Ü

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U with umlaut/diaeresis
Ü ü
V, UE, II
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	alphabetic
Phonetic usage	[y] [ʏ] [u] [w] [ɔ] [ɥ] [yː] [ɨ]
History
Development	UE Uͤ uͤ Ü ü
Variations	V, UE, II
Other
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Ü (lowercase ü) is a

Although not a part of their alphabet, Ü also appears in languages such as Finnish and Swedish when retained in foreign proper names like München ("Munich"). A small number of Dutch and Afrikaans words employ the character to mark vowel hiatus (e.g. reünie /reːyˈni/ ("reunion"), a loanword marked with diaeresis to suppress the native reading of eu as a digraph pronounced /øː/).

U-umlaut

A glyph, U with

Though not a part of the Slovene alphabet, ü is often used in eastern Styrian dialects, especially around Ptuj^[1] as well as in the Resian dialect with the same pronouncation as in German.

In other languages that do not have the letter as part of the regular alphabet or in limited

Wayuu represents the close central unrounded vowel [ɨ] using this letter.

In the

It is not present in the Basque alphabet but the Souletin dialect uses it for [y].

This same letter appears in the

Several languages use diaeresis over the letter U to show that the letter is pronounced in its regular way, without dropping out or building diphthongs with neighbouring letters.

In Catalan, ü is used in the letter combinations güe, güi, qüe and qüi to indicate the pronunciation [ɡwe], [ɡwi], [kwe] or [kwi], respectively (e.g. nicaragüenc, pingüins, qüestió, aqüicultura); this contrasts with the combinations gue/gui/que/qui, in which the u is silent ([ɡe], [ɡi], [ke], [ki]). Catalan also uses the letter ü to indicate that a vowel pair that would normally form a diphthong must be pronounced as separate syllables (e.g. baül, diürna).

Similarly, in Spanish, ü is used in the combinations güe [ɡwe] and güi [ɡwi], to distinguish them from "gue" [ɡe] and "gui" [ɡi] (e.g. nicaragüense, pingüinos). Unlike Catalan, though, Spanish does not use it after q, instead using cue and cui to spell words with [kwe] or [kwi] sounds (cuestión, acuicultura); it also does not use it to break diphthongs, sometimes using the letter ú for that purpose when necessary (baúl, but diurna).

In French, the diaeresis appears over the "u" only very rarely, in some uncommon words, capharnaüm [-aɔm] ('shambles'), Capharnaüm/Capernaüm [-aɔm] or Emmaüs [-ays]. After the 1990 spelling reforms, it is applied to a few more words, like aigüe (formerly aiguë), ambigüe (formerly ambiguë) and argüer [aʁɡɥe] (formerly without the diaeresis).

Usage in phonetic alphabets

In the

Historically the unique letter Ü and U-diaeresis were written as a U with two dots above the letter.

U-umlaut was written as a U with a small e written above (Uͤ uͤ): this minute e degenerated to two vertical bars in

• Microsoft Windows – some keyboard layouts feature separate keys for ⟨Ü⟩
  • Using the Swiss French keyboard, ⟨ü⟩ can be entered by typing ⇧ Shift+È
  • Using the US International layout, ⟨ü⟩ can be entered by typing AltGR+Y
• Microsoft Windows: with the Number Lock on, hold down the Alt key while typing on the numeric keypad the decimal value of the code point from the active DOS/OEM code page without a leading zero, then release the Alt key; i.e. Alt+1+5+4 for ⟨Ü⟩ and Alt+1+2+9 for ⟨ü⟩
• Microsoft Windows: with the Number Lock on, hold down the Alt key while typing on the numeric keypad the decimal value of the code point from the active ANSI code page with a leading zero, then release the Alt key; i.e. Alt+0+2+2+0 for ⟨Ü⟩ and Alt+0+2+5+2 for ⟨ü⟩
• Microsoft Word for Windows: type Ctrl+: followed by ⇧ Shift+U for ⟨Ü⟩ or Ctrl+: then U for ⟨ü⟩
• macOS with an English keyboard layout (Australian, British, or U.S.): type ⌥ Option+U followed by ⇧ Shift+U for ⟨Ü⟩ or ⌥ Option+U and then U for ⟨ü⟩ or by keeping the U key pressed and then typing 2
• In Linux-based operating systems, this symbol may be typed by pressing the Compose key followed by u, ".
• In GTK-based GUI-Applications, Ctrl+⇧ Shift+U followed by the Hex-Code

See also

• Umlaut (diacritic)
• Ӱ ӱ : Cyrillic letter U with diaeresis
• Ү ү : Cyrillic letter Ue

References