Diacritic

A diacritic is a special mark added to a letter to give it a new sound or meaning. These marks come from ancient Greek and can appear above, below, or even inside letters. Some common diacritics you might recognize are the acute mark ⟨ó⟩, the grave mark ⟨ò⟩, and the circumflex mark ⟨ô⟩.

In English, diacritics are mostly used in words borrowed from other languages, like naïve from French or café. They help show the correct way to say a word, but they are often left out in everyday writing. English is unusual among European languages because it rarely uses diacritics.

In many other languages, diacritics are very important. They can tell us if two words that look the same are actually different, like the French words là meaning "there" and la meaning "the." Diacritics also help show sounds that aren’t written in the basic alphabet, like the marks that show vowels in Arabic and Hebrew. They can even change how a word is said in Vietnamese or mark special meanings, like abbreviations.

Types

Larger examples of these symbols can be found at § List of diacritics in Unicode.

Diacritics are special marks added to letters in many languages. They help show how to say the word correctly. For example, in words using the Latin alphabet, you might see marks like:

• Accents: Examples include:

  • ◌́ – acute (like in ó)
  • ◌̀ – grave (like in ò)
  • ◌̂ – circumflex (like in ô)
  • ◌̌ – caron (like in ǒ)

• Dots: Examples include:

  • ◌̇ – overdot (like in ȯ)
  • ◌̣ – underdot (like in ọ)
  • ◌̈ – umlaut or diaeresis (like in ö)

• Curves: Examples include the breve (◌̆, like in ŏ) and the tilde (◌̃, like in õ).

• Vertical strokes and lines: Examples include the macron (◌̄, like in ō).

• Other marks: Examples include rings (◌̊, like in å) and hooks (◌̉, like in ỏ).

Some diacritics don’t sit right next to the letter they change. In scripts like those used for Hindi and Thai, diacritics can appear above, below, before, after, or around the letters they change.

The tiny dot over the letter i (and j) in the Latin alphabet started as a diacritic to help tell i apart from other similar-looking letters.

Many European languages use diacritics on vowels, while English usually does not, except in a few cases.

Diacritics specific to non-Latin alphabets

Arabic

Further information: Arabic diacritics

Arabic uses special marks added to letters to show meaning. For example, the hamza shows a glottal stop. The tanwīn symbols help with grammar. The shadda shows that a letter is doubled. The waṣla appears at the start of words. The madda replaces a hamza followed by a long a sound.

The ḥarakāt or vowel points show short vowels and their absence. They help with reading and grammar, showing how words change endings.

Greek

Further information: Greek diacritics

Greek also has extra marks besides the usual accents. These include the iota subscript, rough breathing, and smooth breathing. These help show how words are pronounced.

Hebrew

Further information: Hebrew diacritics

Hebrew uses Niqqud to show vowel sounds. Marks like Dagesh, Mappiq, Rafe, Shin dot, Sin dot, Shva, Kubutz, Holam, Kamatz, Patakh, Segol, Tzeire, and Hiriq help with reading and pronunciation.

Korean

In older Korean, special marks called Bangjeom were used to show pitch accents in words.

Sanskrit and Indic

Further information: Brahmic scripts

Syriac

Further information: Syriac alphabet

Syriac has dots and marks above and below letters to show different vowel sounds and pronunciation changes. These help readers know how to say words correctly.

Non-alphabetic scripts

Some writing systems that are not based on letters also use special symbols to change the sounds of letters. For example, Hebrew and Arabic use these symbols to show vowels and to indicate when letters are repeated. The Devanagari script, used for languages like Hindi, uses a special mark called a virama to show when a vowel is not spoken.

The Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics also use these special symbols in different ways. In Japanese, the hiragana and katakana writing systems use special marks called dakuten and handakuten to change the sound of consonants.

Alphabetization or collation

Main article: Collation

Languages have different ways to sort letters with extra marks, called diacritics. In French and Portuguese, these marked letters are grouped with the regular letters they are based on. But in Scandinavian languages and Finnish, letters like ⟨å⟩, ⟨ä⟩, and ⟨ö⟩ are treated as separate letters and come after ⟨z⟩.

In German, words with extra marks usually come right after the same words without them. For example, schon comes before schön. In Spanish, the letter ⟨ñ⟩ is its own letter and comes between ⟨n⟩ and ⟨o⟩.

For a full list of how different languages sort these letters, see Collating sequence.

Generation with computers

Main article: Unicode input

Modern computers were mostly made in countries that speak Western European languages, like English. Early computer systems had little space to store information. They could only use basic letters, numbers, and symbols. The ASCII system, made in 1963, could only show 95 different characters. It included just a few marks added to letters.

Unicode was created to solve this problem. It gives every character its own special code. Now, most computers can show letters with marks above or below them. Some languages use letters with marks built-in. Others add the mark to a regular letter. Even today, some programs and web browsers still have trouble showing these marks correctly.

Depending on the keyboard you use, it might be easy or hard to type letters with marks. In places where these letters are common, the keys have the marks printed on them. In other cases, you press a special key first. This key doesn’t show anything by itself but changes the next letter you type. This is called the dead key method.

Languages with letters containing diacritics

The following languages have letters with special marks that are different from letters without them.

Latin script

Baltic

• Latvian has letters like ⟨ā⟩, ⟨ē⟩, ⟨ī⟩, and ⟨ū⟩.
• Lithuanian uses marks like the caron on letters such as ⟨č⟩ and ⟨š⟩, which are separate from letters like ⟨c⟩ and ⟨s⟩.

