Until today I wasn't aware of the history of the Umlauts. I wonder how the Umlauts in Turkish or other languages came to be. Fantastic little video. Enjoy.

Video Summary

1. Both German and French use two dots on a vowel; in German, it's called "Umlaut" and in French, it's "Trema."
2. Many languages use special characters to change the pronunciation of consonants or vowels.
3. French has many such characters like e.g. the accent grave and the trema, as seen in "Noël."
4. German primarily uses the Umlaut, exemplified in "König."
5. Both the Trema and Umlaut appear as two dots over a vowel in modern printed text, but they have different origins and functions.
6. The German Umlaut indicates a vowel's shift in sound, transforming dark vowels like "a" to "ä," "o" to "ö," and "u" to "ü."
7. Originally, German words with Umlauts would have an "e" after the vowel (like "Goethe"), but this evolved to placing two vertical lines or dots above the vowel.
8. With the standardization of computer keyboards, the future of these special characters is uncertain, but Germans can replace the Umlaut with an "e," as is done in some instances currently.