Circumflex
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The circumflex () is a
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
in the
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various
romanization Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...
and
transcription Transcription refers to the process of converting sounds (voice, music etc.) into letters or musical notes, or producing a copy of something in another medium, including: Genetics * Transcription (biology), the copying of DNA into RNA, the fir ...
schemes. It received its English name from la, circumflexus "bent around"a translation of the el, περισπωμένη (). The circumflex in the Latin script is
chevron Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to: Science and technology * Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines * Chevron (anatomy), a bone * '' Eulithis testata'', a moth * Chevron (geology), a fold in rock ...
-shaped (), while the Greek circumflex may be displayed either like a
tilde The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) i ...
() or like an
inverted breve Inverted breve or arch is a diacritical mark, shaped like the top half of a circle ( ̑ ), that is, like an upside-down breve (˘). It looks similar to the circumflex (ˆ), which has a sharp tip (''Â â Ê ê Î î Ô ô Û û''), whi ...
(). For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin alphabet,
precomposed character A precomposed character (alternatively composite character or decomposable character) is a Unicode entity that can also be defined as a sequence of one or more other characters. A precomposed character may typically represent a letter with a diacri ...
s are available. In
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
, the circumflex, like other diacritics, is sometimes retained on
loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s that used it in the original language (for example, ''
crème brûlée ''Crème brûlée'' or ''crème brulée'' (; ), also known as burnt cream or Trinity cream, and virtually identical to the original crema catalana, is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a layer of hardened caramelized sugar ...
''). In mathematics and
statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...
, the circumflex diacritic is sometimes used to denote a function and is called a ''
hat operator The hat operator is a mathematical notation with various uses in different branches of science and mathematics. Estimated value In statistics, a circumflex (ˆ), called a "hat", is used to denote an estimator or an estimated value. For example, ...
''. A free-standing version of the circumflex symbol, , has become known as ''
caret Caret is the name used familiarly for the character , provided on most QWERTY keyboards by typing . The symbol has a variety of uses in programming and mathematics. The name "caret" arose from its visual similarity to the original proofreade ...
'' and has acquired special uses, particularly in
computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, e ...
and
mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
. The original caret, , is used in proofreading to indicate insertion.


Uses


Diacritic on vowels


Pitch

The circumflex has its origins in the
polytonic orthography Greek orthography has used a variety of diacritics starting in the Hellenistic period. The more complex polytonic orthography ( el, πολυτονικό σύστημα γραφής, translit=polytonikó sýstīma grafī́s), which includes fi ...
of
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
, where it marked
long vowels In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
that were pronounced with high and then falling pitch. In a similar vein, the circumflex is today used to mark
tone contour A tone contour, or contour tone, is a tone in a tonal language which shifts from one pitch to another over the course of the syllable or word. Tone contours are especially common in East, Southeast Asia, West Africa, Nilo-Saharan languages, Kh ...
in the
International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
. This is also how it is used in Bamanankan (as opposed to a
háček A caron (), háček or haček (, or ; plural ''háčeks'' or ''háčky'') also known as a hachek, wedge, check, kvačica, strešica, mäkčeň, varnelė, inverted circumflex, inverted hat, flying bird, inverted chevron, is a diacritic mark ( ...
, which signifies a rising tone on a syllable). The shape of the circumflex was originally a combination of the
acute Acute may refer to: Science and technology * Acute angle ** Acute triangle ** Acute, a leaf shape in the glossary of leaf morphology * Acute (medicine), a disease that it is of short duration and of recent onset. ** Acute toxicity, the adverse eff ...
and grave accents (^), as it marked a syllable contracted from two vowels: an acute-accented vowel and a non-accented vowel (all non-accented syllables in Ancient Greek were once marked with a grave accent). Later a variant similar to the
tilde The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) i ...
(~) was also used. The term "circumflex" is also used to describe similar tonal accents that result from combining two vowels in related languages such as Sanskrit and Latin. Since
Modern Greek Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
has a stress accent instead of a pitch accent, the circumflex has been replaced with an acute accent in the modern monotonic orthography.


