Typography and Unicode – Diacritical marks

 

This page lists all diacritical marks of all major European languages based on the Latin alphabet. Diacritical marks or diacritics are special marks added to a letter to indicate a different pronunciation, stress, tone, or meaning, such as a French acute accent (e.g. á). In addition to the 14 symbols used in major European languages, an additional 18 more uncommon diacritics are listed. For completeness, 16 spacing clones of the combining marks (see below for an explanation) are also listed.

The basic characters of the Latin alphabet and our modern numerals are listed here: Basic alphabet. Common special characters, such as punctuation marks and mathematical symbols are shown on the Special characters page. Some languages use special characters in addition to the set of basic Latin letters and characters. For a list of these extensions sorted alphabetically, please see Extensions (alphabetic). For a list sorted by language, please check Extensions (by language).
 
For correct usage of quotation marks and decimal separator by language, please see Quotes.

 

  Unicode English Deutsch Unicode
Symbol Code Point Name Comment Name Kommentar Compa-tibility Script Block Category
  Spa-cing Com-bining                
      Diacritics in major European languages Diakritische Zeichen bedeutender europäischer Sprachen        
´ 00B4 0301 Combining acute accent Stress mark. Greek oxia, tonos. Kombinierender Akut (übergesetzt) Spitz, scharf. – Inherited Combining diacritical mark Mark, non-spacing
` 0060 0300 Combining grave accent Greek varia. Kombinierender Gravis (übergesetzt) Schwer. – Inherited Combining diacritical mark Mark, non-spacing
^ 005E 0302 Combining circumflex accent Hat. Kombinierender Zirkumflex (übergesetzt) Dach, Hut – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
ˇ 02C7 030C Combining caron Hacek, V above. Kombinierender Hatschek übergesetzt Häkchen, Háček, Caron. – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
˙ 02D9 0307 Combining dot above Derivative (Newtonian notation). Kombinierender Punkt übergesetzt   – Inherited Combining diacritical mark Mark, non-spacing
¨ 00A8 0308 Combining diaresis Double dot above, Umlaut, Greek dialytika, double derivative. Kombinierende Umlautpunkte (übergesetzt) Trema, Diärese, Trennpunkt. – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
˝ 02DD 030B Combining double acute accent Hungarian, Chuvash. Kombinierender Doppelakut (übergesetzt)   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
˚ 02DA 030A Combining ring above   Kombinierender Ring (übergesetzt) Kroužek, Kreisakzent, Kringel, Bolle, Ringelchen. – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
¯ 00AF 0304 Combining macron Long. Kombinierender Makron (übergesetzt) Macron, Balken, kurzer Überstrich, Längestrich. – Inherited Combining diacritical mark Mark, non-spacing
˜ 02DC 0303 Combining tilde   Kombinierende Tilde (übergesetzt)   – Inherited Combining diacritical mark Mark, non-spacing
˘ 02D8 0306 Combining breve Short, Greek vrachy. Kombinierende Breve (übergesetzt) Brevis, Halbkreis. – Inherited Combining diacritical mark Mark, non-spacing
 ̦ – 0326 Combining comma below Romanian, Latvian, Livonian. Kombinierendes Komma untergesetzt   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
¸ 00B8 0327 Combining cedilla French, Turkish, Azerbaijani. Kombinierende Cedille (untergesetzt)   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
˛ 02DB 0328 Combining ogonek Nasal hook. Polish. Lithuanian. Kombinierender Krummhaken untergesetzt Ogonek, Nasalhaken. – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
      Other diacritics   Andere diakritische Zeichen        
 ̍ – 030D Combining vertical line above This is not the Greek tonos. Marshallese. Kombinierende vertikale Linie übergesetzt   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̅ – 0305 Combining overline Overscore, vinculum Kombinierender Überstrich   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̉ – 0309 Combining hook above HOI. Vietnamese tone mark. Kombinierender Haken übergesetzt   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̏ – 030F Combining double grave accent Serbian and Croatian poetics. Kombinierender Doppelgravis (übergesetzt)   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̑ – 0311 Combining inverted breve   Kombinierende gekippte Breve (übergesetzt)   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̒ – 0312 Combining turned comma above Cedilla above. Kombinierende Cedille übergesetzt   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̔ – 0314 Combining reversed comma above Greek dasia. Rough breathing mark. Kombinierendes gespiegeltes Komma übergesetzt   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̕ – 0315 Combining comma above right   Kombinierendes Komma rechts übergesetzt Apostroph. – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̛ – 031B Combining horn Vietnamese. Kombinierendes Horn übergesetzt   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̓ – 0313 Combining comma above Greek psili. Smooth breathing mark. Kombinierendes Komma übergesetzt   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
" 0022 030E Combining double vertical line above Marshallese. Kombinierende doppelte vertikale Linie übergesetzt   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̣ – 0323 Combining dot below Nang. Kombinierender Punkt untergesetzt   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̮ – 032E Combining breve below   Kombinierende Breve untergesetzt   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
_ 005F 0331 Combining macron below   Kombinierender Unterstrich Makron darunter. – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̵ – 0335 Combining short stroke overlay   Kombinierender kurzer Querstrich durchgezogen   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̶ – 0336 Combining long stroke overlay   Kombinierender langer Querstrich durchgezogen   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̷ – 0337 Combining short solidus overlay Short slash overlay Kombinierender kurzer Schrägstrich durchgezogen   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing
 ̸ 002F 0338 Combining long solidus overlay Long slash overlay Kombinierender langer Schrägstrich durchgezogen   – Inherited Combining diacritical marks Mark, non-spacing

 

For many diacritics, Unicode offers two different code points – spacing and combining. The table above lists the names for the combining version only.

Combining diacritical marks are characters that are intended to modify other characters. For example, the base character y (U+0079 Latin small letter y) followed by the character ´ (U+0301 Combining acute accent) results in the composed character Latin small letter y with acute (y + ´ = ý).

Spacing diacritical marks do not modify other characters. They are displayed as individual characters, and thus have little use, other than for referring to  the diacritical mark itself.  For example, y (U+0079 Latin small letter y) followed by the character ´ (U+00B4 Acute accent) produces the two separate characters y´.

Unicode also includes many precomposed characters, which typically represent letters with a diacritical mark already attached, such as é (U+00E9 Latin small letter e with acute). These characters have been included for reasons of compatibility with older character code standards. In new and clean Unicode, they should be replaced by the respective base character followed by the diacritical mark. However, precomposed characters are widely used for their ease of use and easy accessability from many keyboards.

 

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