I studied German when I was in school and the Umlaut (hope I spelled it right) was used over vowels to change the tone of it or how it’s used. Did it ever have that effect when used in English?
In: 6
History of English Podcast just spend a great deal of time on that very issue in the most recent episode: [https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/2022/08/31/episode-161-y-u-and-i-have-a-problem/](https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/2022/08/31/episode-161-y-u-and-i-have-a-problem/)
Basically they were added at a time when the language was written in a “block letter” script — very Germanic. Downstrokes were thick and heavy and horizontal strokes very hard to see. In that script, many letters including i l u n and m were very hard to distinguish and so writers and then printers took measures to make them stand out.
i was made to stand out in two ways, by adding a dot onto the top or by extending the letter below the line like we write a j.
These two distinguishing features were then later separated into two distinct letters.
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