When used as 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 ...

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

letter Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...

s of the extended

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 th ...

s in use in Central European languages 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 ...

Dots

Overdot

Language scripts or transcription schemes that use the dot above a letter as a diacritical mark: * In some forms of Arabic romanization, stands for '' ghayin'' (غ); stands for

qāf Qoph ( Phoenician Qōp ) is the nineteenth letter of the Semitic scripts. Aramaic Qop is derived from the Phoenician letter, and derivations from Aramaic include Hebrew Qof , Syriac Qōp̄ ܩ and Arabic . Its original sound value was a W ...

(ق). * The Latin orthography for Chechen includes ċ, ç̇, ġ, q̇, and ẋ. * In Emilian-Romagnol, ''ṅ ṡ ż'' are used to represent . * Traditional Irish typography, where the dot denotes

lenition In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...

, and is called a or "dot of lenition": ''ḃ ċ ḋ ḟ ġ ṁ ṗ ṡ ṫ''. Alternatively, lenition may be represented by a following letter ''h'', thus: ''bh ch dh fh gh mh ph sh th''. In

Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writt ...

orthography, the dot was used only for ''ḟ ṡ'', while the following ''h'' was used for ''ch ph th''; lenition of other letters was not indicated. Later the two systems spread to the entire set of lenitable consonants and competed with each other. Eventually the standard practice was to use the dot when writing in Gaelic script and the following ''h'' when writing in antiqua. Thus ''ċ'' and ''ch'' represent the same phonetic element in Modern Irish. * lt, ė is pronounced as , as opposed to ''ę'', which is pronounced a lower (formerly nasalised), or ''e'', pronounced . * Livonian uses ȯ as one of its eight vowels. * mt, ċ is used for a

voiceless palato-alveolar affricate The voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant affricate or voiceless domed postalveolar sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with , (formerly ...

, ''ġ'' for a

voiced palato-alveolar affricate The voiced palato-alveolar sibilant affricate, voiced post-alveolar affricate or voiced domed postalveolar sibilant affricate, is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic ...

, and ''ż'' for a voiced alveolar sibilant. *

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...

: ''ẏ'' was sometimes used to distinguish etymological ''y'' from the glyph's use as a replacement for '' þ'', which did not exist in early press typographies. *

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

: In modernized orthography, ''ċ'' is used for a

, ''ġ'' for a palatal approximant (probably a

voiced palatal fricative The voiced palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) that represents this sound is (crossed-tail j), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j\. It is t ...

in the earliest texts), and (more rarely) ''sċ'' for a

voiceless palato-alveolar fricative A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describes the voiceless ...

and ''cġ'' for a

. * pl, ż is used for a

voiced retroflex sibilant The voiced retroflex sibilant 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 z`. Like all the retro ...

. * The Sioux languages such as

Lakota Lakota may refer to: * Lakota people, a confederation of seven related Native American tribes *Lakota language, the language of the Lakota peoples Place names In the United States: * Lakota, Iowa * Lakota, North Dakota, seat of Nelson County * La ...

, Osage, and

Crow A crow is a bird of the genus '' Corvus'', or more broadly a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. Crows are generally black in colour. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not pinned scientifica ...

sometimes use the dot above to indicate ejective stops. * In the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics orthography for the Cree,

Ojibwe The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains. According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...

, and Inuktitut languages, a dot above a symbol signifies that the symbol's vowel should be a long vowel—the equivalent effect using the Roman orthography is achieved by doubling the vowel (ᒥ = mi, ᒦ = mii ), placing a macron over the vowel (ᑲ = ka, ᑳ = kā), or placing a circumflex over the vowel (ᓄ = no, ᓅ = nô). * In Turkish, the dot above lowercase '' i'' and '' j'' (and uppercase '' İ'') is not regarded as an independent diacritic but as an integral part of the letter. It is called a

tittle A tittle or superscript dot is a small distinguishing mark, such as a diacritic in the form of a dot on a letter (for example, lowercase ''i'' or ''j''). The tittle is an integral part of the glyph of ''i'' and ''j'', but dot (diacritic), diacri ...

