English Terms With Diacritical Marks - Types of Diacritical Marks

Types of Diacritical Marks

Though limited in English the following diacritical marks in English may be encountered, particularly for marking in poetry:

• the acute accent (née) and grave accent (English poetry marking, changèd), modifying vowels or marking stresses
• the circumflex (entrepôt), indicating omitted "s"
• the diaeresis (naïf), preventing a diphthong
• the tittle, the dot found on the regular small i and small j, and removed when another diacritic is required
• the macron (English poetry marking, lēad pronounced 'leed', not 'led'), lengthening vowels; or indicating omitted n or m (in pre-Modern English, both in print and in handwriting)
• the breve (English poetry marking, drŏll pronounced 'drol', not 'drowle'), shortening vowels.
• the umlaut (Führer), altering Germanic vowels
• the cedilla (soupçon), in French and in Portuguese softening c, indicating 's-' not 'k-' prounciation
• the tilde (Señor), in Spanish indicating palatalised n

In representing European personal names, anthroponyms, and place names, toponyms, the following are often encountered:

• the caron (as in Karel Čapek), often also called the haček in English (adapted from "háček", the Czech name ), as Č/č, Š/š, Ř/ř (only in Czech), Ž/ž broadly turns "c" "r" "s" "z" into English "ch" "sh" "rzh" "zh" sounds respectively, and Ď/ď, Ľ/ľ (only in Slovak), Ň/ň and Ť/ť turn "d" "l" "n" and "t" into palatal "dy" "ly" "ny" and "ty" sounds. In most fonts the caron looks like an apostrophe sitting inside the Slovak capital L, as "Ľ", but in fact is only another form of caron.
• the Polish crossed Ł and nasal ogonek (as in Lech Wałęsa) a "dark L", nearer an English "W", and a nasal "e", nearer English "en" (in Polish called "crossed Ł" and, "little tail")
• the Croatian crossed Đ (as in Franjo Tuđman), halfway between D and Dj
• the Maltese crossed Ħ (as in the Ħal- town prefix, Ħal Far Industrial Estate), a hard H
• the Swedish over-ring Å (as in the Åland Islands), the å vowel sound

For a more complete list see article 'diacritical marks.' Classical Greek additionally uses the lenis mark (') and asper mark (,).