|
June 20, 2007
This is a list of most common accents used in
popular languages. Compiled for my own reference. It's neither
authoritative nor comprehensive.
Grave à è ò ù
like an open-quotation mark
used in French, Italian, Pinyin* (Chinese)
often seen on words with an e-consonant-mute e combination, like
frère or pièce
distinguishes French homophones like la and là without changing
pronunciation
Acute á ć é ó ú
like a close-quotation mark
used in Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Hungarian,
Pinyin (Chinese), Polish, Slovak, Spanish
in Danish and Spanish, it is used to mark emphasis
Circumflex ê ô û ŵ ŷ
like a little roof
used in Esperanto, French, Romanian, Slovak, Turkish, Vietnamese,
Welsh
usually indicates a long vowel sound
used for various alternate accents in Esperanto
Cedilla ç ş
like a tail, a little squiggle
used in Albanian, French, Latvian, Portuguese, Romanian, Turkish
indicates a c is pronounced as a soft s, as in Françoise or garçon
in Turkish, ç and ş are pronounced ch and sh, respectively
Tilde ã ñ õ
like a wavy line
used in Estonian, Portuguese, Spanish
ñ is palatalized, as in the English word onion
ã and õ, common in Portuguese, are nasalized
Macron ū a straight horizontal line
used in Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Pinyin (Chinese), Polynesian
languages (Hawaiian, Maori, Samoan, Tahitian, Tongan), Romaji
(Japanese), Sanskrit
Breve ă ğ
lower quarter of a circle
used in Latin, Romanian, Turkish
Dot ė ż
a dot
used in Lithuanian, Polish
Diaeresis (aka dieresis)
ä ö ü ÿ
2 horizontal dots, aka umlaut or Zweipunkt in German
used in Albanian, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German,
Hungarian, Pinyin (Chinese), Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish (rarely),
Swedish, Turkish
in the Germanic languages, ä, ö, and ü are often transliterated as
ae, oe, and ue, respectively
the Dutch ligature for ij is sometimes written as ÿ
known as a trema in romance languages such as French, where it
indicates adjacent vowels should be pronounced separately
in Spanish ü appears only after a g as in pingüino, which indicates
the u is pronounced normally rather than modifying the g
Ring å ů
a ring
used in Czech, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish
| *Note: Pin-Yin is not really a language, nor is it a
version/dialect of the Chinese language. It is a system for
transliterating Chinese (phonetically) into the Latin alphabet.
It's the official system of romanization established by the
People's Republic of China in 1979. In Mandarin, pin
means to combine and yin means sound. |
SEE ALSO:
|