[whatwg] Entity parsing [trema/diaeresis vs umlaut]

[Øistein E. Andersen]

On 26 Jun 2007, at 7:46AM, Křištof Želechovski wrote:

> I was thinking of the tréma when I wrote that and I
> changed it to a dieresis afterwards

Right. The two terms can often be regarded as synonyms,
but tréma probably is less closely tied to the function of
separating two vowels. (One French--English dictionary
indeed suggests that the correct translation of tréma should be
either diæresis or umlaut depending on the rôle of the diacritic.)

> I did not consider capharnaüm invalid but irrelevant: it is a
> Hebrew (or Aramaic?) proper name and can be regarded as a transcription.

Etymologically, yes, but capharnaüm has (under influence of the unrelated 
Latin word caforniau) developed into a common noun meaning something
like “a disorderly place with objects lying around everywhere”.

Anyway, this has little to do with HTML, so any further discussion
on this topic should probably be taken off list.

-- 
Øistein E. Andersen