two dots you see now.

<i>Author: Momliz
Date: 11/22/2008, 09:31 am

Robes - I like your ascii codes, but how would one manage in a document?</i>

They're strictly for writing HTML, a <i>lingua franca</i> where the reader may or may not have the same equipment as the writer.

For documents, your word processor of choice should have a way of creating them - usually through an &quot;insert special symbol&quot; function on the menu bar.

I speak German, albeit rusty from not using it.
I can get by with French and Spanish as far as directions,restaurants and basic conversation.

I am fully bilingual in English and Spanish as I grew up in a household speaking both languages. Best thing ever.

I speak Croatian and learned from my parents who were born here when it was still the Austian Hungarian Empire. Since I have made Dubrovnik my permanent home, it has made my life here much better since I can understand and speak our language fluently.
After many years in America, my mother began to speak what we called &quot;half and half&quot;, a few words in English and finishing in Croatian.
As a tourist in Croatia you will have no problems speaking only English, as it is spoken by most of the local residents.

Dobrodosli u Dubrovnik

I was an undergrad Spanish Major and French Minor. I speak passable map/market German. Italian is the strange one. I have picked it up via a couple of Rosetta Stone tapes and am sufficiently conversant that Italians respond to me quickly and fluently - far above my comprehension!

I truly believe that any effort made at learning a language has a big payoff. My 15 year old son is fluent in Spanish, but I've failed him in French. Oh, well,,,,

((c))

I speak enough Spanish to get by, I used to be quite good but it's rusty now as I go to Greece most of the time. I can get by in German, know a little Italian and my school French is almost non existent! I am learning Greek and am half way through the second level of Rosetta Stone and improving all the time.
If anyone is thinking of learning another language, I would highly reccommend Rosetta Stone as my Greek has improved dramatically since I started using this method.

&gt;&quot;vorderzunge gerundete Vocale&quot;
Vor der Zunge gerundete Vokale
= you mean &quot;vordere Vokale&quot;

S&uuml;tterlin = not old, but invented in Prussia in 1911

i think many europeans find it odd, that americans do not learn another language, starting at the early years of their education.

in norway, children learn english from age 5-6. by age 11 you can learn french or german in most schools, + spanish in some. i think this is quite common in many european counties. (?)

i think it is not only a question about the size of your country, whether you speak a second language or not - it also has to do with the national school policies (educational culture).

<i>i think many europeans find it odd, that americans do not learn another language, starting at the early years of their education.</i>

And I don't understand why Europeans should find it so odd. Of course Norwegians learn English at an early age, since so few people speak Norwegian (or any Scandinavian language). The Norwegian limits his world without learning a foreign language, in a way that an English-speaker doesn't. Heck, even much of the TV is in English, which I think contributes greatly to the better English skills (on average) of Norwegians compared to the French.

Indeed, what language would a European suggest Americans should learn from an early age? Spanish would seem the most likely candidate, but it is hardly the slamdunk that English is for non-English speakers. Indeed, you could probably make a compelling case for Mandarin, or even French or German. Without such an obvious choice for a second language, I'm not convinced that you will ever end up with a critical mass to make the Scandinavian model work.

When another language reaches the level of English in importance, then I am sure the American educational system will adapt. But, for now, English is probably the single most important language in business, scholarship, and popular culture so Americans can afford to be lazy.

And that is the crux of the issue. How do Americans pick which language might be of enough use to make teaching it on a massive scale useful?

As travelgourmet points out, if you aren't an English speaker, English is an obvious excellent second language to learn. If you live in the Czech Republic, then, besides English, German or Russian would have a very good chance of being useful.

In the USA there's a large Hispanic population, but most of them speak English as well as Spanish--especially those who are not recent immigrants. Should Americans spend time and money to teach Spanish on a massive scale so their kids can speak to newly arrived gardners and maids?

Doesn't hardly seem cost effective, especially when American students seem to be so deficient in and need more time in school for subjects like mathematics, reading, history, civics, etc.

Or should the USA teach every language in world to a proportionate percentage of students; e.g., if 14.36% of the world's population speaks Mandarin, then teach Mandarin to 14.6% of students? And then hope that some of that 14.6% someday has some sort of practical use for Mandarin?

