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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 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 pe ...
(, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacritic'' is a noun, though it is sometimes used in an
attributive In grammar, an attributive expression is a word or phrase within a noun phrase that modifies the head noun. It may be an: * attributive adjective * attributive noun * attributive verb or other part of speech, such as an attributive numeral. ...
sense, whereas ''diacritical'' is only an adjective. Some diacritics, such as 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 ef ...
( ◌́ ) and grave ( ◌̀ ), are often called ''accents''. Diacritics may appear above or below a letter or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters. The main use of diacritics in
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...
is to change the sound-values of the letters to which they are added. Historically, English has used the diaeresis diacritic to indicate the correct pronunciation of ambiguous words, such as "coöperate", without which the letter sequence could be misinterpreted to be pronounced . Other examples are the acute and grave accents, which can indicate that a vowel is to be pronounced differently than is normal in that position, for example not reduced to /ə/ or silent as in the case of the two uses of the letter e in the noun '' résumé'' (as opposed to the verb ''resume'') and the help sometimes provided in the pronunciation of some words such as ''doggèd'', ''learnèd'', ''blessèd'', and especially words pronounced differently than normal in poetry (for example ''movèd'', ''breathèd''). Most other words with diacritics in English are borrowings from languages such as
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
to better preserve the spelling, such as the diaeresis on and , 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 ef ...
from , the circumflex in the word , and the cedille in . All these diacritics, however, are frequently omitted in writing, and English is the only major modern European language that does not have diacritics in common usage. In Latin-script alphabets in other languages, diacritics may distinguish between
homonym In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones ( equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definitio ...
s, such as the
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
("there") versus ("the"), which are both pronounced . In Gaelic type, a dot over a consonant indicates lenition of the consonant in question. In other alphabetic systems, diacritics may perform other functions. Vowel pointing systems, namely the
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a 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. E.Watson; Walter ...
harakat The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include: consonant pointing known as (), and supplementary diacritics known as (). The latter include the vowel marks termed (; singular: , '). The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where s ...
(  etc.) and the Hebrew
niqqud In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in ...
(  etc.) systems, indicate vowels that are not conveyed by the basic alphabet. The Indic virama (  etc.) and the Arabic sukūn (  ) mark the absence of vowels. Cantillation marks indicate prosody. Other uses include the Early Cyrillic
titlo Titlo is an extended diacritic symbol initially used in early Cyrillic and Glagolitic manuscripts, e.g., in Old Church Slavonic and Old East Slavic languages. The word is a borrowing from the Greek "", "title" (compare dated English ''tittle'' ...
stroke ( ◌҃ ) and the Hebrew gershayim (  ), which, respectively, mark abbreviations or acronyms, and Greek diacritical marks, which showed that letters of the alphabet were being used as numerals. In Vietnamese and the Hanyu Pinyin official romanization system for Chinese, diacritics are used to mark the tones of the syllables in which the marked vowels occur. In orthography and collation, a letter modified by a diacritic may be treated either as a new, distinct letter or as a letter–diacritic combination. This varies from language to language and may vary from case to case within a language. In some cases, letters are used as "in-line diacritics", with the same function as ancillary glyphs, in that they modify the sound of the letter preceding them, as in the case of the "h" in the English pronunciation of "sh" and "th". Such letter combinations are sometimes even collated as a single distinct letter. For example, the spelling sch was traditionally often treated as a separate letter in German. Words with that spelling were listed after all other words spelled with s in card catalogs in the Vienna public libraries, for example (before digitization).


Types

Among the types of diacritic used in alphabets based on the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...
are: * accents (so called because the acute, grave, and circumflex were originally used to indicate different types of pitch accents in the polytonic transcription of Greek) ** –
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 ef ...
( la, apex) ** – grave ** – circumflex ** – caron, wedge ** – double acute ** – double grave ** – tilde * one dot ** –
overdot When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the '' interpunct'' ( · ), or to the glyphs "combining dot above" ( ◌̇ ) and "combining dot below" ( ◌̣ ) which may be combined with some letters of t ...
used in many orthographies and transcriptions ** – an underdot is also used in many orthographies and transcriptions ** – interpunct is used as a diacritic in Canadian Aboriginal syllabics ** tittle, the superscript dot of the modern lowercase Latin ''i'' and ''j'' * two dots: ** two overdots () are used for umlaut, diaeresis and others; ** two underdots are used 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 ...
(IPA) and the ALA-LC romanization system ** –
triangular colon The colon alphabetic letter is used in a number of languages and phonetic transcription systems, generally for vowel length or tone. It resembles but differs from the colon punctuation mark, . In some fonts, the two dots are placed a bit closer ...
, used in the IPA to mark long vowels (the "dots" are triangular, not circular). * curves ** – breve ** – inverted breve ** – sicilicus, a
palaeographic Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysi ...
diacritic similar to a caron or breve ** – tilde ** –
titlo Titlo is an extended diacritic symbol initially used in early Cyrillic and Glagolitic manuscripts, e.g., in Old Church Slavonic and Old East Slavic languages. The word is a borrowing from the Greek "", "title" (compare dated English ''tittle'' ...
* vertical stroke ** – syllabic a subscript vertical stroke is used in
IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners A ...
to mark syllabicity and in to mark a schwa * macron or horizontal line ** – macron ** – underbar * overlays ** – vertical bar through the character ** –
slash Slash may refer to: * Slash (punctuation), the "/" character Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Slash (Marvel Comics) * Slash (''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'') Music * Harry Slash & The Slashtones, an American rock band * Nash ...
through the character ** –
crossbar Crossbar may refer to: Structures * Latch (hardware), a post barring a door * Top tube of a bicycle frame * Crossbar, the horizontal member of various sports goals * Crossbar, a horizontal member of an electricity pylon Other * In electronic ...
through the character * ring ** –
overring In mathematics, an overring ''B'' of an integral domain ''A'' is a subring of the field of fractions ''K'' of ''A'' that contains ''A'': i.e., A \subseteq B \subseteq K. For instance, an overring of the integers is a ring in which all elements are ...
* superscript curls ** – apostrophe ** – inverted apostrophe ** – reversed apostrophe ** – hook above ( vi, dấu hỏi) ** – horn ( vi, dấu móc) * subscript curls ** – undercomma ** – cedilla ** – hook, left or right, sometimes superscript ** – ogonek * double marks (over or under two base characters) ** – double breve ** – tie bar or top ligature ** – double circumflex ** – longum ** – double tilde * double sub/superscript diacritics ** – double cedilla ** – double ogonek ** – double diaeresis ** – double ypogegrammeni The tilde, dot, comma,
titlo Titlo is an extended diacritic symbol initially used in early Cyrillic and Glagolitic manuscripts, e.g., in Old Church Slavonic and Old East Slavic languages. The word is a borrowing from the Greek "", "title" (compare dated English ''tittle'' ...
, apostrophe, bar, and colon are sometimes diacritical marks, but also have other uses. Not all diacritics occur adjacent to the letter they modify. In the Wali language of Ghana, for example, an apostrophe indicates a change of vowel quality, but occurs at the beginning of the word, as in the dialects ''’Bulengee'' and ''’Dolimi''. Because of
vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, me ...
, all vowels in a word are affected, so the scope of the diacritic is the entire word. In
abugida An abugida (, from Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel no ...
scripts, like those used to write
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
and Thai, diacritics indicate vowels, and may occur above, below, before, after, or around the consonant letter they modify. The tittle (dot) on the letter ''i'' or the letter ''j'', of the Latin alphabet originated as a diacritic to clearly distinguish ''i'' from the minims (downstrokes) of adjacent letters. It first appeared in the 11th century in the sequence ''ii'' (as in ), then spread to ''i'' adjacent to ''m, n, u'', and finally to all lowercase ''i''s. The ''j'', originally a variant of ''i'', inherited the tittle. The shape of the diacritic developed from initially resembling today's acute accent to a long flourish by the 15th century. With the advent of Roman type it was reduced to the round dot we have today. Several languages of eastern Europe use diacritics on both consonants and vowels, whereas in western Europe digraphs are more often used to change consonant sounds. Most languages in Europe use diacritics on vowels, aside from English where there are typically none (with some exceptions).