Length

The circumflex accent marks a long vowel in the
orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...
or
transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...
of several languages. * In
Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
, the circumflex marks a
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
with a lengthened pronunciation, often arising from
compensatory lengthening Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda, or of a vowel in an adjacent syllable. Lengthening triggered b ...
due to the loss of from the original
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
form. Examples of circumflex use in Afrikaans are ''sê'' "to say", ''wêreld'' "world", ''môre'' "tomorrow", ''brûe'' "bridges". *
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...
. In the transliteration of this language, the circumflex indicates a long vowel resulting from an aleph contraction. * In western Cree, Sauk, and
Saulteaux The Saulteaux (pronounced , or in imitation of the French pronunciation , also written Salteaux, Saulteau and other variants), otherwise known as the Plains Ojibwe, are a First Nations band government in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, A ...
, the Algonquianist Standard Roman Orthography (SRO) indicates long vowels either with a circumflex ⟨''â ê î ô''⟩ or with a macron ⟨''ā ē ī ō''⟩. * The PDA orthography for Domari uses circumflex-bearing vowels for length. * In Emilian, ''â î û'' are used to represent * French. In some varieties, such as in
Belgian French Belgian French (french: français de Belgique) is the variety of French spoken mainly among the French Community of Belgium, alongside related Oïl languages of the region such as Walloon, Picard, Champenois, and Lorrain (Gaumais). The Frenc ...
,
Swiss French Swiss French (french: français de Suisse or ') is the variety of French spoken in the French-speaking area of Switzerland known as Romandy. French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, the others being German, Italian, and ...
and
Acadian French Acadian French (french: français acadien, acadjonne) is a variety of French spoken by Acadians, mostly in the region of Acadia, Canada. Acadian French has 7 regional accents, including chiac and brayon. Phonology Since there was relatively li ...
, vowels with a circumflex are long: ''fête'' (party) is longer than ''faite'' . This length compensates for a deleted consonant, usually ''s''. * Standard Friulian. *
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
. In the
Nihon-shiki Nihon-shiki ( ja, 日本式ローマ字, "Japan-style," romanized as ''Nihonsiki'' in the system itself), is a romanization system for transliterating the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Among the major romanization systems for Japan ...
system of
romanization Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...
, the circumflex is used to indicate long vowels. The
Kunrei-shiki is the Cabinet-ordered romanization system for transcribing the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Its name is rendered ''Kunreisiki rômazi'' in the system itself. Kunrei-shiki is sometimes known as the Monbushō system in English bec ...
system, which is based on Nihon-shiki system, also uses the circumflex. The Traditional and Modified forms of the Hepburn system use the macron for this purpose, though some users may use the circumflex as a substitute if there are difficulties inputting the macron, as the two diacritics are visually similar. * Jèrriais. * In
Kurmanji Kurdish Kurmanji ( ku, کورمانجی, lit=Kurdish, translit=Kurmancî, also termed Northern Kurdish, is the northern dialect of the Kurdish languages, spoken predominantly in southeast Turkey, northwest and northeast Iran, northern Iraq, northern ...
, ⟨ê î û⟩ are used to represent . * In
Mikasuki The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida is a federally recognized Native American tribe in the U.S. state of Florida. They were part of the Seminole nation until the mid-20th century, when they organized as an independent tribe, receiving f ...
, circumflexed vowels indicate a rising and falling pitch or tone. * In Adûnaic, the Black Speech, and
Khuzdul Khuzdul is a fictional language created by J. R. R. Tolkien, one of the languages of Middle-earth, specifically the secret and private language of the Dwarves. External history Tolkien began developing Khuzdul before the publication in 1936 ...
, constructed languages of
J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlins ...
, all long vowels are transcribed with the circumflex. In Sindarin, another of Tolkien's languages, long vowels in
polysyllabic A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "b ...
words take the
acute Acute may refer to: Science and technology * Acute angle ** Acute triangle ** Acute, a leaf shape in the glossary of leaf morphology * Acute (medicine), a disease that it is of short duration and of recent onset. ** Acute toxicity, the adverse eff ...
, but a circumflex in monosyllables, to mark a non-phonemic extra lengthening.


