Röck Döts: The Origins of the Metal Umlaut

Source: Manual of Diacritics (X)

As an amateur linguist and a longtime fan of vintage heavy metal, I’ve always been amused by the ubiquitousness of umlauts in metal and hard rock generally. While generally associated with metal thanks to the likes of Mötley Crüe and Motörhead, the umlaut has made its presence known well outside the metal genre, in punk rock (Hüsker Dü), hip hop (Dälek), electronic dance music (Jack Ü), and, of course, the fictional band Spın̈al Tap, whose stylized name features a dotless I and the unusual umlaut over the letter N.

The metal umlaut, also known as “röck döts”, have been a staple in rock music since 1971, when the Stony Brook, New York-based hard rock unit originally known as Soft White Underbelly, after several name changes, adopted the moniker Blue Öyster Cult. So universal has the metal umlaut become that some bands from countries whose languages use umlauts for pronunciation purposes have adopted them, including the Swedish glam metal band Crashdïet and the Finnish child-friendly metal band Moottörin Jyrinä (a play on Motörhead), in which the umlaut over the O is gratuitous but the one over the A is actually correct.

Sometimes the normally gratuitous metal umlaut is accidentally correct, pronunciation-wise. The second O in Motörhead is a schwa (/ˈmoʊtərhɛd/) that, when pronounced, sounds more authentically like the close-mid front rounded vowel represented by “ø” in the International Phonetic Alphabet represented in French as “œu” (as in “œuf”) and in German, Swedish, Finnish, and several other languages as “ö” (as in “schön”). Whether Lemmy and company knew any of this when they picked the band’s name is unknown, but based on what I know about Lemmy — he was apparently very well read — it’s quite possible.

Other band’s names sound hilariously off when pronounced correctly according to their diacritic marks. When Mötley Crüe went mega in the 1980s, they apparently caused some confusion in Germany as to how their name was pronounced; the band was apparently greeted there by screaming fans yelling “Meutley Cruh”. The character “ÿ” employed by the Seattle prog-metal band Queensrÿche is a symbol occasionally seen in French as an alternative to “ï” (as in “Haïti”), which would give the band’s name the pronunciation “Queensreech”. According to the band, “The umlaut over the “y” has haunted us for years. We spent eleven years trying to explain how to pronounce it.”

So why the umlaut, as opposed to any other diacritic mark? An article in VH1 credits its popularity to the legendary German political art commune Amon Düül founded in 1967, which spawned two rock groups: Amon Düül (also known as Amon Düül I) and Amon Düül II. The dark psychedelic vibes of this seminal project coupled with the tough Teutonic feel to their name probably influenced Blue Öyster Cult, who, at the time, were combining the psychedelic rock sounds of the 1960s with the new occult-flavoured impending doom vibe of heavy metal. Since then, the umlaut has been synonymous with Gothic horror and Viking hordes and has been a natural fit for metal bands keen to exude a similar vibe.

When it comes to badass-looking diacritic marks, though, the German language has nothing on Vietnamese. The Vietnamese language has no less than 14 vowel nuclei and six tones, which, since its adoption of the Roman alphabet (chữ Quốc ngữ) in the 17th century, has employed a dizzying array of diacritics — sometimes stacked atop one another. Fittingly, Vietnam is home to a diverse and thriving heavy metal scene, which survived underground following the end of the Vietnam War and truly burgeoned after the Đổi Mới reforms of the late 1980s.

Notable Vietnamese bands include progressive rockers Thuỷ Triều Ðỏ, glam metalheads Bức Tường, grindcore prodigies Wừu, the symphonic metal ensemble Đông Đô, and thrash/punk crossover artists Cút Lộn. Eat your heart out, Spın̈al Tap!

Speaking of Spın̈al Tap, you probably thought that N with an umlaut was made up, but it’s actually a real symbol in a small handful of languages, including the Jacaltec Mayan language and Cape Verdean Creole. In all cases, however, the symbol “N̈” is used to represent the sound “ng” [ŋ]. Likewise, the dotless I is a real symbol, most commonly associated with Turkic languages, where it represents the close back unrounded vowel ⟨ɯ⟩ similar to the English sound “u” (as in “dude”). That would give the semi-fictitious band’s name a pronunciation more like “Spungal Tap”, which, if anything, makes it even funnier.

Röck ön, everyöne!