Karelian alphabet are from the ISO basic Latin alphabet, five are derived from basic Latin letters by the addition of diacritical marks, and the final character is the apostrophe, which signifies palatalization of the preceding sound. The entire range of sounds of native Karelian words is intended to be represented by this set of characters. This unified alphabet was approved in 2007 as a replacement for the separate Olonets Karelian and Karelian Proper alphabets. The letters Ä and Ö are vowels which, unlike the German umlauts, are considered to be distinct and are alphabetized separately from the corresponding vowels without the umlauts.
Phonological history of English high back vowels Old English texts). There was also a pair of back vowels of mid-height, and , written (the longer one often in modern editions). The same four vowels existed in the Middle English system. The short vowels were still spelt and , but long came to be spelt as , and as . Generally the Middle English vowels descended from the corresponding Old English ones, although there were certain alternative developments – see Phonological history of Old English#Changes leading up to Middle and Modern English. Due to Middle English open syllable lengthening, short was mostly lengthened to (an opener back vowel)