Stress

The circumflex accent marks the stressed vowel of a word in some languages: *
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
''â'', ''ê'', and ''ô'' are stressed "closed" vowels, opposed to their open counterparts ''á'', ''é'', and ''ó'' (see below). *
Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
: the circumflex, due to its function as a disambiguating lengthening sign (see above), is used in polysyllabic words with word-final long vowels. The circumflex thus indicates the stressed syllable (which would normally be on the penultimate syllable), since in Welsh, non-stressed vowels may not normally be long. This happens notably where the singular ends in an ''a'', to, e.g. singular ''camera'', ''drama'', ''opera'', ''sinema'' → plural ''camerâu'', ''dramâu'', ''operâu'', ''sinemâu''; however, it also occurs in singular nominal forms, e.g. ''arwyddocâd''; in verbal forms, e.g. ''deffrônt'', ''cryffânt''; etc.


Vowel quality

*In
Breton Breton most often refers to: *anything associated with Brittany, and generally ** Breton people ** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany ** Breton (horse), a breed **Ga ...
, it is used on an ''e'' to show that the letter is pronounced
open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999 * ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001 * ''Open'' ( ...
instead of closed. * In
Bulgarian Bulgarian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria * Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group * Bulgarian language, a Slavic language * Bulgarian alphabet * A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria * Bul ...
, the sound represented in Bulgarian by the Cyrillic letter ''ъ'' (''er goljam'') is usually transliterated as ''â'' in systems used prior to 1989. Although called a schwa (misleadingly suggesting an unstressed lax sound), it is more accurately described as a
mid back unrounded vowel The mid back unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Although there is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of pho ...
. Unlike
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
or French, but similar to
Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language *** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language ** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
and
Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
, it can be stressed. * In
Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
romanized
Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
, ''ê'' is used to represent the sound in isolation, which occurs sometimes as an exclamation. * In French, the letter ''ê'' is normally pronounced
open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999 * ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001 * ''Open'' ( ...
, like ''è''. In the usual pronunciations of central and northern
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, ''ô'' is pronounced
close Close may refer to: Music * ''Close'' (Kim Wilde album), 1988 * ''Close'' (Marvin Sapp album), 2017 * ''Close'' (Sean Bonniwell album), 1969 * "Close" (Sub Focus song), 2014 * "Close" (Nick Jonas song), 2016 * "Close" (Rae Sremmurd song), 201 ...
, like ''eau''; in Southern France, no distinction is made between
close Close may refer to: Music * ''Close'' (Kim Wilde album), 1988 * ''Close'' (Marvin Sapp album), 2017 * ''Close'' (Sean Bonniwell album), 1969 * "Close" (Sub Focus song), 2014 * "Close" (Nick Jonas song), 2016 * "Close" (Rae Sremmurd song), 201 ...
and
open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999 * ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001 * ''Open'' ( ...
''o''. * In
Phuthi Phuthi (''Síphùthì'') is a Nguni Bantu language spoken in southern Lesotho and areas in South Africa adjacent to the same border. The closest substantial living relative of Phuthi is Swati (or ''Siswati''), spoken in Eswatini and the Mp ...
, ''î'' and ''û'' are used to mark superclose vowels and , respectively. *
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
''â'' , ''ê'' , and ''ô'' are stressed high vowels, in opposition to ''á'' , ''é'' , and ''ó'' , which are stressed low vowels. * In
Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language *** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language ** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
, the circumflex is used on the vowels ''â'' and ''î'' to mark the vowel , similar to Russian ''
yery Yeru or Eru (Ы ы; italics: ), usually called Y in modern Russian or Yery or Ery historically and in modern Church Slavonic, is a letter in the Cyrillic script. It represents the close central unrounded vowel (more rear or upper than i) ...
''. The names of these accented letters are ''â din a'' and ''î din i'', respectively. (The letter ''â'' only appears in the middle of words; thus, its majuscule version appears only in all-capitals inscriptions.) * In Slovak, the circumflex (''vokáň'') on ''ô'' indicates a diphthong . * In
Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
and
folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
the circumflex is used to indicate the phonemes or ''(â)'', or (''ô'') and (''û'') in dialects and regional accents where these are distinct from (''a''), (''ö'') or (''o'' or ''å'') and (''u'') respectively, unlike Standard Swedish where and , and are short and long allophones of the phonemes and respectively, and where Old Swedish short (''ŏ'') has merged with from Old Swedish (''ā'', Modern Swedish '' å'') instead of centralizing to or fronting to and remaining a distinct phoneme (''ô'') as in the dialects in question. Different methods can be found in different literature, so some author may use ''æ'' instead of ''â'', or use ''â'' where others use ''å̂'' (''å'' with a circumflex; for a sound between and ). *
Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...
''â'' , ''ê'' , and ''ô'' are higher vowels than ''a'' , ''e'' , and ''o'' . The circumflex can appear together with a
tone mark Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emph ...
on the same vowel, as in the word ''Việt''. Vowels with circumflex are considered separate letters from the base vowels.