. I without an overdot is a separate letter. * In the

Rheinische Dokumenta The Rheinische Dokumenta () is a phonetic writing system developed in the early 1980s by a working group of academics, linguists, local language experts, and local language speakers of the Rhineland. It was presented to the public in 1986 by the L ...

phonetic writing system overdots denote a special pronunciation of ''r''. * The

Ulithian Ulithian is the language spoken on Ulithi Atoll and neighboring islands. Ulithian is one of the six official languages of the Federated States of Micronesia. There are some 3,000 speakers, although only 700 of these live on Ulithi Atoll. In 2010 ...

alphabet includes ȧ, ė, and ȯ. * The

ISO 9 ISO 9 is an international standard establishing a system for the transliteration into Latin characters of Cyrillic characters constituting the alphabets of many Slavic and non-Slavic languages. Published on February 23, 1995 by the Internatio ...

(1968)

Romanization of Cyrillic The romanization of Cyrillic is the process of converting text written in the Cyrillic script into the Latin (or Roman) alphabetic script, or a system for such conversion. Conversion of scripts can be classified as either the letter-by-letter t ...

uses ''ė'', ''ḟ'', and ''ẏ''. * In the ISO 259

Romanization of Hebrew The Hebrew language uses the Hebrew alphabet with optional vowel diacritics. The romanization of Hebrew is the use of the Latin alphabet to transliterate Hebrew words. For example, the Hebrew name spelled ("Israel") in the Hebrew alphabet ca ...

, the overdot is used to transcribe the

dagesh The dagesh () is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud (vowel points). It takes the form of a dot placed inside a Hebrew letter and has the effect of modi ...

: ; transcribes the shuruk. * In IAST and National Library at Calcutta romanization transcribing

languages of India Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-European languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians, both families together are sometimes known ...

, ''ṅ'' is used to represent . *

UNGEGN The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) is one of the nine expert groups of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and deals with the national and international standardization of geographical names. ...

romanization of

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' * In the

Venda language Venda or Tshivenda is a Bantu language and an official language of South Africa. It is mainly spoken by the Venda people in the northern part of South Africa's Limpopo province, as well as by some Lemba people in South Africa. The Venda l ...

, ''ṅ'' is used to represent . * Some countries use the overdot as a

decimal mark A decimal separator is a symbol used to separate the integer part from the fractional part of a number written in decimal form (e.g., "." in 12.45). Different countries officially designate different symbols for use as the separator. The choi ...

. The overdot is also used in the

Devanagari script 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 systems#Segmental syste ...

, where it is called

anusvara Anusvara (Sanskrit: ') is a symbol used in many Indic scripts to mark a type of nasal sound, typically transliterated . Depending on its location in the word and the language for which it is used, its exact pronunciation can vary. In the context ...

. In mathematics and

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

, when using

Newton's notation In differential calculus, there is no single uniform notation for differentiation. Instead, various notations for the derivative of a function or variable have been proposed by various mathematicians. The usefulness of each notation varies with ...

the dot denotes the

time derivative A time derivative is a derivative of a function with respect to time, usually interpreted as the rate of change of the value of the function. The variable denoting time is usually written as t. Notation A variety of notations are used to denote th ...

as in

v=\dot

. In addition, the overdot is one way used to indicate an infinitely repeating set of numbers in decimal notation, as in

0.\dot

, which is equal to the fraction , and

0.\dot\dot\dot\dot\dot\dot

0.\dot4285\dot

, which is equal to .

Underdot

* In a number of languages, an underdot indicates a raised or relatively high vowel, often the counterpart of a lower vowel marked with an ogonek or left unmarked. ** In Rotuman, "ạ" represents /ɔ/. ** In Romagnol, ''ẹ ọ'' are used to represent

, o The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark () in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline o ...

e.g. part of Riminese dialect ''fradẹll, ọcc'' "brothers, eyes". ** In academic notation of

Old Latin Old Latin, also known as Early Latin or Archaic Latin (Classical la, prīsca Latīnitās, lit=ancient Latinity), was the Latin language in the period before 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin. It descends from a common Proto-Italic ...

