If you’ve ever learned or spoken another language, chances are that you’ve used diacritics. While this term may sound like an especially harsh judgment (think “criticism”), it’s actually a very helpful way to read words in another language. In fact, if you leave diacritics out of a word, you may change its meaning altogether.
But what is a diacritic, and how do you know if you’re using the right one? Follow our guide to everything diacritical, including the definition of diacritics, diacritics examples, and a primer to which languages actually don’t need diacritics at all. (Hint: English is one of them.)
Table of Contents
What are diacritics?
Diacritics, also called accent marks, are small symbols that appear above or on letters in a written language. They indicate that a word or syllable has a different pronunciation than the letter’s original sound, or that a word has a different meaning than a word spelled the same way without a diacritic (known as a homonym).
The origin of the word “diacritic” is the Greek word diakritikos, which means “separates or distinguishes.” That’s what diacritics do—they separate or distinguish sounds within a word.
Letters with diacritical marks may appear in a language’s alphabet as separate letters, or they may simply add diacritics when needed for comprehension. Most languages that use alphabet writing systems, including the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabets, use diacritics to reflect sounds that are specific to that language.
Types of diacritics
Although no two languages are exactly the same, most languages use a standardized collection of diacritics to change their letter sounds or distinguish words. They fall into these categories, and generally look the same when you type letters with accents. Note that these examples are lowercase letters, but diacritics appear in uppercase forms as well.
| Diacritic | Symbol | Letter Examples |
| acute | ´ | á, é, í, ń, ó, ú, ý, ź |
| stroke | / or – | đ, ł, ø, ŧ |
| breve | ˘ | ă, ĕ, ğ, ĭ, ŏ |
| caron (or haček) | ˇ | č, ď, ě, ľ, ň, ř, š, ť, ž |
| cedilla | ¸ | ç, ģ, ķ, ļ, ņ, ŗ, ş, ţ |
| circumflex | ˆ | â, ê, î, ô, û |
| diaeresis | ¨ | ä, ë, ï, ö, ü, ÿ |
| grave | ` | à, è, ù |
| macron | ˉ | ā, ē, ī, ō, ū |
| overdot | ˙ | ė, ċ, ġ, ż |
| overring | ˚ | å, ů |
| tilde | ~ | ã, ñ, õ |
| umlaut | ¨ | ä, ö, ü |
Examples of diacritics in different languages
If you’ve ever thought a written language looked too complicated because of its many diacritics, it’s just the opposite! Diacritics are a road map for both beginning and native speakers to pronounce and identify words correctly.
Take a look at these diacritics examples in different languages, along with what each one does and how it looks in common words.
French diacritics
French is one of the many languages that uses the Latin alphabet, but due to its plethora of distinctive sounds, it requires diacritics to guide pronunciation.
Most French accent marks appear over vowels with the exception of “ç”, which adds a cedilla mark to the letter “c” to change its sound.
| French Diacritic | Function | Example |
| accent aigu (acute: é) | used on letter “é” to create “ey” sound | café, écouter |
| accent grave (grave: à, è, ù) | open pronunciation on “è”, distinguishes between homonyms on “à” and “ù” | chèvre, là (as opposed to la) |
| accent circonflexe (circumflex: â, ê, î, ô, û) | marks the absence of a historical “s” that comes after; distinguishes between homonyms | hôpital, château |
| tréma (diaeresis: ë, ï, ü, ÿ) | vowels are pronounced separately from the previous vowel | naïf, Noël |
| cédille (cedilla: ç) | changes “c” pronunciation to a soft “s” sound | français, garçon |
Spanish diacritics
Spanish is a famously straightforward language in terms of pronunciation. Part of the reason why involves Spanish accent marks, which tells beginning Spanish speakers where to put the accent in a word or how to pronounce a specific letter sound.
It only uses three diacritics with vowels and the letter “ñ”, with acute accents being the most common in Spanish words.
| Spanish Diacritic | Function | Example |
| el acento (acute: á, é, í, ó ú) | stresses marked vowel, differentiates homonyms | lección, cámara |
| diéresis (diaeresis: ü) | indicates that vowels in “gue” and “gui” should be pronounced separately | pingüino, bilingüe |
| virgulilla (tilde: ñ) | turns the “n” sound into an “ny” sound | español, año |
Portuguese diacritics
Have you ever noticed that Portuguese looks similar to Spanish, but sounds quite different? Like Spanish, Portuguese uses acute accents and tildes.
It also uses several other types of diacritics, including circumflex accents, grave accents, and cedillas, which fell out of use in the Spanish language but remains in modern Portuguese.
| Portuguese Diacritic | Function | Example |
| accent agudo (acute: á, é, í, ó ú) | stresses marked vowel, differentiates homonyms | lección, cámara |
| til (tilde: ñ) | turns the “n” sound into an “ny” sound | español, año |
| acento circunflexo (circumflex: â, ê, ô) | stressed vowel makes a closed sound | você, metrô |
| accent grave (grave: à) | indicates a contraction of two vowels in separate words | àquela, às |
| cedilha (cedilla: ç) | makes “c” have a soft “s” sound | maçã, coração |
Italian diacritics
The main diacritics in modern Italian are acute and grave accents, which show stressed vowels in words. You may also see circumflex and diaeresis symbols in Italian words, but these are rare and often more common in antiquated Italian texts and literature.