Nasality

* In
Luxembourgish Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; Luxembourgish: ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide. As a standard form of th ...
''m̂ n̂'' can be used to indicate nasalisation of a vowel. Also, the circumflex can be over the vowel to indicate nasalisation. In either case, the circumflex is rare. * In several indigenous languages of New Caledonia, a circumflex indicates nasality on vowels: e.g. the orthography
Xârâcùù Xârâcùù (), or Kanala, is an Oceanic language spoken in New Caledonia. It has about 5,000 speakers. Xârâcùù is most commonly spoken in the south Central area of New Caledonia in and around the city of Canala and the municipalities of Can ...
contrasts its
oral vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced witho ...
s ''a'' , ''e'' , ''i'' , ''u'' with its nasal vowels ''â'' , ''ê'' , ''î'' , ''ô'' , ''û'' – with duplicated variants indicating length (e.g. ''êê'' , etc.). Due to typographical shortage of characters, some nasal vowels in Xârâcùù are encoded with an umlaut: e.g. ''ä'' , ''ü'' ).


Other articulatory features

* In Emilian, ''ê ô'' denote both length and height. In Romagnol, they are used to represent the diphthongs , whose specific articulation varies between dialects, e.g. ''sêl'' "salt". * In
Philippine languages The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (languag ...
, the circumflex (''pakupyâ'') is used to represent the simultaneous occurrence of a stress and a glottal stop in the last vowel of the word. * In Old Tupi, the circumflex changed a vowel into a
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...
: ''î'' , ''û'' , and ''ŷ'' . *In
Rusyn Rusyn may refer to: * Rusyns, Rusyn people, an East Slavic people ** Pannonian Rusyns, Pannonian Rusyn people, a branch of Rusyn people ** Lemkos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people ** Boykos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people * Rusyn l ...
, the letter ''ŷ'' is sometimes used to transliterate the Cyrillic ''ы''. * In Turkish, the circumflex over ''a'' and ''u'' is sometimes used in words of
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
or
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
derivation to indicate when a preceding consonant (''k'', ''g'', ''l'') is to be pronounced as a
palatal The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
plosive; , (''kâğıt'', ''gâvur'', ''mahkûm'', ''Gülgûn''). The circumflex over ''i'' is used to indicate a
nisba The Arabic language, Arabic word nisba (; also transcribed as ''nisbah'' or ''nisbat'') may refer to: * Arabic nouns and adjectives#Nisba, Nisba, a suffix used to form adjectives in Arabic grammar, or the adjective resulting from this formation **c ...
suffix (''millî'', ''dinî'').


