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What is a diacritical mark?

Updated: 4/25/2024
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11y ago

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'Diacritical marks' or diacritics, are glyphs placed above or below letters to indicate a special pronunciation of that letter, or that a final vowel is to be pronounced, or in some languages to distinguish between two distinct words that are spelled and pronounced in the same way.

In the word façade the diacritic (cedilla) attached to the bottom of the letter c indicates that it is pronounced as an s and not a k.

In the words Noël and Naïve the diacritic (diaeresis) indicates that its letter is pronounced separately from the other vowel and not as you might pronounce a diphthong. In these words the stress is also on the vowels with diacritics.

In German words the double dot above a vowel is called an umlaut, and it changes the sound of the vowel.

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1w ago

A diacritical mark is a symbol added to a letter to indicate a specific pronunciation, stress, or tone. It can change the sound or meaning of the letter it modifies in languages such as Spanish (e.g., the acute accent in á) or French (e.g., the cedilla in ç).

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What is an umlaut?

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