Diacritics specific to non-Latin alphabets


Arabic

* (ئ ؤ إ أ and stand alone ء) : indicates a glottal stop. * (ــًــٍــٌـ) () symbols: Serve a grammatical role in
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a 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. E.Watson; Walter ...
. The sign ـً is most commonly written in combination with alif, e.g. . * (ــّـ) : Gemination (doubling) of consonants. * (ٱ) : Comes most commonly at the beginning of a word. Indicates a type of that is pronounced only when the letter is read at the beginning of the talk. * (آ) : A written replacement for a that is followed by an alif, i.e. (). Read as a glottal stop followed by a long , e.g. are written out respectively as . This writing rule does not apply when the alif that follows a is not a part of the stem of the word, e.g. is not written out as as the stem does not have an alif that follows its . * (ــٰـ) ''superscript '' (also "short" or "dagger alif": A replacement for an original alif that is dropped in the writing out of some rare words, e.g. is not written out with the original alif found in the word pronunciation, instead it is written out as . * (In Arabic: also called ): ** (ــَـ) (a) ** (ــِـ) (i) ** (ــُـ) (u) ** (ــْـ) (no vowel) * The or vowel points serve two purposes: ** They serve as a phonetic guide. They indicate the presence of short vowels (, , or ) or their absence (). ** At the last letter of a word, the vowel point reflects the inflection case or conjugation mood. *** For nouns, The is for the nominative, for the accusative, and for the genitive. *** For verbs, the is for the imperfective, for the perfective, and the is for verbs in the imperative or
jussive The jussive (abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood of verbs for issuing orders, commanding, or exhorting (within a subjunctive framework). English verbs are not marked for this mood. The mood is similar to the ''cohortative'' mood, which typically a ...
moods. * Vowel points or should not be confused with consonant points or () – one, two or three dots written above or below a consonant to distinguish between letters of the same or similar
form Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens. Form also refers to: *Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter data * ...
.


Greek

These diacritics are used in addition to the acute, grave, and circumflex accents and the diaeresis: * – iota subscript () * – rough breathing ( grc, δασὺ πνεῦμα, dasỳ pneûma, la, spīritus asper): aspiration * – smooth (or soft) breathing ( grc, ψιλὸν πνεῦμα, psilòn pneûma, la, spīritus lēnis): lack of aspiration


Hebrew

*
Niqqud In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in ...
** – Dagesh ** – Mappiq ** – Rafe ** –
Shin dot Shin (also spelled Šin (') or Sheen) is the twenty-first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Shin , Hebrew Shin , Aramaic Shin , Syriac Shin ܫ, and Arabic Shin (in abjadi order, 13th in modern order). Its sound value is a voi ...
(at top right corner) ** – Sin dot (at top left corner) ** – Shva ** – Kubutz ** – Holam ** – Kamatz ** – Patakh ** – Segol ** – Tzeire ** – Hiriq * Cantillation marks do not generally render correctly; refer to Hebrew cantillation#Names and shapes of the ta'amim for a complete table together with instructions for how to maximize the possibility of viewing them in a web browser * Other ** – Geresh ** – Gershayim


Korean

The diacritics 〮 and 〯 , known as Bangjeom (), were used to mark pitch accents in
Hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The l ...
for
Middle Korean Middle Korean is the period in the history of the Korean language succeeding Old Korean and yielding in 1600 to the Modern period. The boundary between the Old and Middle periods is traditionally identified with the establishment of Goryeo in 9 ...
. They were written to the left of a syllable in vertical writing and above a syllable in horizontal writing.


Sanskrit and Indic


Syriac

* A dot above and a dot below a letter represent , transliterated as ''a'' or ''ă'', * Two diagonally-placed dots above a letter represent , transliterated as ''ā'' or ''â'' or ''å'', * Two horizontally-placed dots below a letter represent , transliterated as ''e'' or ''ĕ''; often pronounced and transliterated as ''i'' in the East Syriac dialect, * Two diagonally-placed dots below a letter represent , transliterated as ''ē'', * A dot underneath the ''Beth'' represent a soft sound, transliterated as ''v'' * A tilde (~) placed under ''Gamel'' represent a sound, transliterated as ''j'' * The letter ''Waw'' with a dot below it represents , transliterated as ''ū'' or ''u'', * The letter ''Waw'' with a dot above it represents , transliterated as ''ō'' or ''o'', * The letter ''Yōḏ'' with a dot beneath it represents , transliterated as ''ī'' or ''i'', * A tilde (~) under ''Kaph'' represent a sound, transliterated as ''ch'' or ''č'', * A semicircle under ''Peh'' represents an sound, transliterated as ''f'' or ''ph''. In addition to the above vowel marks, transliteration of Syriac sometimes includes ''ə'', ''e̊'' or superscript ''e'' (or often nothing at all) to represent an original Aramaic schwa that became lost later on at some point in the development of Syriac. Some transliteration schemes find its inclusion necessary for showing spirantization or for historical reasons.


