Diacritics

Overview

A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. Common diacritics include:

• The acute accent indicates a stressed syllable or raised pitch.
  • E.g. exposé, adiós.
• The cedilla is usually found under the letter 'c', indicating the letter should be pronounced as an 's'.
  • E.g. façade, garçon.
• The circumflex is used in Greek to indicate a rising/falling tone.
  • Other languages use it to mark length, contractions, or other vowel quality.
  • E.g. château, crêpe.
• The diaeresis indicates a vowel should be pronounced in a separate syllable.
  • E.g. naïve, Zoë.
• The grave accent indicates an unaccented syllable or a lower inflection.
  • E.g. à la carte, crème.
• The umlaut is used in German to indicate a vowel should be pronounced with more central or front articulation.
  • E.g. doppelgänger, führer.