The evolution of the umlaut dots, exemplified by the word "schön" (beautiful) in Sütterlin style handwriting. The first version shows it written as schoen; the second version has the small 'e' above the 'o' (a "vertical ligature"), the third version shows the modern dot-like umlaut, which evolved from the second version.

Please note that it's not exactly Sütterlin, but close. To emphasise the thickness of vertical strokes, I've written it with a broad nib, which is somewhat untypical.

BeschreibungUmlaut Development.png	A writing example showing the evolution of umlaut dots from a superscript "e".
Datum	28. März 2005
Quelle	Own handwriting.
Urheber	Sebastian Koppehel, User:SKopp
Genehmigung (Weiternutzung dieser Datei)	Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse Diese Datei ist gemeinfrei („public domain“), weil sie nur Allgemeingut enthält und die nötige Schöpfungshöhe nicht erreicht.

Image:Umlaut Development.jpg cleaned up, converted to PNG by User:Doodle77.