Non-alphabetic scripts

Some non-alphabetic scripts also employ symbols that function essentially as diacritics. * Non-pure
abjad An abjad (, ar, أبجد; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vow ...
s (such as Hebrew and
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a 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. E.Watson; Walter ...
script) and
abugida An abugida (, from Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel no ...
s use diacritics for denoting vowels. Hebrew and Arabic also indicate consonant doubling and change with diacritics; Hebrew and
Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...
use them for foreign sounds. Devanagari and related abugidas also use a diacritical mark called a '' virama'' to mark the absence of a vowel. In addition, Devanagari uses the moon-dot ''
chandrabindu Chandrabindu (IAST: , in Sanskrit) is a diacritic sign with the form of a dot inside the lower half of a circle. It is used in the Devanagari (ँ), Bengali-Assamese (), Gujarati (ઁ), Odia (ଁ), Telugu (ఁ), Javanese ( ꦀ) and other ...
'' ( ँ ) for vowel nasalization. * Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics use several types of diacritics, including the diacritics with alphabetic properties known as Medials and Finals. Although long vowels originally were indicated with a negative line through the Syllabic glyphs, making the glyph appear broken, in the modern forms, a
dot above When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the '' interpunct'' ( · ), or to the glyphs "combining dot above" ( ◌̇ ) and "combining dot below" ( ◌̣ ) which may be combined with some letters of th ...
is used to indicate vowel length. In some of the styles, a ring above indicates a long vowel with a off-glide. Another diacritic, the "inner ring" is placed at the glyph's head to modify to and to Medials such as the "w-dot" placed next to the Syllabics glyph indicates a being placed between the syllable onset consonant and the nucleus vowel. Finals indicate the syllable coda consonant; some of the syllable coda consonants in word medial positions, such as with the "h-tick", indicate the fortification of the consonant in the syllable following it. * The Japanese '' hiragana'' and '' katakana''
syllabaries In the linguistic study of written languages, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) moras which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary, called a syllabogram, typically represents an (optiona ...
use the ''dakuten'' (◌゛) and ''handakuten'' (◌゜) (in Japanese: 濁点 and 半濁点) symbols, also known as ''nigori'' (濁 "muddying") or ''ten-ten'' (点々 "dot dot") and ''maru'' (丸 "circle"), to indicate voiced consonants or other phonetic changes. * Emoticons are commonly created with diacritic symbols, especially
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
ese emoticons on popular imageboards.


Alphabetization or collation

Different languages use different rules to put diacritic characters in
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
ical order. French and Portuguese treat letters with diacritical marks the same as the underlying letter for purposes of ordering and dictionaries. The
Scandinavian languages The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is als ...
and the
Finnish language Finnish ( endonym: or ) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedi ...
, by contrast, treat the characters with diacritics ''å'', ''ä'', and ''ö'' as distinct letters of the alphabet, and sort them after ''z''. Usually ''ä'' (a-umlaut) and ''ö'' (o-umlaut) sed in Swedish and Finnishare sorted as equivalent to ''æ'' (ash) and ''ø'' (o-slash) sed in Danish and Norwegian Also, ''aa'', when used as an alternative spelling to ''å'', is sorted as such. Other letters modified by diacritics are treated as variants of the underlying letter, with the exception that ''ü'' is frequently sorted as ''y''. Languages that treat accented letters as variants of the underlying letter usually alphabetize words with such symbols immediately after similar unmarked words. For instance, in German where two words differ only by an umlaut, the word without it is sorted first in German dictionaries (e.g. ''schon'' and then ''schön'', or ''fallen'' and then ''fällen''). However, when names are concerned (e.g. in phone books or in author catalogues in libraries), umlauts are often treated as combinations of the vowel with a suffixed ''e''; Austrian phone books now treat characters with umlauts as separate letters (immediately following the underlying vowel). In Spanish, the grapheme ''ñ'' is considered a new letter different from ''n'' and collated between ''n'' and ''o'', as it denotes a different sound from that of a plain ''n''. But the accented vowels ''á'', ''é'', ''í'', ''ó'', ''ú'' are not separated from the unaccented vowels ''a'', ''e'', ''i'', ''o'', ''u'', as the acute accent in Spanish only modifies stress within the word or denotes a distinction between
homonym In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones ( equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definitio ...
s, and does not modify the sound of a letter. For a comprehensive list of the collating orders in various languages, see Collating sequence.


Generation with computers

Modern computer technology was developed mostly in English-speaking countries, so data formats, keyboard layouts, etc. were developed with a bias favoring English, a language with an alphabet without diacritical marks. Efforts have been made to create
internationalized domain names An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-latin script or alphabet, such as Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Mandarin, simplifie ...
that further extend the English alphabet (e.g., "pokémon.com"). Depending on the keyboard layout, which differs amongst countries, it is more or less easy to enter letters with diacritics on computers and typewriters. Some have their own keys; some are created by first pressing the key with the
diacritic mark 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 ...
followed by the letter to place it on. Such a key is sometimes referred to as a dead key, as it produces no output of its own but modifies the output of the key pressed after it. In modern Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems, the keyboard layouts ''US International'' and ''UK International'' feature dead keys that allow one to type Latin letters with the acute, grave, circumflex, diaeresis/umlaut, tilde, and cedilla found in Western European languages (specifically, those combinations found in the ISO Latin-1 character set) directly: + gives ''ë'', + gives ''õ'', etc. On Apple Macintosh computers, there are keyboard shortcuts for the most common diacritics; followed by a vowel places an acute accent, followed by a vowel gives an umlaut, gives a cedilla, etc. Diacritics can be composed in most X Window System keyboard layouts, as well as other operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, using additional software. On computers, the availability of code pages determines whether one can use certain diacritics.
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, ...
solves this problem by assigning every known character its own code; if this code is known, most modern computer systems provide a method to input it. With Unicode, it is also possible to combine diacritical marks with most characters. However, as of 2019, very few fonts include the necessary support to correctly render character-plus-diacritic(s) for the Latin, Cyrillic and some other alphabets (exceptions includ
Andika
.


Languages with letters containing diacritics

The following languages have letters that contain diacritics that are considered independent letters distinct from those without diacritics.