However, if you do encounter these diacritics in Italian, you’ll want to know how to use them correctly.
| French Diacritic | Function | Example |
| accento acuto (acute: é, ó) | stressed vowel (closed pitch) | perché, giacché |
| accento grave (grave: á, é, í, ó, ú) | stressed vowel (open pitch), usually at the end of a word | caffè, più |
| cironflesso (circumflex: â, ê, î, ô, û) | indicates contraction or plural nouns ending in “-io” | principî, dêi |
| dièresi (diaeresis: ä, ë, ï) | vowels are pronounced separately from the previous vowel | Aïda, aëreo |
German diacritics
If you’re interested in learning a language without many diacritics, German may be the answer for you. Letters with German umlauts are the only diacritics or accents in the alphabet, along with the special character Eszett (ß) that makes a sharp “s” sound.
German pronunciation relies more on letter placement in a word as well as neighboring letters rather than diacritics and accent marks.
| German Diacritic | Function | Example |
| umlaut (ä, ö, ü) | marks front-rounded vowels for plurality, word meaning, or conjugation | Äpfel, schön |
Polish diacritics
Polish has many diacritics unique to the Polish language. Other Slavic languages like Russian and Ukrainian use the Cyrillic alphabet, which includes many distinctive Slavic sounds. Because Polish uses the Latin alphabet, it requires various diacritics to reflect the language’s Slavic pronunciation.
| Polish Diacritic | Function | Example |
| kreska (acute: ć, ń, ó ś, ź) | softens consonants, changes “o” sound to “u” sound | ćwiczenie, śpiew |
| kropka (overdot: ż) | makes “s” sound like “zh” | żona, żaden |
| el z kreską (stroke: ł) | makes “l” sound like “w” | włosy, łóżko |
| ogonek (tail: ą, ę) | changes vowel sounds to nasalized sounds | książka, proszę |
Turkish diacritics
Turkish moved from the Arabic writing system to the Latin alphabet in the early 20th century, and diacritics in the Turkish alphabet help to clarify its pronunciation.
Some of these accents and symbols reflect distinctive vowel sounds, while others create specific consonant sounds in the Turkish language.
| Turkish Diacritic | Function | Example |
| breve (ğ) | lengthens the vowel before the “ğ” | soğuk, uğur |
| cedilla (ç, ş) | turns the “c” sound to “ch” and “s” to “sh” | çay, şapka |
| circumflex (â, î, û) | makes adjectives from Arabic nouns, and differentiates homonyms | kâr, askerî |
| dotless (ı) | makes a high vowel sound | kız, kapı |
| umlaut (ö, ü) | creates front rounded vowel sounds | görüşürüz, ülke |
Other writing systems with diacritics and special characters
The Latin alphabet is the most common writing system in the world, but it’s not always a perfect fit with each language. Along with the above diacritics examples, these languages use diacritics to better reflect the sounds needed to properly pronounce their words, along with languages that don’t use the Latin alphabet at all.
- Arabic: Uses the Arabic script, along with Arabic diacritics (Harakat for vowels (بَ, بِ, and بُ), Tashkeel for supplementary marks, and sukūn for absence of a vowel).
- Danish: Includes special characters “æ”, “ø”, and “å”, plus some acute accents in loanwords.
- Hebrew: Diacritics include nikkud (indicates vowels not shown in writing), geresh and gershayim (denotes Hebrew numerals), and cantillation accents (guides Biblical passage recitation).
- Irish: Uses síneadh fada (long accent—á, é, í, ó, ú) for long vowel sounds and to clarify word meaning.
- Mandarin Chinese: Uses pinyin diacritics to indicate tone when written in the Latin alphabet (ā, á, ǎ, à) for all vowel sounds.
- Swedish: Includes diaeresis symbols for vowel sounds (ä, ö) as well an overring (å) as special characters.
- Tagalog: Uses many diacritics, including acute accents, grave accents, circumflex, and a combination diacritic of diaeresis and acute that looks like “ë́”.
- Vietnamese: Uses the Latin alphabet along with vowel and consonant diacritics, as well as five specialized diacritics to designate tone (à, á, ả, ã, and ạ) for all vowel sounds.
Does English use diacritics?
No, English does not use diacritics. It doesn’t use accent marks, umlauts, or other special characters to change pronunciation or meaning, unless those diacritics come from loanwords from other languages (and even in those cases, the diacritics tend to disappear in common usage).
The only mark in English that could be considered a diacritic is the tittle, which is the dot above a lowercase “i” and “j”. While tittles are classified as diacritical marks, they don’t function as diacritics do in other languages—that is, they don’t change the pronunciation of the letters “i” and “j” in writing.
Let diacritics be your language guide
Diacritics make it easier for a language’s words to be pronounced correctly, both by native speakers and new learners. While an alphabet full of diacritics may seem intimidating at first, it’s a good sign that you’re about to embark on a valuable language journey—and that pronouncing your new vocabulary may be easier than you think.
For more guidance on learning a new language, discover more about how Rosetta works today. You may find the next chapter in your educational adventure, and you’ll learn more about yourself in the process!
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