Celtic

• Welsh uses marks above vowels like ⟨â⟩ and ⟨ê⟩.
• Scottish Gaelic uses a grave accent on vowels like ⟨à⟩ and ⟨è⟩.
• Irish uses an accent on vowels to show long sounds.

Finno-Ugric

• Estonian has a letter ⟨õ⟩ with a tilde.
• Finnish uses double-dotted vowels like ⟨ä⟩ and ⟨ö⟩.
• Hungarian uses double dots, acute accents, and double acute accents on vowels.

Germanic

• German uses two dots (umlaut) on letters like ⟨ä⟩ and ⟨ö⟩.
• Dutch uses various marks on vowels and a cedilla on ⟨c⟩.
• Afrikaans uses many forms of accented vowels.
• Danish and Norwegian use letters like ⟨ø⟩ and ⟨å⟩.
• Swedish uses ⟨ä⟩ and ⟨ö⟩.

Romance

• Spanish uses the letter ⟨ñ⟩.
• French uses marks like the circumflex and acute accent on vowels.
• Italian uses acute and grave accents on vowels.
• Portuguese uses a tilde on vowels like ⟨a⟩ and ⟨o⟩.
• Romanian uses a breve on ⟨ă⟩ and a circumflex on ⟨â⟩.

Slavic

• Croatian and Latinized Serbian use letters like ⟨č⟩ and ⟨š⟩.
• The Czech alphabet uses acute and caron marks on letters.
• Polish has letters like ⟨ą⟩ and ⟨ć⟩.

Turkic

• Turkish uses letters like ⟨Ç⟩ and ⟨Ş⟩.
• Azerbaijani includes letters like ⟨Ç⟩ and ⟨Ö⟩.

Other

• Esperanto has letters with marks like ⟨ŭ⟩ and ⟨ĉ⟩.
• Filipino uses the letter ⟨ñ⟩.
• Hawaiian uses a macron over vowels.

Cyrillic letters

Further information: Cyrillic script

• Belarusian and Russian have the letter ⟨ё⟩.
• The Ukrainian alphabet has the letters ⟨ґ⟩ and ⟨ї⟩.
• Macedonian has the letters ⟨ќ⟩ and ⟨ѓ⟩.

Diacritics that do not produce new letters

English

English does not usually have words with special marks added to letters. Instead, it uses pairs of letters to fit the Latin alphabet to its sounds. There are a few exceptions, like words borrowed from French and Spanish, such as jalapeño and piñata. Sometimes these words keep their special marks, like in café, résumé, soufflé, and naïveté. Older writings might show words like élite or rôle.

In the past, English writers used a special mark above two vowels to show they were said separately, like in coöperation or zoölogy. This is not common today, but the New Yorker magazine still uses this mark instead of a hyphen to save space.

Some English words need a special mark to be understood correctly, such as exposé, lamé, or maté. These marks help tell them apart from other words. In names like Renée or Zoë, the spelling with a mark might be preferred, but it can be left out in places like passports for technical reasons. Companies like Nestlé and Citroën also use these marks.

Other languages

Here are some languages that use special marks on letters but do not create new letters with them:

• Afrikaans uses marks to show separate vowel sounds or to add emphasis.
• Aymara uses a special mark above certain letters.
• Catalan uses various marks to show stress or separate sounds.
• Cornish languages sometimes use diacritics, while others do not.
• Dutch uses marks to separate vowel sounds or for emphasis.
• Faroese uses some accented letters but not all.
• Filipino uses marks mainly to show stress differences between similar words.
• Finnish uses certain marks only in foreign words.
• French uses five different marks to change sounds or distinguish words.
• Galician uses marks for stress or to show separate vowel sounds.
• German uses umlauts to change vowel sounds.
• Hebrew uses many marks above and below letters to show vowels.
• The International Phonetic Alphabet uses marks to show speech sounds.
• Irish uses marks to show long vowels or changes in consonant sounds.
• Italian uses marks to show stress or to distinguish between similar words.
• Lithuanian uses marks to show stress types.
• Maltese uses marks to show stress on vowels.
• Māori uses marks above vowels to show long sounds.
• Occitan uses various marks to show stress, separate sounds, or historical changes.
• Portuguese uses marks to show stress, vowel height, nasal sounds, or historical changes.
• Marks are used in Slavic language dictionaries to show word stress and meaning.
• Spanish uses marks to show stress, separate sounds in diphthongs, or to distinguish between words.
• Swedish uses marks to show non-standard stress in loanwords.
• Tamil uses numbers as marks to show different sounds in consonants.
• Thai has its own system of marks to show tones.
• Vietnamese uses marks above vowels to show different tones.
• Welsh uses various marks to show long or short vowel sounds and to separate vowels.

Transliteration

Some languages use letters with extra marks, called diacritics. These marks help show sounds that normal letters cannot.

For example, Arabic uses dots below letters and lines above letters. Chinese uses marks above letters to show tones, like in Hanyu Pinyin. Japanese sometimes uses lines above vowels for longer sounds, in the Hepburn romanization system. Sanskrit and languages like Hindi and Bengali also use marks above and below letters to show exact sounds.

Limits

Sometimes, people add special marks to letters to make funny shapes. In some languages like Tibetan, a letter can have up to eight special marks added to it to create a special word.

People have also added funny marks to letters just for fun, creating what is called Zalgo text.

List of diacritics in Unicode

Diacritics are special marks added to letters to give them new meanings. In Unicode, a system that helps computers show all kinds of writing, there are many diacritics used with Latin letters.