I'd hate to be the kid stuck with learning one of the Australian aborigine languages that has fewer than 10 living native speakers. He or she might end up being the only speaker of the language on the planet!

All of my nieces and nephews are in public schools in New England and a second language is required now. They can choose from Spanish and French and probably others. I only know of these because they are the languages my nieces and nephews have been studying for years now.

My grandchild goes to a Lutheran school in Frankenmuth Michigan. They started learning German in pre school. They have German Services during the year and I can see that by the time they are in the 5th or 6th grades they are speaking German very well. I wish I would have had the chance to learn another language in grade school. I am trying to learn French now, at the age of 64, to keep my mind active. I chose French because I thought I would have a better chance of getting back to France in my lifetime, and a lot of countries speak French. It is hard trying to learn from CD's and on line. I enjoy it, but don't know if I would really be able to make myself understood. It will be fun trying. It is always amazing to me how many people in the world know English. We really never needed to know another language to get along in any of the countries we visited, but I would really like the ability to speak another language.

There is more benefit in learning an additional language than making money -- although, for some people, the debate starts and ends there.

It's not even about enhancing one's travel experience, although that can be a result.

Every language encapsulates a way of seeing and dealing with the world, and is a window to another culture. A monoglot can be limited in sensitivity to perspectives rooted in a different worldview simply by virtue of inability to comprehend that a different worldview is possible.

Frankenmuth, Michigan is a German town mainly in heritage and the city has made a major tourist draw out of its German heritage - thus i would say it is not typical in its German immersion program - which i applaud.

Today's Frankenmuth is dominated by Zhender's home-style restaurant, which ironically serves down-home American food and not esp German. But they have built a mini-German town that looks like yes a German town center and trade on its Germanic roots. It has an Octoberfest where bands from Germany come here, etc.

PalenQ, very good discription. The city is very family oriented, wonderful place to raise a child. I don't know if they teach German in the public schools or not, but wouldn't be suprised. In the 50's in Detroit we didn't get the chance to learn a language until high school. In my opinion that's to late.

<i>Every language encapsulates a way of seeing and dealing with the world, and is a window to another culture. A monoglot can be limited in sensitivity to perspectives rooted in a different worldview simply by virtue of inability to comprehend that a different worldview is possible.</i>

I think you are overplaying the importance of foreign language skills. Monoglots can be limited, but they don't need to be. Similarly, many bilingual people have only the vaguest, most rudimentary idea of anything about the culture or worldview behind it.

Simply speaking a foreign language means little. It is a skill, just like being able to solve differential equations. It is only in the application of that skill that one's mind is broadened. A reader who is conversant in literary criticism is going to get much more out of an English translation of Don Quixote, than someone with little knowledge in how to study literature, but fully fluent in Spanish.

And, let's be honest, life is about compromises. There are always going to be trade-offs in what one chooses to study. If someone chooses to concentrate on something other than a foreign language, then more power to them.

travelgourmet wrote: &quot;I think you are overplaying the importance of foreign language skills. Monoglots can be limited, but they don't need to be. Similarly, many bilingual people have only the vaguest, most rudimentary idea of anything about the culture or worldview behind it.&quot;

I agree with your second and third sentences. I don't agree with the first, in part because I did not ascribe any particular value to learning additional languages: I simply pointed out that there are benefits.

I always wonder how native English speakers are able to boil a pot of water. They don't know the difference between &quot;sieden&quot; and &quot;kochen&quot;, simply because the don't have a word for &quot;sieden&quot;...

&gt;&gt;&gt;Every language encapsulates a way of seeing and dealing with the world, and is a window to another culture.&lt;&lt;&lt;

I can relate to that. Or maybe not so much a window to another culture, rather a different way of thinking. You have to switch your brain into a different gear.

My native language isn´t even Indo-European, but all the languages I know on top of it and have studies are Indo-European (English, French, German, Swedish, Russian + Latin). I still remember how puzzled I was when I first started as a kid. The foreign grammars were totally uncomprehensible. How could people even THINK with such messy grammars. Why didn´t they just use different words but use my familiar logical way of arranging those words.