Visual discrimination between homographs

* In
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...
the circumflex can be used to distinguish
homograph A homograph (from the el, ὁμός, ''homós'', "same" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a word that shares the same written form as another word but has a different meaning. However, some dictionaries insist that the words must also ...
s, and it is called the "genitive sign" or "length sign". Examples include ''sam'' "am" versus ''sâm'' "alone". For example, the phrase "I am alone" may be written ''Ja sam sâm'' to improve clarity. Another example: ''da'' "yes", ''dâ'' "gives". * Turkish. According to
Turkish Language Association The Turkish Language Association ( tr, Türk Dil Kurumu, TDK) is the regulatory body for the Turkish language, founded on 12 July 1932 by the initiative of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and headquartered in Ankara, Turkey. The Institution acts as the o ...
orthography, ''düzeltme işareti'' "correction mark" over ''a'', ''i'' and ''u'' marks a long vowel to disambiguate similar words. For example, compare ''ama'' "but" and ''âmâ'' "blind", ''şura'' 'that place, there' and ''şûra'' "council". In general, circumflexes occur only in
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
and
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
loanwords as vowel length in early Turkish was not phonemic. However, this standard was never applied entirely consistently and by the late 20th century many publications had stopped using circumflexes almost entirely. *
Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
. The circumflex is known as ''hirnod'' "long sign" or ''acen grom'' "crooked accent", but more usually and colloquially as ''to bach'' "little roof". It lengthens a stressed vowel (''a, e, i, o, u, w, y''), and is used particularly to differentiate between
homographs A homograph (from the el, ὁμός, ''homós'', "same" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a word that shares the same written form as another word but has a different meaning. However, some dictionaries insist that the words must also ...
; e.g. ''tan'' and ''tân'', ''ffon'' and ''ffôn'', ''gem'' and ''gêm'', ''cyn'' and ''cŷn'', or ''gwn'' and ''gŵn''. However the circumflex is only required on elongated vowels if the same word exists without the circumflex - "nos" (night), for example, has an elongated "o" sound but a circumflex is not required as the same word with a shortened "o" doesn't exist. * The
orthography of French French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 AD, ...
has a few pairs of
homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...
s that are only distinguished by the circumflex: e.g. '' du'' (
partitive In linguistics, the partitive is a word, phrase, or case that indicates partialness. Nominal partitives are syntactic constructions, such as "some of the children", and may be classified semantically as either set partitives or entity partitives ba ...
article) vs. '' '' 'due'.


Diacritic on consonants

* In
Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
, the romanized writing of
Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
, ''ẑ'', ''ĉ'', and ''ŝ'' are, albeit rarely, used to represent ''zh'' , ''ch'' , and ''sh'' , respectively. * In Esperanto, the circumflex is used on ''ĉ'' , ''ĝ'' , ''ĥ'' , ''ĵ'' , ''ŝ'' . Each indicates a different consonant from the unaccented form, and is considered a separate letter for purposes of
collation Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office filin ...
. (See
Esperanto orthography Esperanto is written in a Latin-script alphabet of twenty-eight letters, with upper and lower case. This is supplemented by punctuation marks and by various logograms, such as the digits 0–9, currency signs such as $ € ¥ £ ₷, and mathema ...
.) * In Nsenga, ''ŵ'' denotes the
labiodental approximant The voiced labiodental approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is something between an English / w/ and / v/, pronounced with the teeth and lips held in the position used to articulate the letter V. The sym ...
. * In Chichewa, ''ŵ'' (present for example in the name of the country '' Malaŵi'') used to denote the
voiced bilabial fricative The voiced bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is B. The official symbol is the ...
; nowadays, however, most Chichewa-speakers pronounce it as a regular . * In
Nias Nias ( id, Pulau Nias, Nias language: ''Tanö Niha'') (sometimes called Little Sumatra in English) is an island located off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Nias is also the name of the archipelago () of which the island is the centre, ...
, ''ŵ'' denotes the
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...
. * In the African language
Venda Venda () was a Bantustan in northern South Africa, which is fairly close to the South African border with Zimbabwe to the north, while to the south and east, it shared a long border with another black homeland, Gazankulu. It is now part of the ...
, a circumflex below d, l, n, and t is used to represent dental consonants: ḓ, ḽ, ṋ, ṱ. * In the 18th century, the Real Academia Española introduced the circumflex accent in Spanish to mark that a ''ch'' or ''x'' were pronounced and respectively (instead of and , which were the default values): ''châracteres, exâcto'' (spelled today ''caracteres, exacto''). This usage was quickly abandoned during the same century, once the RAE decided to use ''ch'' and ''x'' with one assigned pronunciation only: and respectively. * In Domari (according to the Pan-Domari Alphabet orthography), the circumflex is used on the letters <''ĉ ĝ ĵ ŝ ẑ''> to represent the sounds of . It is also used above vowels to indicate length.