Latin/Roman letters

Baltic :* Latvian has the following letters: '' ā, ē, ī, ū, č, ģ, ķ, ļ, ņ, š, ž'' :* Lithuanian. In general usage, where letters appear with the caron (''č, š'' and ''ž''), they are considered as separate letters from ''c, s'' or ''z'' and collated separately; letters with the ogonek ('' ą, ę, į'' and '' ų''), the macron ('' ū'') and the superdot ('' ė'') are considered as separate letters as well, but not given a unique collation order. Celtic :*
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 peopl ...
uses the circumflex, diaeresis, acute, and grave accents on its seven vowels ''a, e, i, o, u, w, y'' (hence the composites â, ê, î, ô, û, ŵ, ŷ, ä, ë, ï, ö, ü, ẅ, ÿ, á, é, í, ó, ú, ẃ, ý, à, è, ì, ò, ù, ẁ, ỳ). :* Following spelling reforms since the 1970s,
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...
uses graves only, which can be used on any vowel ('' à, è, ì, ò, ù''). Formerly acute accents could be used on ''á, ó'' and ''é'', which were used to indicate a specific vowel quality. With the elimination of these accents, the new orthography relies on the reader having prior knowledge of pronunciation of a given word. :* Manx uses the single diacritic ç combined with h to give the digraph (pronounced ) to mark the distinction between it and the digraph (pronounced or ). Other diacritics used in Manx included â, ê, ï, etc. to mark the distinction between two similarly spelled words but with slightly differing pronunciation. :* Irish uses only acute accents to mark long vowels, following the 1948 spelling reform. Lenition is indicated using an
overdot When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the '' interpunct'' ( · ), or to the glyphs "combining dot above" ( ◌̇ ) and "combining dot below" ( ◌̣ ) which may be combined with some letters of t ...
in Gaelic type: in Roman type, a suffixed is used. :* Breton does not have a single orthography (spelling system), but uses diacritics for a number of purposes. The diaeresis is used to mark that two vowels are pronounced separately and not as a diphthong/digraph. The circumflex is used to mark long vowels, but usually only when the vowel length is not predictable by phonology. Nasalization of vowels may be marked with a tilde, or following the vowel with the letter <ñ>. The plural suffix -où is used as a unified spelling to represent a suffix with a number of pronunciations in different dialects, and to distinguish this suffix from the digraph which is pronounced as . An apostrophe is used to distinguish c'h, pronounced as the digraph is used in other Celtic languages, from the French-influenced digraph ch, pronounced . Finno-Ugric :*
Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also * ...
has a distinct letter '' õ'', which contains a tilde. Estonian "dotted vowels" ''ä'', ''ö'', ''ü'' are similar to German, but these are also distinct letters, not like German umlauted letters. All four have their own place in the alphabet, between ''w'' and ''x''. Carons in ''š'' or ''ž'' appear only in foreign proper names and loanwords. Also these are distinct letters, placed in the alphabet between ''s'' and ''t''. :* Finnish uses dotted (umlauted) vowels (''ä'' and ''ö''). As in Swedish and Estonian, these are regarded as individual letters, rather than vowel + umlaut combinations (as happens in German). It also uses the characters ''å'', ''š'' and ''ž'' in foreign names and loanwords. In the Finnish and Swedish alphabets, ''å'', ''ä'' and ''ö'' collate as separate letters after ''z'', the others as variants of their base letter. :* Hungarian uses the umlaut, the acute and double acute accent (unique to Hungarian): (''ö, ü''), (''á, é, í, ó, ú'') and (''ő, ű''). The acute accent indicates the long form of a vowel (in case of ''i/í'', ''o/ó'', ''u/ú'') while the double acute performs the same function for ''ö'' and ''ü''. The acute accent can also indicate a different sound (more open, like in case of ''a/á'', ''e/é''). Both long and short forms of the vowels are listed separately in the Hungarian alphabet, but members of the pairs ''a/á, e/é, i/í, o/ó, ö/ ő, u/ú'' and ''ü/ ű'' are collated in dictionaries as the same letter. :* Livonian has the following letters: ''ā, ä, ǟ, , ē, ī, ļ, ņ, ō, ȯ, ȱ, õ, ȭ, ŗ, š, ț, ū, ž''. Germanic :* Faroese uses acutes and other special letters. All are considered separate letters and have their own place in the alphabet: '' á'', '' í'', '' ó'', '' ú'', '' ý'' and '' ø''. :* Icelandic uses acutes and other special letters. All are considered separate letters, and have their own place in the alphabet: '' á'', '' é'', '' í'', '' ó'', '' ú'', '' ý'', and '' ö''. :* Danish and Norwegian use additional characters like the o-slash '' ø'' and the a-overring '' å''. These letters come after ''z'' and '' æ'' in the order ''ø, å''. Historically, the ''å'' has developed from a ligature by writing a small superscript ''a'' over a lowercase ''a''; if an ''å'' character is unavailable, some Scandinavian languages allow the substitution of a doubled ''a''. The Scandinavian languages collate these letters after z, but have different collation standards. :* Swedish uses a-diaeresis ('' ä'') and o-diaeresis ('' ö'') in the place of ash (''æ'') and slashed o ('' ø'') in addition to the a-overring (''å''). Historically, the diaeresis for the Swedish letters ''ä'' and ''ö'', like the German umlaut, developed from a small Gothic ''e'' written above the letters. These letters are collated after ''z'', in the order ''å, ä, ö''. Romance :* In Asturian, Galician and Spanish, the character '' ñ'' is a letter and collated between ''n'' and ''o''. :* Asturian uses ( lower case ), and ( lower case ) :*
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
uses four diacritics appearing on vowels (circumflex, acute, grave, diaeresis) and the cedilla appearing in "ç". :* Italian uses two diacritics appearing on vowels (acute, grave) :* Leonese: could use '' ñ'' or '' nn''. :* Portuguese uses a tilde with the vowels and and a cedilla with c. :*
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, traditiona ...
uses a breve on the letter ''a'' ('' ă'') to indicate the sound schwa , as well as a circumflex over the letters ''a'' ('' â'') and ''i'' ('' î'') for the sound . Romanian also writes a comma below the letters ''s'' ('' ș'') and ''t'' ('' ț'') to represent the sounds and , respectively. These characters are collated after their non-diacritic equivalent. :* Spanish does not have any diacritics: is considered a distinct letter from , not a mutated form of it. Slavic :* The Bosnian, Croatian, and
Serbian Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also * * * Old Serbian (disambiguation ...
