The diaeresis

English is nearly unique among European languages in having so few diacritical marks. I've recently received a new computer, and one of the things I have done is to enable the language functions so that I can type in French, German and Greek. If I have need of other languages, it is fairly simple to add them by clicking on START, then SETTINGS, then CONTROL PANEL, and then REGIONAL AND LANGUAGE OPTIONS.

One of the diacritical marks that appears occasionally in English is the diaeresis, which is placed on the second of two adjacent vowels, thereby indicating that they are pronounced separately. One word containing this mark is naïve, which is, of course, a loan word from French. In some older books one also sees coöperate spelt with a diaeresis, though this seems to be less common nowadays. Following this logic, one might conceivably come across preëminent, although, to be honest, I've never seen this spelling in use anywhere.

Our surname in Greek contains a diaeresis (also called a dialytika) over the letter ι, as in Κοϊζής, pronounced Koi-ZEES. The presence of this diacritical mark is an indication that the o and i sounds are pronounced separately, an unusual pronunciation in modern spoken Greek, wherein ι, η, υ, ει and οι are now pronounced identically. Without the diaeresis, our surname would sound like Kee-ZEES. Its presence is evidence that the name was not originally Greek but was transliterated from another language, probably French, where it may originally have been Coizy.

My father was not born with this surname. In fact, he was born without a surname at all, only a patronymic. Not until later did he adopt our current surname, with which his grandfather and, apparently, father were born. Since the diaeresis is scarcely used in English, he made the Κοϊ into Koy, with a y replacing the ϊ. Some of my relatives in the US and elsewhere spell our name Koizis, but no one has retained the diaeresis.