Abbreviation, contraction, and disambiguation


English

In 18th century
British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
, before the cheap
Penny Post The Penny Post is any one of several postal systems in which normal letters could be sent for one penny. Five such schemes existed in the United Kingdom while the United States initiated at least three such simple fixed rate postal arrangements. U ...
and while paper was taxed, the combination ''ough'' was occasionally shortened to ''ô'' when the ''gh'' was not pronounced, to save space: ''thô'' for ''though'', ''thorô'' for ''thorough'', and ''brôt'' for ''brought''.


French

In French, the circumflex generally marks the former presence of a consonant (usually ''s'') that was deleted and is no longer pronounced. (The corresponding Norman French words, and consequently the words derived from them in English, frequently retain the lost consonant.) For example: *''ancêtre'' "ancestor" *''hôpital'' "hospital" *''hôtel'' "hostel" *''forêt'' "forest" *''rôtir'' "to roast" *''côte'' "rib, coast, slope" *''pâté'' "paste" *''août'' "August" *''dépôt'' (from the Latin ''depositum'' 'deposit', but now referring to both a deposit or a storehouse of any kind) Some
homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...
s (or near-homophones in some varieties of French) are distinguished by the circumflex. However, â, ê and ô distinguish different sounds in most varieties of French, for instance ''cote'' "level, mark, code number" and ''côte'' "rib, coast, hillside". In handwritten French, for example in taking notes, an ''m'' with a circumflex (m̂) is an informal abbreviation for ''même'' "same". In February 2016, the Académie française decided to remove the circumflex from about 2,000 words, a plan that had been outlined since 1990. However, usage of the circumflex would not be considered incorrect.


Italian

In
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
, ''î'' is occasionally used in the plural of nouns and adjectives ending with ''-io'' as a
crasis Crasis (; from the Greek , "mixing", "blending"); cf. , "I mix" ''wine with water''; '' kratēr'' "mixing-bowl" is related. is a type of contraction in which two vowels or diphthongs merge into one new vowel or diphthong, making one word out of ...
mark. Other possible spellings are ''-ii'' and obsolete ''-j'' or ''-ij''. For example, the plural of "various" can be spelt , , ; the pronunciation will usually stay with only one . The plural forms of "prince" and of "principle, beginning" can be confusing. In pronunciation, they are distinguished by whether the stress is on the first or on the second syllable, but would be a correct spelling of both. When necessary to avoid ambiguity, it is advised to write the plural of as or as .


Latin

In
New Latin New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...
, circumflex was used most often to disambiguate between forms of the same word that used a long vowel, for example ablative of first declension and genitive of fourth declension, or between second and third conjugation verbs. It was also used for the interjection ''ô''.