Latin alphabets have the symbols '' č'', '' ć'', '' đ'', '' š'' and '' ž'', which are considered separate letters and are listed as such in dictionaries and other contexts in which words are listed according to alphabetical order. They also have one digraph including a diacritic, '' '', which is also alphabetized independently, and follows '' d'' and precedes '' đ'' in the alphabetical order. The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet has no diacritics, instead it has a grapheme ( glyph) for every letter of its Latin counterpart (including Latin letters with diacritics and the digraphs dž, '' lj'' and '' nj''). :* The Czech alphabet uses the acute (á é í ó ú ý), caron ( č ď ě ň ř š ť ž), and for one letter ( ů) the ring. (Note that in ď and ť the caron is modified to look rather like an apostrophe.) :* Polish has the following letters: '' ą ć ę ł ń ó ś ź ż''. These are considered to be separate letters: each of them is placed in the alphabet immediately after its Latin counterpart (e.g. ''ą'' between ''a'' and ''b''), ''ź'' and ''ż'' are placed after ''z'' in that order. :* The Slovak alphabet uses the acute (á é í ó ú ý ĺ ŕ), caron (č ď ľ ň š ť ž dž), umlaut (ä) and circumflex accent (ô). All of those are considered separate letters and are placed directly after the original counterpart in the
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
.http://www.juls.savba.sk/ediela/psp2000/psp.pdf page 12, section I.2 :* The basic Slovenian alphabet has the symbols '' č'', '' š'', and '' ž'', which are considered separate letters and are listed as such in dictionaries and other contexts in which words are listed according to alphabetical order. Letters with a caron are placed right after the letters as written without the diacritic. The letter ''đ'' may be used in non-transliterated foreign words, particularly names, and is placed after ''č'' and before ''d''. Turkic :*
Azerbaijani Azerbaijani may refer to: * Something of, or related to Azerbaijan * Azerbaijanis * Azerbaijani language See also * Azerbaijan (disambiguation) * Azeri (disambiguation) * Azerbaijani cuisine * Culture of Azerbaijan The culture of Azerbaijan ...
includes the distinct Turkish alphabet letters Ç, Ğ, I, İ, Ö, Ş and Ü. :* Crimean Tatar includes the distinct Turkish alphabet letters Ç, Ğ, I, İ, Ö, Ş and Ü. Unlike Turkish, Crimean Tatar also has the letter Ñ. :* Gagauz includes the distinct Turkish alphabet letters Ç, Ğ, I, İ, Ö and Ü. Unlike Turkish, Gagauz also has the letters Ä, Ê Ș and Ț. Ș and Ț are derived from the Romanian alphabet for the same sounds. Sometime the Turkish Ş may be used instead of Ș. :* Turkish uses a ''G'' with a breve ('' Ğ''), two letters with an umlaut ('' Ö'' and '' Ü'', representing two rounded front vowels), two letters with a cedilla ('' Ç'' and '' Ş'', representing the affricate and the fricative ), and also possesses a dotted capital ''İ'' (and a dotless lowercase ''ı'' representing a high unrounded back vowel). In Turkish each of these are separate letters, rather than versions of other letters, where dotted capital ''İ'' and lower case ''i'' are the same letter, as are dotless capital ''I'' and lowercase ''ı''. Typographically, ''Ç'' and ''Ş'' are sometimes rendered with a subdot, as in ''Ṣ''; when a hook is used, it tends to have more a comma shape than the usual cedilla. The new Azerbaijani, Crimean Tatar, and Gagauz alphabets are based on the Turkish alphabet and its same diacriticized letters, with some additions. :* Turkmen includes the distinct Turkish alphabet letters Ç, Ö, Ş and Ü. In addition, Turkmen uses A with diaeresis ('' Ä'') to represent , N with caron ('' Ň'') to represent the velar nasal , Y with acute ('' Ý'') to represent the palatal approximant , and Z with caron ('' Ž'') to represent . Other :* Albanian has two special letters Ç and Ë upper and lowercase. They are placed next to the most similar letters in the alphabet, c and e correspondingly. :* Esperanto has the symbols '' ŭ'', '' ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ'' and '' ŝ'', which are included in the alphabet, and considered separate letters. :* Filipino also has the character '' ñ'' as a letter and is collated between n and o. :* Hawaiian uses the kahakō ( macron) over vowels, although there is some disagreement over considering them as individual letters. The kahakō over a vowel can completely change the meaning of a word that is spelled the same but without the kahakō. :* Kurdish uses the symbols Ç, Ê, Î, Ş and Û with other 26 standard Latin alphabet symbols. :* Lakota alphabet uses the caron for the letters ''č'', ''ȟ'', ''ǧ'', ''š'', and ''ž''. It also uses the acute accent for stressed vowels á, é, í, ó, ú, áŋ, íŋ, úŋ. :* Malay uses some diacritics such as ''á, ā, ç, í, ñ, ó, š, ú''. Uses of diacritics was continued until late 19th century except ''ā'' and ''ē''. :* Maltese uses a C, G, and Z with a dot over them (Ċ, Ġ, Ż), and also has an H with an extra horizontal bar. For uppercase H, the extra bar is written slightly above the usual bar. For lowercase H, the extra bar is written crossing the vertical, like a ''t'', and not touching the lower part ( Ħ, ħ). The above characters are considered separate letters. The letter 'c' without a dot has fallen out of use due to redundancy. 'Ċ' is pronounced like the English 'ch' and 'k' is used as a hard c as in 'cat'. 'Ż' is pronounced just like the English 'Z' as in 'Zebra', while 'Z' is used to make the sound of 'ts' in English (like 'tsunami' or 'maths'). 'Ġ' is used as a soft 'G' like in 'geometry', while the 'G' sounds like a hard 'G' like in 'log'. The digraph 'għ' (called ''għajn'' after the
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a 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. E.Watson; Walter ...
letter name ''ʻayn'' for غ) is considered separate, and sometimes ordered after 'g', whilst in other volumes it is placed between 'n' and 'o' (the Latin letter 'o' originally evolved from the shape of Phoenician ''ʻayin'', which was traditionally collated after Phoenician ''nūn''). :* The romanization of Syriac uses the altered letters of. '' Ā, Č, , Ē, Ë, Ġ, , Ō, Š, ,
Ṭ (minuscule: ṭ) is a letter of the Latin alphabet, formed from T with the addition of a dot below the letter. It is used in the orthography of the Mizo language and is pronounced almost like a 'tr' as it sounds in English. Although the M ...
, Ū, Ž'' alongside the 26 standard Latin alphabet symbols. :* Vietnamese uses the horn diacritic for the letters ''ơ'' and ''ư''; the circumflex for the letters ''â'', ''ê'', and ''ô''; the breve for the letter ''ă''; and a bar through the letter ''đ''. Separately, it also has á, à, ả, ã and ạ, the five tones used for vowels besides the flat tone 'a'.