, ''ẹ̄'' (''e'' with underdot and macron) represents the long vowel, probably , that developed from the early Old Latin diphthong ''ei''. This vowel usually became ''ī'' in

Classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later period ...

. ** In academic transcription of

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...

, used in describing the development of the

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...

, ẹ and ọ represent the close-mid vowels and , in contrast with the open-mid vowels and , which are represented as ''e'' and ''o'' with ogonek (ę ǫ). ** Academic transcription of

uses the same conventions as Vulgar Latin above. ** In academic transcription of

Serbo-Croatian dialects The dialects of Serbo-Croatian include the vernacular forms of Serbo-Croatian as a whole or as part of its standard varieties: Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian. They are part of the dialect continuum of South Slavic languages that j ...

, ''ẹ ọ ạ'' (typically ) represent higher vowels than standard ''e o a'', and the first two often contrast with lower vowels marked with a

comma below The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark () in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline o ...

, ''e̦ o̦'' (typically ). * In

Inari Sami Inari may refer to: Shinto * Inari Ōkami, a Shinto spirit ** Mount Inari in Japan, site of Fushimi Inari-taisha, the main Shinto shrine to Inari ** Inari Shrine, shrines to the Shinto god Inari * Inari-zushi, a type of sushi Places * Inari, ...

, an underdot denotes a half-long voiced consonant: ''đ̣, j̣, ḷ, ṃ, ṇ, ṇj, ŋ̣, ṛ'', and ''ṿ''. The underdot is used in dictionaries, textbooks, and linguistic publications only. * In IAST and National Library at Calcutta romanization, transcribing

, a dot below a letter distinguishes the

retroflex consonant A retroflex ( /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal ( /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the h ...

s ''ṭ, ḍ, ṛ, ḷ, ṇ, ṣ'', while ''m'' with underdot (''ṃ'') signifies an ''

'' and ''h'' with underdot (''ḥ'') signifies a ''

visarga Visarga ( sa, विसर्गः, translit=visargaḥ) means "sending forth, discharge". In Sanskrit phonology ('' ''), ' (also called, equivalently, ' by earlier grammarians) is the name of a phone voiceless glottal fricative, , written as: ...

''. Very frequently (in modern transliterations of Sanskrit) an underdot is used instead of the

ring (diacritic) A ring diacritic may appear above or below letters. It may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets in various contexts. Rings Distinct letter The character Å (å) is derived from an A with a ring. It is a distinct le ...

below the vocalic ''r'' and ''l''. * In romanizations of some

Afroasiatic languages The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...

, particularly

Semitic Languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...

and Berber Languages, an underdot indicates an emphatic consonant. The romanization of Arabic uses . * In the

DIN 31636 DIN 31636 is the German standard for the Romanization of Hebrew. {, class="wikitable" , + DIN 31636 ! Hebrew , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ...

and

ALA-LC ALA-LC (American Library AssociationLibrary of Congress) is a set of standards for romanization, the representation of text in other writing systems using the Latin script. Applications The system is used to represent bibliographic information by ...

, ''ṿ'' represents vav ( ו), while ''v'' without the underdot represents beth ( ב). ''ḳ'' represents qoph ( ק) * The underdot is also used in the PDA orthography for Domari to show pharyngealization—the underdotted consonants represent the emphaticized sounds . *In Asturian, '' ḷ ḷ'' (underdotted double ''ll'') represents the

voiced retroflex plosive The voiced retroflex plosive or stop 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 d`. Like all the retroflex ...

or the

voiceless retroflex affricate The voiceless retroflex sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , sometimes simplified to or , and the equivalent X-SAMPA ...

, depending on dialect, and ''ḥ'' (underdotted ''h'') the

voiceless glottal fricative The voiceless glottal fricative, sometimes called voiceless glottal transition, and sometimes called the aspirate, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages that patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant '' phonologically'', b ...

. *In

O'odham language The O'odham peoples, including the Tohono O'odham, the Pima or Akimel O'odham, and the Hia C-ed O'odham, are indigenous Uto-Aztecan peoples of the Sonoran desert in southern and central Arizona and northern Sonora, united by a common herita ...

, '' Ḍ'' (''d'' with underdot) represents a

voiced retroflex stop The voiced retroflex plosive or stop 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 d`. Like all the retroflex ...