Norwegian

In
Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...
, the circumflex differentiates ''fôr'' "lining, fodder" from the preposition ''for''. From a historical point of view, the circumflex also indicates that the word used to be spelled with the letter '' ð'' in
Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
for example, ''fôr'' is derived from ''fóðr'', ''lêr'' 'leather' from ''leðr'', and ''vêr'' "weather, ram" from ''veðr'' (both ''lêr'' and ''vêr'' only occur in the
Nynorsk Nynorsk () () is one of the two written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language ( no, Landsmål) parallel to the Dano-N ...
spelling; in
Bokmål Bokmål () (, ; ) is an official written standard for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is the preferred written standard of Norwegian for 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. Unlike, for instance, the Italian language, there ...
these words are spelled ''lær'' and ''vær''). After the ''ð'' disappeared, it was replaced by a '' d'' (''fodr, vedr'').


Portuguese

Circumflexes are used in many common words of the language, such as ''você'' (you/thou), ''ânimo'' (cheer), and ''avô'' (grandfather). In early literacy classes in school, it is commonly nicknamed ''chapéu'' ("hat").


Mathematics

In mathematics, the circumflex is used to modify variable names; it is usually read "hat", e.g., î is "i hat". The Fourier transform of a function ''ƒ'' is often denoted by \hat f. In the notation of
set Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics *Set (mathematics), a collection of elements *Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively Electro ...
s, a hat above an element signifies that the element was removed from the set, such as in \, the set containing all elements x_0, \dotsc, x_n except x_i. In geometry, a hat is sometimes used for an
angle In Euclidean geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two rays, called the '' sides'' of the angle, sharing a common endpoint, called the '' vertex'' of the angle. Angles formed by two rays lie in the plane that contains the rays. Angles a ...
. For instance, the angles \hat or A\hatC. In vector notation, a hat above a letter indicates a
unit vector In mathematics, a unit vector in a normed vector space is a vector (often a spatial vector) of length 1. A unit vector is often denoted by a lowercase letter with a circumflex, or "hat", as in \hat (pronounced "v-hat"). The term ''direction v ...
(a dimensionless
vector Vector most often refers to: *Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction *Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematic ...
with a
magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...
of 1). For instance, \hat, \hat, or \hat_1 stands for a unit vector in the direction of the
x-axis A Cartesian coordinate system (, ) in a plane is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely by a pair of numerical coordinates, which are the signed distances to the point from two fixed perpendicular oriented lines, measured in ...
of a Cartesian coordinate system. In
statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...
, the hat is used to denote an
estimator In statistics, an estimator is a rule for calculating an estimate of a given quantity based on observed data: thus the rule (the estimator), the quantity of interest (the estimand) and its result (the estimate) are distinguished. For example, the ...
or an estimated value, as opposed to its theoretical counterpart. For example, in
errors and residuals In statistics and optimization, errors and residuals are two closely related and easily confused measures of the deviation of an observed value of an element of a statistical sample from its "true value" (not necessarily observable). The error ...
, the hat in \hat\varepsilon indicates an observable estimate (the residual) of an unobservable quantity called \varepsilon (the statistical error). It is read ''x-hat'' or ''x-roof'', where ''x'' represents the character under the hat.


Music

In
music theory Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...
and musicology, a circumflex above a numeral is used to make reference to a particular scale degree. In
music notation Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
, a chevron-shaped symbol placed above a note indicates
marcato Marcato (short form: Marc.; Italian for ''marked'') is a musical instruction indicating a note, chord, or passage is to be played louder or more forcefully than the surrounding music. The instruction may involve the word ''marcato'' itself writt ...
, a special form of emphasis or accent. In music for string instruments, a narrow inverted chevron indicates that a note should be performed up-bow.