Cyrillic letters The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking c ...

:* Belarusian and Uzbek Cyrillic have a letter '' ў''. :* Belarusian, Bulgarian, Russian and Ukrainian have the letter '' й''. :* Belarusian and Russian have the letter '' ё''. In Russian, this letter is usually replaced by '' е'', although it has a different pronunciation. The use of ''е'' instead of ''ё'' does not affect the pronunciation. ''Ё'' is always used in children's books and in dictionaries. A
minimal pair In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate ...
is все (''vs'e'', "everybody" pl.) and всё (''vs'o'', "everything" n. sg.). In Belarusian the replacement by ''е'' is a mistake; in Russian, it is permissible to use either ''е'' or ''ё'' for ''ё'' but the former is more common in everyday writing (as opposed to instructional or juvenile writing). :* The Cyrillic
Ukrainian alphabet The Ukrainian alphabet ( uk, абе́тка, áзбука алфа́ві́т, abetka, azbuka alfavit) is the set of letters used to write Ukrainian, which is the official language of Ukraine. It is one of several national variations of the ...
has the letters '' ґ'', '' й'' and '' ї''. Ukrainian Latynka has many more. :*
Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Ma ...
has the letters '' ќ'' and '' ѓ''. :* In Bulgarian and
Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Ma ...
the possessive pronoun ѝ (''ì'', "her") is spelled with a grave accent in order to distinguish it from the conjunction и (''i'', "and"). :* The acute accent above any vowel in Cyrillic alphabets is used in dictionaries, books for children and foreign learners to indicate the word stress, it also can be used for disambiguation of similarly spelled words with different lexical stresses.


Diacritics that do not produce new letters


English

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 ...
is one of the few European languages that does not have many words that contain diacritical marks. Instead, digraphs are the main way the Modern English alphabet adapts the Latin to its phonemes. Exceptions are unassimilated foreign loanwords, including borrowings from
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
(and, increasingly, Spanish, like ''jalapeño'' and ''piñata''); however, the diacritic is also sometimes omitted from such words. Loanwords that frequently appear with the diacritic in English include ''café'', ''résumé'' or ''resumé'' (a usage that helps distinguish it from the verb ''resume''), ''soufflé'', and ''naïveté'' (see '' English terms with diacritical marks''). In older practice (and even among some orthographically-conservative modern writers), one may see examples such as ''élite'', ''mêlée'' and ''rôle.'' English speakers and writers once used the diaeresis more often than now in words such as ''coöperation'' (from Fr. ''coopération''), ''zoölogy'' (from Grk. ''zoologia''), and ''seeër'' (now more commonly ''see-er ''or simply'' seer'') as a way of indicating that adjacent vowels belonged to separate syllables, but this practice has become far less common. ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' magazine is a major publication that continues to use the diaeresis in place of a hyphen for clarity and economy of space. A few English words, out of context, can only be distinguished from others by a diacritic or modified letter, including ''exposé'', ''lamé'', ''maté'', ''öre'', ''øre'', ''pâté'', and ''rosé''. The same is true of ''résumé,'' alternatively ' but, nevertheless, it is regularly spelled ''resume''. In a few words, diacritics that did not exist in the original have been added for disambiguation, as in ''maté'' (from Sp. and Port. ''mate''), ''saké'' (the standard Romanization of the Japanese has no accent mark), and '' Malé'' (from Dhivehi މާލެ), to clearly distinguish them from the English words ''mate'', ''sake'', and ''male''. The acute and grave accents are occasionally used in poetry and lyrics: the acute to indicate stress overtly where it might be ambiguous (''rébel'' vs. ''rebél'') or nonstandard for metrical reasons (''caléndar''), the grave to indicate that an ordinarily silent or elided syllable is pronounced (''warnèd,'' ''parlìament''). In certain personal names such as '' Renée'' and '' Zoë'', often two spellings exist, and the preference will be known only to those close to the person themselves. Even when the name of a person is spelled with a diacritic, like '' Charlotte Brontë'', this may be dropped in English-language articles, and even in official documents such as passports, due either to carelessness, the typist not knowing how to enter letters with diacritical marks, or technical reasons (
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, for example, does not allow names with diacritics, as the computer system cannot process such characters). They also appear in some worldwide company names and/or trademarks, such as '' Nestlé'' or '' Citroën''.


