Beschreibung und Erläuterungen diakritischen Zeichen

Diacritical
Mark         Description
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acute accent   A little diagonal line, used over a vowel. Usually
               indicates which syllable is stressed. Slants from upper
               right down to lower left. Used in French, Hungarian,
               Portuguese, and Spanish.

               Example: 0225 (accent over lowercase A)

breve          (BREEV) A curved mark over a vowel. Used to indicate a
               short vowel or a short or unstressed syllable.
               (Sometimes referred to as a "smiley face.") Used in
               Latin and Turkish.

               No example in standard Windows character set.

caret          (CARE-et) The "hat" symbol found on the "6" key. See
               also circumflex. Used in French and Portuguese.

               Example: 0226 (lowercase A with caret above)

caron          See hacek.

cedilla        (sih-DIL-uh) A tiny curved symbol, like a backward "c,"
               placed at the bottom of a letter to indicate a
               different pronunciation (as in the French word
               "facade"). Used in French.

               Example: 0231 (cedilla beneath lowercase C)

circumflex     A mark such as the caret or tilde, placed over a vowel
               to indicate various pronunciations. Used in French and
               Polish.

               Example: 0226 (circumflex above lowercase A)

diaeresis      (deye-ER-uh-suhs) The two dots that appear over a vowel
(or dieresis)  to show that the vowel is pronounced in a separate
               syllable (as in the word "naive," with the diaeresis
               over the i). Looks like an umlaut.

               Example: 0239 (diaeresis above lowercase I)

digraph        See ligature.

edh            (ETH) A letter used in Icelandic and Old English to
(or eth)       represent a particular sound, usually "th". Looks
               like a "d" tilted to the left, with a horizontal line
               across the vertical stroke of the d.

               Example: 0240

grave accent   (GRAYV or GRAHV) The diagonal line that appears above
               a vowel. Slants from upper left to lower right (the
               reverse of the acute accent). Used in Ancient Greek,
               French, and Italian.

               Example: 0224 (grave accent above lowercase A)

hacek          (HAH-check) Looks like an upside-down caret, or a
               small "v". Placed above vowels and some consonants.
               Used in many Eastern European languages.

               Example: 0154 (s with hacek above). Not available as
               a separate character with any of the fonts that ship
               with Microsoft Windows.

Hungarian      Two acute accents or prime marks. Used above a letter,
umlaut         usually O or U. Used in Hungarian.

               No example in ANSI character set.

ligature       A character that resembles two characters joined
               together, as in AE, fl, or OE. Used in Latin and
               English.

               Example: 0198 (uppercase AE ligature).

macron         (MAY-krahn or MAH-kruhn) A horizontal line over a
               vowel to indicate that the vowel is to be pronounced
               stressed or long. Used in Latin.

               Example: 0175. Available as a separate character
               only.

ogonek         A small mark placed beneath a letter. Generally under
               E and A. Different reference books use different
               marks. Used in Polish.

               No example available in ANSI character set.

Polish cedilla See ogonek.

ring           Hollow circle above a vowel. Used mainly in
(or volle)     Scandinavian languages.

               Example: 0229 (lowercase a with ring above)

tilde          Placed over a letter to denote the "nyuh" sound (as in
               the Spanish word "senora," with the tilde over the n),
               or over a vowel to indicate nasality (as in the
               Portuguese word "irma," with the tilde over the a).

               Example: 0227 (lowercase A with tilde above)

umlaut         Two dots placed above a vowel to indicate a partial
               assimilation to a succeeding sound. Used primarily in
               German.

               Example: 0252 (lowercase U with umlaut above)

Punctuation
Mark         Description
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

ellipsis       Also called points of suspension; consists of three
               periods set close together. Often used to indicate an
               interruption or pause. Used mainly in French and
               Spanish.

               Example: three periods in a row.

em dash        Looks like a long hyphen. Used like quotation marks.
               Used mainly in French, Italian, and Spanish.

               Example: 0151

guillemet      (gee-yuh-MAY) Also called chevron. Looks like two
               closely-spaced greater-than or less-than symbols. Used
               like quotation marks. Used in French, Italian, and
               Spanish.

               Example: 0171 (open guillemets); 0187 (close
               guillemets)