Letters with circumflex


Circumflex in digital character sets

The
precomposed character A precomposed character (alternatively composite character or decomposable character) is a Unicode entity that can also be defined as a sequence of one or more other characters. A precomposed character may typically represent a letter with a diacri ...
s ''Â/â'', ''Ê/ê'', ''Î/î'', ''Ô/ô'', and ''Û/û'' (which incorporate the circumflex) are included in the ISO-8859-1 character set, and dozens more are available in
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
. In addition, Unicode has and which in principle allow adding the diacritic to any base letter. The
Greek diacritic Greek orthography has used a variety of diacritics starting in the Hellenistic period. The more complex polytonic orthography ( el, πολυτονικό σύστημα γραφής, translit=polytonikó sýstīma grafī́s), which includes fiv ...
grc, περισπωμένη, perispōménē, twisted around, label=none is encoded as .


Freestanding circumflex

For historical reasons, there is a similar but larger character, (&Hat; in HTML5HTML5 is the only version of HTML that has a named entity for the circumflex, see https://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/entities.html ("The following sections present the complete lists of character entity references.") and https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/CR-html5-20140731/syntax.html#named-character-references ("Hat;").), which is also included in
ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...
but often called a
caret Caret is the name used familiarly for the character , provided on most QWERTY keyboards by typing . The symbol has a variety of uses in programming and mathematics. The name "caret" arose from its visual similarity to the original proofreade ...
instead (though this term has a long-standing meaning as a proofreader's mark, with its own codepoints in Unicode). It is, however, unsuitable for use as a diacritic on modern computer systems, as it is a spacing character. Two other spacing circumflex characters in Unicode are the smaller
modifier letter A modifier letter, in the Unicode Standard, is a letter or symbol typically written next to another letter that it modifies in some way. They generally function like diacritics A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical ...
s and , mainly used in
phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
notations or as a sample of the diacritic in isolation.


Typing the circumflex accent

In countries where the local language(s) routinely include letters with a circumflex, local keyboards are typically engraved with those symbols. For users with American or British
QWERTY QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden t ...
keyboards, the characters â, ĉ, ê, ĝ, ĥ, î, ĵ, ô, ŝ, û, ẃ, ý (and their uppercase equivalents) may be obtained after installing the International or extended keyboard layout setting. Then, by using ( US Int) or ( UK Ext) (^), then release, then the base letter, produces the accented version. (With this keyboard mapping, or becomes a
dead key A dead key is a special kind of modifier key on a mechanical typewriter, or computer keyboard, that is typically used to attach a specific diacritic to a base letter. The dead key does not generate a (complete) character by itself, but modifies t ...
that applies the diacritic to the subsequent letter, if such a precomposed character exists. For example, produces as used in
Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
.) Alternatively for systems with a 'compose' function, , etc. may be used. Other methods are available: see
Unicode input Unicode input is the insertion of a specific Unicode character on a computer by a user; it is a common way to input characters not directly supported by a physical keyboard. Unicode characters can be produced either by selecting them from a di ...
.


See also

*
Caret (disambiguation) Caret may refer to: * A caret is a free-standing character used in computing. * Caret (proofreading), the proofreader's insertion symbols * Circumflex, the diacritic in â, ê, î, ô, û. Other * CARET Brain Mapping Software * Caret (su ...
*
Caron A caron (), háček or haček (, or ; plural ''háčeks'' or ''háčky'') also known as a hachek, wedge, check, kvačica, strešica, mäkčeň, varnelė, inverted circumflex, inverted hat, flying bird, inverted chevron, is a diacritic mark ( ...
*
Circumflex in French The circumflex (ˆ) is one of the five diacritics used in French orthography. It may appear on the vowels a, e, i, o, and u, for example â in ''pâté''. The circumflex, called ''accent circonflexe'', has three primary functions in French: ...
* Macron (diacritic) *
Tilde The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) i ...
* Turned v


References


External links


Diacritics Project"All you need to design a font with correct accents"

''Diacs and Quirks in a NutshellAfrikaans spelling explained''


earn how to create world language accent marks and other diacritics on a computer {{Latin script, , circumflex Latin-script diacritics Greek-script diacritics