Lexicon Subtleties: Diacritics

Blog Entry #89

Technical stuff first:

• A diacritic (aka accent) is a glyph added to a letter or basic glyph
• A glyph is an elemental symbol within an agreed set of symbols intended to represent a readable character
• Some diacritical marks, such as the acute ( ´ ) and grave ( ` ), are often called accents. 
• Diacritical marks may appear above or below a letter, or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters

Examples:

Hindi:

What we call 'maatras' when we learn 'Barakhadi' are nothing but diacritics. They are compound letters having vowels combined with consonants to change the sound of the basic letter:

English:

Acute: Resumé or résumé (rehz-yoo-may) is used for a work summary versus resume, which means "to begin again"

Grave: à la carte, crème de la crème

Both: déjà vu

Circumflex:  château, crêpe, maître d'

Other languages:

German: Umlaut - tschüss (goodbye)

Spanish: Tilde - mañana (tomorrow)

French: Cedilla - garçon (boy)

Purpose:

Used for additional sounds, in place of adding distinct letters to the alphabet

Aids pronunciation (such as apostrophes used to shorten two words into one - "don't")

Indicates other information about the pronunciation of words such as stress, tone or vowel length

Footnote:

Types of diacritics