

All these diacritics, however, are frequently omitted in writing, and English is the only major modern European language that does not use diacritics in common. Most other words with diacritics in English are borrowings from languages such as French to better preserve the spelling, such as the diaeresis on naïve and Noël, the acute from café, the circumflex in the word crêpe, and the cedille in façade. Other examples are the acute and grave accents, which can indicate that a vowel is to be pronounced differently than is normal in that position, for example not reduced to /ə/ or silent as in the case of the two uses of the letter e in the noun résumé (as opposed to the verb resume) and the help sometimes provided in the pronunciation of some words such as doggèd, learnèd, blessèd, and especially words pronounced differently than normal in poetry (for example movèd, breathèd). Historically, English has used the diaeresis to indicate the correct pronunciation of ambiguous words, such as "coöperate", without which the letter sequence could be misinterpreted to be pronounced /ˈkuːpəreɪt/. The main use of diacritics in Latin script is to change the sound-values of the letters to which they are added.

Diacritics may appear above or below a letter or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters. Some diacritics, such as the acute ( ◌́ ) and grave ( ◌̀ ), are often called accents. The word diacritic is a noun, though it is sometimes used in an attributive sense, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. The term derives from the Ancient Greek διακριτικός ( diakritikós, "distinguishing"), from διακρίνω ( diakrī́nō, "to distinguish"). Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols.Ī diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. This article contains special characters.