. *

: The ''nặng'' tone (low, glottal) is represented with a dot below the base vowel: ''ạ ặ ậ ẹ ệ ị ọ ộ ợ ụ ự ỵ''. * In

Igbo Igbo may refer to: * Igbo people, an ethnic group of Nigeria * Igbo language, their language * anything related to Igboland, a cultural region in Nigeria See also * Ibo (disambiguation) * Igbo mythology * Igbo music * Igbo art * * Igbo-Ukwu, a ...

, an underdot can be used on ''i'', ''o'', and ''u'' to make ''ị'', ''ọ'', and ''ụ''. The underdot symbolizes a reduction in the

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 ...

. * In

Yoruba The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...

, an underdot can be used on ''e'' and ''o'' to make ''ẹ'' and ''ọ'', symbolizing a reduction in the

, as well as on ''s'' to make ''ṣ'', symbolizing a postalveolar articulation. * In

Americanist phonetic notation Americanist phonetic notation, also known as the North American Phonetic Alphabet (NAPA), the Americanist Phonetic Alphabet or the American Phonetic Alphabet (APA), is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and American ...

, ''x'' with underdot '' x̣'' represents a

voiceless uvular fricative The voiceless uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , the Greek chi. The sound is represented by (ex with underdot) in Am ...

. * Underdots are used in the

phonetic writing system to denote a voiced ''s'' and special pronunciations of ''r'' and ''a''. * In the Fiero-Rhodes orthography for Eastern Ojibwe and

Odaawaa The Odawa (also Ottawa or Odaawaa ), said to mean "traders", are an Indigenous American ethnic group who primarily inhabit land in the Eastern Woodlands region, commonly known as the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. They ha ...

, in ''g̣'', ''ḥ'', and ''ḳ'', underdot is used to indicate labialization when either or following them was lost in syncope. * The Sicilian nexus ''ḍḍ'' is used to represent . * In Kalabari, ''ḅ'' and ''ḍ'' are used. * In Marshallese, underdots on consonants represent velarization, such as the velarized bilabial nasal ''ṃ''. * In Old Irish typography the letters ḃ, ḋ and ṫ are some times written as ḅ, ḍ and ṭ. * UNGEGN romanization of

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' * In Mizo, ''ṭ'' represents . * The underdot is also used in the

, where it is called

nukta ় The nuqta (Hindi–Urdu: //, fa, , noqte; from ar, نقطة, nuqṭa, dot; sometimes also spelled nukta) is a diacritic mark that was introduced in Devanagari and some other Indic scripts to represent sounds not present in the original scrip ...

Raised dot

* Number digits in

Enclosed Alphanumerics Enclosed Alphanumerics is a Unicode block of typographical symbols of an alphanumeric within a circle, a bracket or other not-closed enclosure, or ending in a full stop. It is currently fully allocated. Within the Basic Multilingual Plane, ...

: ' * In Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, in addition to the middle dot as a letter, centred dot diacritic, and dot above diacritic, there also is a two-dot diacritic in the Naskapi language representing /_w_V/ which depending on the placement on the specific Syllabic letter may resemble a colon when placed vertically, diaeresis when placed horizontally, or a combination of middle dot and dot above diacritic when placed either at an angle or enveloping a small raised letter . Additionally, in Northwestern Ojibwe, a small raised /wi/ as /w/, the middle dot is raised farther up as either or ; there also is a raised dot Final , which represents /w/ in some

Swampy Cree The Swampy Cree people, also known by their autonyms ''Néhinaw'', ''Maskiki Wi Iniwak'', ''Mushkekowuk,'' ''Maškékowak'' or ''Maskekon'' (and therefore also ''Muskegon'' and ''Muskegoes'') or by exonyms including ''West Main Cree,'' ''Lowlan ...

and /y/ in some Northwestern Ojibwe.

Letters with dot

Encoding

In Unicode, the dot is encoded at: * and at: * * * There is also: * * Pre-composed characters: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

Diacritics Project — All you need to design a font with correct accents
{{Latin script, , dot Latin-script diacritics Diakrytyka Vietnamese alphabets