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by 29083011397778 1149 days ago
That's pretty funny - makes me think it's less diaeresis (thanks! TIL) and more akin to the dot over a lower case i or j: A letter with distinct sounds that can't be written without the marking above it.
1 comments

Yes, that's actually a great example! The dot over i doesn't have a name and isn't a diacritic mark any longer, it's an integral part of the letter. It probably originated as a diacritic mark, though.

Ä in Swedish originated as the AE ligature where the E moved upwards and above the A until it became stylized as two dots. In Danish and Norwegian, they instead promoted Æ to a distinct letter.

Wikipedia does a great job for example for Ü, distinguishing between U-umlaut, U-diaeresis, and letter-Ü: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9C

> The dot over i doesn't have a name

Well you've just nerd-sniped me. I can't resist adding this bit of hyper-specific knowledge: it is called a tittle.