The word umlaut is used in both linguistic and typographic senses.

Linguistics

In linguistics, the term umlaut is used in a variety of closely related ways, some narrower, some broader:

• Germanic umlaut — in its original, narrowest sense, the fronting of vowels in a Germanic language, caused by assimilation to an original front vowel in the following syllable, especially viewed diachronically.
• I-mutation — the above phenomenon in any language, sometimes called umlaut. A less controversial term is "i-mutation".
  • Affection (linguistics) — an example of this in another language family is the parallel phenomenon in Celtic languages.
• Vowel harmony and metaphony — more broadly still, sometimes umlaut refers to any example of metaphony, or "regressive vowel harmony".
  • A-mutation (an example of the above) — the velarisation of vowels caused by an original back vowel in a following syllable, which is occasionally called a-umlaut.
• Apophony - viewed synchronically, umlaut is an example of apophony or vowel alternation, and is occasionally used erroneously as a synonym.
  • Indo-European ablaut - in particular, umlaut is often confused with ablaut.

In linguistics, the process of umlaut (from German um- around + Laut sound) is a process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a vowel or semivowel in a following syllable. ... Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time, by means of examining languages which are recognizably related through similarities such as vocabulary, word formation, and syntax, as well as the surviving records of ancient languages. ... I-mutation is what umlaut is called when it applies to English. ... In Celtic linguistics, affection (or more precisely i-affection) is the fronting of vowels in the main syllable of a word caused by an original front vowel in a suffix which may or may not still be present in the modern language. ... Vowel harmony (also metaphony) is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels. ... In historical linguistics, metaphony is a general term for a class of sound shift in which one vowel in a word is influenced by another in a process of assimilation. ... A-mutation was a vowel harmony process that took place at the late Proto-Germanic stage (perhaps around 200 AD), and caused a high vowel to become lowered when a following syllable contained a non-high vowel (not just /a/; hence the term is a misnomer). ... In linguistics, apophony (also ablaut, gradation, alternation, internal modification, stem modification, stem alternation, replacive morphology, stem mutation, internal inflection) is the alternation of sounds within a word that indicates grammatical information (often inflectional). ... In linguistics, the term ablaut designates a system of vowel gradation (i. ... In linguistics, the term ablaut (from German ab- in the sense down, reducing + Laut sound) designates a system of vowel gradations in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages. ...

Orthography

• Umlaut (diacritic). In orthography, the term umlaut is sometimes used as a shortening of "umlaut mark", a diacritic. It is used in German spelling to represent the synchronic results of Germanic phonological Umlaut, and subsequently in other languages which borrowed the symbol. The symbol appears as a pair of dots above a vowel, such as <ä> in "Doppelgänger". It has the same appearance as a diaeresis, such as <ö> in "coöperate".
  • Heavy metal umlaut - the umlaut diacritic has been used for sensational spellings in the rock music scene.

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