Hook (diacritic)

Diacritical mark ◌̡ ◌̢ ◌˞oHookIn UnicodeU+0321 ̡ COMBINING PALATALIZED HOOK BELOWU+0322 ̢ COMBINING RETROFLEX HOOK BELOWU+02DE ˞ MODIFIER LETTER RHOTIC HOOK In typesetting, the hook or tail is a diacritic mark attached to letters in many alphabets. In shape it looks like a hook and it can be attached below as a descender, on top as an ascender and sometimes to the side. The orientation of the hook can change its meaning: when it is below and curls to the left it can be interpreted as a palatal hook, and when it curls to the right is called hook tail or tail and can be interpreted as a retroflex hook. It should not be mistaken with the hook above, a diacritical mark used in Vietnamese, or the rhotic hook, used in the International Phonetic Alphabet. Different types of hook diacritics Letters with hook It could be argued that the hook was used to derive the letter ⟨J⟩ from the letter ⟨I⟩, or the letter Eng ⟨ŋ⟩ from the letter ⟨N⟩. However, these letters are usually not identified as being formed with the hook. Most letters with hook are used in the International Phonetic Alphabet, and many languages use them (along with capitals) representing the same sou