Other languages

The following languages have letter-diacritic combinations that are not considered independent letters. * Afrikaans uses a diaeresis to mark vowels that are pronounced separately and not as one would expect where they occur together, for example ''voel'' (to feel) as opposed to ''voël'' (bird). The circumflex is used in ''ê, î, ô'' and ''û'' generally to indicate long
close-mid A close-mid vowel (also mid-close vowel, high-mid vowel, mid-high vowel or half-close vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned one ...
, as opposed to
open-mid An open-mid vowel (also mid-open vowel, low-mid vowel, mid-low vowel or half-open vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned one thi ...
vowels, for example in the words ''wêreld'' (world) and ''môre'' (morning, tomorrow). The acute accent is used to add emphasis in the same way as underlining or writing in bold or italics in English, for example ''Dit is jóú boek'' (It is your book). The grave accent is used to distinguish between words that are different only in placement of the stress, for example ''appel'' (apple) and ''appèl'' (appeal) and in a few cases where it makes no difference to the pronunciation but distinguishes between homophones. The two most usual cases of the latter are in the sayings ''òf... òf'' (either... or) and ''nòg... nòg'' (neither... nor) to distinguish them from ''of'' (or) and ''nog'' (again, still). * Aymara uses a diacritical horn over ''p, q, t, k, ch''. *
Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
has the following composite characters: ''à, ç, é, è, í, ï, ó, ò, ú, ü, l·l''. The acute and the grave indicate stress and
vowel height 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 (le ...
, the cedilla marks the result of a historical palatalization, the diaeresis indicates either a
hiatus Hiatus may refer to: * Hiatus (anatomy), a natural fissure in a structure * Hiatus (stratigraphy), a discontinuity in the age of strata in stratigraphy *''Hiatus'', a genus of picture-winged flies with sole member species '' Hiatus fulvipes'' * G ...
, or that the letter ''u'' is pronounced when the graphemes ''gü, qü'' are followed by ''e'' or ''i'', the interpunct (·) distinguishes the different values of ''ll/l·l''. * Some orthographies of Cornish such as
Kernowek Standard Kernowek Standard (KS, ''Standard Cornish''), its initial version spelt Kernowak Standard, is a variety of the spelling of revived Cornish. It has two specifications, the first of which was published as a draft proposal in March 2007, and the s ...
and
Unified Cornish Unified Cornish (UC) (''Kernewek Uny '', ''KU'') is a variety of the Cornish language of the Cornish revival. Developed gradually by Robert Morton Nance during and before the 1930s, it derived its name from its standardisation of the variant spe ...
use diacritics, while others such as Kernewek Kemmyn and the
Standard Written Form The Standard Written Form or SWF ( kw, Furv Skrifys Savonek) of the Cornish language is an orthography standard that is designed to "provide public bodies and the educational system with a universally acceptable, inclusive, and neutral orthograph ...
do not (or only use them optionally in teaching materials). * Dutch uses the diaeresis. For example, in ''ruïne'' it means that the ''u'' and the ''i'' are separately pronounced in their usual way, and not in the way that the combination ''ui'' is normally pronounced. Thus it works as a separation sign and not as an indication for an alternative version of the ''i''. Diacritics can be used for emphasis (''érg koud'' for ''very'' cold) or for disambiguation between a number of words that are spelled the same when context doesn't indicate the correct meaning (''één appel'' = one apple, ''een appel'' = an apple; ''vóórkomen'' = to occur, ''voorkómen'' = to prevent). Grave and acute accents are used on a very small number of words, mostly loanwords. The ç also appears in some loanwords. * Faroese. Non-Faroese accented letters are not added to the Faroese alphabet. These include ''é'', ''ö'', ''ü'', ''å'' and recently also letters like ''š'', ''ł'', and ''ć''. * Filipino has the following composite characters: ''á, à, â, é, è, ê, í, ì, î, ó, ò, ô, ú, ù, û''. The actual use of diacritics for Filipino is, however, uncommon, and is meant only to distinguish between
homonym In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones ( equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definitio ...
s with different stresses and meanings that either occur near each other in a text or to aid the reader in ascertaining its otherwise ambiguous meaning. The letter eñe is due to the Spanish alphabet and too, is considered a separate letter. The diacritics appears in Spanish loanwords and names if Spanish orthography is observed. * Finnish. Carons in ''š'' and ''ž'' appear only in foreign proper names and
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 ...
s, but may be substituted with ''sh'' or ''zh'' if and only if it is technically impossible to produce accented letters in the medium. Contrary to Estonian, ''š'' and ''ž'' are not considered distinct letters in Finnish. *
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
uses five diacritics. The grave (''accent grave'') marks the sound when over an e, as in ''père'' ("father") or is used to distinguish words that are otherwise homographs such as ''a''/''à'' ("has"/"to") or ''ou''/''où'' ("or"/"where"). 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 ef ...
(''accent aigu'') is only used in "é", modifying the "e" to make the sound , as in ''étoile'' ("star"). The circumflex (''accent circonflexe'') generally denotes that an S once followed the vowel in Old French or Latin, as in ''fête'' ("party"), the Old French being ''feste'' and the Latin being ''festum''. Whether the circumflex modifies the vowel's pronunciation depends on the dialect and the vowel. The cedilla (''cédille'') indicates that a normally hard "c" (before the vowels "a", "o", and "u") is to be pronounced , as in ''ça'' ("that"). The diaeresis diacritic (french: tréma) indicates that two adjacent vowels that would normally be pronounced as one are to be pronounced separately, as in ''Noël'' ("Christmas"). * Galician vowels can bear an acute (''á, é, í, ó, ú'') to indicate stress or difference between two otherwise same written words (''é'', 'is' vs. ''e'', 'and'), but the diaeresis is only used with ''ï'' and ''ü'' to show two separate vowel sounds in pronunciation. Only in foreign words may Galician use other diacritics such as ''ç'' (common during the Middle Ages), ''ê'', or ''à''. *
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
uses the three umlauted characters ''ä'', ''ö'' and ''ü''. These diacritics indicate vowel changes. For instance, the word ''Ofen'' "oven" has the plural ''Öfen'' . The mark originated as a superscript ''e''; a handwritten blackletter ''e'' resembles two parallel vertical lines, like a diaeresis. Due to this history, "ä", "ö" and "ü" can be written as "ae", "oe" and "ue" respectively, if the umlaut letters are not available. * Hebrew has many various diacritic marks known as ''
niqqud In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in ...
'' that are used above and below script to represent vowels. These must be distinguished from cantillation, which are keys to pronunciation and syntax. * 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 ...
uses diacritic symbols and characters to indicate phonetic features or secondary articulations. * Irish uses the acute to indicate that a vowel is
long Long may refer to: Measurement * Long, characteristic of something of great duration * Long, characteristic of something of great length * Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate * Longa (music), note value in early music mensu ...
: ''á'', ''é'', ''í'', ''ó'', ''ú''. It is known as ''síneadh fada'' "long sign" or simply ''fada'' "long" in Irish. In the older Gaelic type,
overdot When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the '' interpunct'' ( · ), or to the glyphs "combining dot above" ( ◌̇ ) and "combining dot below" ( ◌̣ ) which may be combined with some letters of t ...
s are used to indicate lenition of a consonant: ''ḃ'', ''ċ'', ''ḋ'', ''ḟ'', ''ġ'', ''ṁ'', ''ṗ'', ''ṡ'', ''ṫ''. * Italian mainly has 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 ef ...
and the grave (''à'', ''è''/''é'', ''ì'', ''ò''/''ó'', ''ù''), typically to indicate a stressed syllable that would not be stressed under the normal rules of pronunciation but sometimes also to distinguish between words that are otherwise spelled the same way (e.g. "e", and; "è", is). Despite its rare use, Italian orthography allows the circumflex (î) too, in two cases: it can be found in old literary context (roughly up to 19th century) to signal a syncope (fêro→fecero, they did), or in modern Italian to signal the contraction of ″-ii″ due to the plural ending -i whereas the root ends with another -i; e.g., s. demonio, p. demonii→demonî; in this case the circumflex also signals that the word intended is not demoni, plural of "demone" by shifting the accent (demònî, "devils"; dèmoni, "demons"). * Lithuanian uses 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 ef ...
, grave and tilde in dictionaries to indicate stress types in the language's pitch accent system. * Maltese also uses the grave on its vowels to indicate stress at the end of a word with two syllables or more:– lowercase letters: à, è, ì, ò, ù ; capital letters: À, È, Ì, Ò, Ù *
Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...
makes use of macrons to mark long vowels. * Occitan has the following composite characters: ''á, à, ç, é, è, í, ï, ó, ò, ú, ü, n·h, s·h''. The acute and the grave indicate stress and
vowel height 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 (le ...
, the cedilla marks the result of a historical palatalization, the diaeresis indicates either a
hiatus Hiatus may refer to: * Hiatus (anatomy), a natural fissure in a structure * Hiatus (stratigraphy), a discontinuity in the age of strata in stratigraphy *''Hiatus'', a genus of picture-winged flies with sole member species '' Hiatus fulvipes'' * G ...
, or that the letter ''u'' is pronounced when the graphemes ''gü, qü'' are followed by ''e'' or ''i'', and the interpunct (·) distinguishes the different values of ''nh/n·h'' and ''sh/s·h'' (i.e., that the letters are supposed to be pronounced separately, not combined into "ny" and "sh"). * Portuguese has the following composite characters: ''à, á, â, ã, ç, é, ê, í, ó, ô, õ, ú''. The acute and the circumflex indicate stress and vowel height, the grave indicates crasis, the tilde represents nasalization, and the cedilla marks the result of a historical lenition. * Acutes are also used in Slavic language dictionaries and textbooks to indicate lexical stress, placed over the vowel of the stressed syllable. This can also serve to disambiguate meaning (e.g., in Russian писа́ть (''pisáť'') means "to write", but пи́сать (''písať'') means "to piss"), or "бо́льшая часть" (the biggest part) vs "больша́я часть" (the big part). * Spanish uses the acute and the diaeresis. The acute is used on a vowel in a stressed syllable in words with irregular stress patterns. It can also be used to "break up" a diphthong as in ''tío'' (pronounced , rather than as it would be without the accent). Moreover, the acute can be used to distinguish words that otherwise are spelled alike, such as ''si'' ("if") and ''sí'' ("yes"), and also to distinguish interrogative and exclamatory pronouns from homophones with a different grammatical function, such as ''donde/¿dónde?'' ("where"/"where?") or ''como/¿cómo?'' ("as"/"how?"). The acute may also be used to avoid typographical ambiguity, as in ''1 ó 2'' ("1 or 2"; without the acute this might be interpreted as "1 0 2". The diaeresis is used only over ''u'' (''ü'') for it to be pronounced in the combinations ''gue'' and ''gui,'' where ''u'' is normally silent, for example ''ambigüedad.'' In poetry, the diaeresis may be used on ''i'' and ''u'' as a way to force a hiatus. As foreshadowed above, in nasal ''ñ'' the tilde (squiggle) is not considered a diacritic sign at all, but a composite part of a distinct glyph, with its own chapter in the dictionary: a glyph that denotes the 15th letter of the Spanish alphabet. * Swedish uses 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 ef ...
to show non-standard stress, for example in (café) and (résumé). This occasionally helps resolve ambiguities, such as ''ide'' (hibernation) versus ''idé'' (idea). In these words, the acute is not optional. Some proper names use non-standard diacritics, such as Carolina Klüft and Staël von Holstein. For foreign loanwords the original accents are strongly recommended, unless the word has been infused into the language, in which case they are optional. Hence ''crème fraîche'' but ''ampere''. Swedish also has the letters ''å'', ''ä'', and ''ö'', but these are considered distinct letters, not ''a'' and ''o'' with diacritics. *
Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...
does not have any diacritics in itself, but uses the Arabic numerals 2, 3 and 4 as diacritics to represent aspirated, voiced, and voiced-aspirated consonants when Tamil script is used to write long passages in Sanskrit. * Thai has its own system of diacritics derived from Indian numerals, which denote different tones. * Vietnamese uses the acute (''dấu sắc''), the grave (''dấu huyền''), the tilde (''dấu ngã''), the underdot (''dấu nặng'') and the hook above (''dấu hỏi'') on vowels as tone indicators. *
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 peopl ...
uses the circumflex, diaeresis, acute, and grave on its seven vowels ''a, e, i, o, u, w, y''. The most common is the circumflex (which it calls ''to bach'', meaning "little roof", or ''acen grom'' "crooked accent", or ''hirnod'' "long sign") to denote a long vowel, usually to disambiguate it from a similar word with a short vowel. The rarer grave accent has the opposite effect, shortening vowel sounds that would usually be pronounced long. The acute accent and diaeresis are also occasionally used, to denote stress and vowel separation respectively. The ''w''-circumflex and the ''y''-circumflex are among the most commonly accented characters in Welsh, but unusual in languages generally, and were until recently very hard to obtain in word-processed and HTML documents.


