-ö-

The story

From the old practice, which comes from French, of using the diaeresis accent to communicate vowel hiatus, i.e. to clarify that a vowel is to be spoken separately rather than joined with or influenced by the sounds before it; for example, Chloë is to be read as CLOH-EY, not CLEE (i.e. an oe as in Oedipus); and the ae in aëroport is not spoken as that in archaeology.