Transliteration

Several languages that are not written with the Roman alphabet are transliterated, or romanized, using diacritics. Examples: *
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a 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. E.Watson; Walter ...
has several romanisations, depending on the type of the application, region, intended audience, country, etc. many of them extensively use diacritics, e.g., some methods use an underdot for rendering emphatic consonants (ṣ, ṭ, ḍ, ẓ, ḥ). The macron is often used to render long vowels. š is often used for , ġ for . * Chinese has several romanizations that use the umlaut, but only on ''u'' (''ü''). In Hanyu Pinyin, the four tones 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 ...
are denoted by the macron (first tone), acute (second tone), caron (third tone) and grave (fourth tone) diacritics. Example: ''ā, á, ǎ, à''. * Romanized Japanese ( Rōmaji) occasionally uses macrons to mark long vowels. The Hepburn romanization system uses macrons to mark long vowels, and the Kunrei-shiki and Nihon-shiki systems use a circumflex. * Sanskrit, as well as many of its descendants, like
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
and
Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
, uses a lossless romanization system, IAST. This includes several letters with diacritical markings, such as the macron (ā, ī, ū), over- and underdots (ṛ, ḥ, ṃ, ṇ, ṣ, ṭ, ḍ) as well as a few others (ś, ñ).


Limits


Orthographic

Possibly the greatest number of combining diacritics ''required'' to compose a valid character in any Unicode language is 8, for the "well-known grapheme cluster in Tibetan and Ranjana scripts" or . It is consists of: # # # # # # # # # An example of rendering, may be broken depending on browser:


Unorthographic/ornamental

Some users have explored the limits of rendering in web browsers and other software by "decorating" words with multiple nonsensical diacritics per character. The result is called " Zalgo text". The composed bogus characters and words can be copied and pasted normally via the system clipboard. An example of rendering:


List of diacritics in Unicode

Diacritics for Latin script in Unicode:


See also

* Latin-script alphabets * Alt code * :Letters with diacritics * Collating sequence * Combining character * Compose key * English terms with diacritical marks * Heavy metal umlaut * ISO/IEC 8859 8-bit extended-Latin-alphabet European character encodings *
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...
* List of Latin letters * List of precomposed Latin characters in Unicode * List of U.S. cities with diacritics * Romanization * wikt:Appendix:English words with diacritics


Notes


References


External links


Context of Diacritics , A research project

Diacritics Project

Unicode


* ttp://www.elisanet.fi/mlang/strip.html Notes on the use of the diacritics, by Markus Lång
Entering International Characters (in Linux, KDE)

Standard Character Set for Macintosh
PDF at Adobe.com {{Latin script * Punctuation Typography