Acute accent

´
Acute accent
Diacritics in Latin & Greek
accent
acute( ´ )
double acute( ˝ )
grave( ` )
double grave(  ̏ )
breve( ˘ )
inverted breve(  ̑ )
caron, háček( ˇ )
cedilla( ¸ )
circumflex( ˆ )
diaeresis, umlaut( ¨ )
dot( · )
hook, hook above(   ̡   ̢  ̉ )
horn(  ̛ )
iota subscript(  ͅ  )
macron( ¯ )
ogonek, nosinė( ˛ )
perispomene(  ͂  )
ring( ˚, ˳ )
rough breathing( )
smooth breathing( ᾿ )
Marks sometimes used as diacritics
apostrophe( )
bar( ◌̸ )
colon( : )
comma( , )
hyphen( ˗ )
tilde( ~ )
Diacritical marks in other scripts
Arabic diacritics
Early Cyrillic diacritics
kamora(  ҄ )
pokrytie(  ҇ )
titlo(  ҃ )
Gurmukhī diacritics
Hebrew diacritics
Indic diacritics
anusvara( )
chandrabindu( )
nukta( )
virama( )
chandrakkala( )
IPA diacritics
Japanese diacritics
dakuten( )
handakuten( )
Khmer diacritics
Syriac diacritics
Thai diacritics
Related
Dotted circle
Punctuation marks
Logic symbols
Á á
Ǻ ǻ
Ǽ ǽ
Ć ć
É é
ế
Ǵ ǵ
Í í
Ĺ ĺ
ḿ
Ń ń
Ó ó
Ǿ ǿ
Ŕ ŕ
Ś ś
Ú ú
Ǘ ǘ
Ý ý
Ź ź
Ѓ ѓ
Ќ ќ

The acute accent ( ´ ) is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts.

Uses

History

An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels.

Pitch

Greek

The acute accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, where it indicated a syllable with a high pitch. In Modern Greek, a stress accent has replaced the pitch accent, and the acute marks the stressed syllable of a word. The Greek name of the accented syllable was and is oxeîa (Modern Greek oxía) "sharp" or "high", which was calqued into Latin as acūta "sharpened".

Stress

The acute accent marks the stressed vowel of a word in several languages:

Height

The acute accent marks the height of some stressed vowels in various Romance languages.

Length

Long vowels

Short vowels

Palatalization

A graphically similar, but not identical, mark is indicative of a palatalized sound in several languages.

In Polish, such a mark is known as a kreska (English: stroke) and is an integral part of several letters: four consonants and one vowel. When appearing in consonants, it indicates palatalization, similar to the use of the háček in Czech and other Slavic languages (e.g. sześć [ˈʂɛɕtɕ] "six"). However, in contrast to the háček which is usually used for postalveolar consonants, the kreska denotes alveolo-palatal consonants. In traditional Polish typography, the kreska is more nearly vertical than the acute accent, and placed slightly right of center.[1] A similar rule applies to the Belarusian Latin alphabet Lacinka. However, for computer use, Unicode conflates the codepoints for these letters with those of the accented Latin letters of similar appearance.

In Serbo-Croatian, as in Polish, the letter ć is used to represent a palatalized t.

In the romanization of Macedonian, ǵ and represent the Cyrillic letters ѓ and ќ, which stand for palatal or alveolo-palatal consonants, though gj and kj (or đ and ć) are more commonly used for this purpose. The same two letters are used to transcribe the postulated Proto-Indo-European phonemes /ɡʲ/ and /kʲ/.

Tone

In the Quốc Ngữ system for Vietnamese, the Yale romanization for Cantonese and the Pinyin romanization for Mandarin Chinese, the acute accent indicates a rising tone. In Mandarin, the alternative to the acute accent is the number 2 after the syllable: lái = lai2. In Cantonese Yale, the acute accent is either tone 2, or tone 5 if the vowel(s) are followed by 'h' (if the number form is used, 'h' is omitted): má = ma2, máh - ma5.

In African languages and Athabaskan languages, it frequently marks a high tone, e.g., Yoruba apá 'arm', Nobiin féntí 'sweet date', Ekoti kaláwa 'boat', Navajo t’áá 'just'.

The acute accent is used in Serbo-Croatian dictionaries and linguistic publications to indicate a high-rising accent. It is not used in everyday writing.

Disambiguation

The acute accent is used to disambiguate certain words which would otherwise be homographs in the following languages:

Emphasis

In Dutch, the acute accent can also be used to emphasize an individual word within a sentence. For example, Dit is ónze auto, niet die van jullie, "This is our car, not yours." In this example, ónze is merely an emphasized form of onze. Also in family names like Piét, Piél, Plusjé, Hofsté.

In Danish, the acute accent can also be used for emphasis, especially on the word der (there), as in Der kan ikke være mange mennesker dér, meaning "There can't be many people there" or Dér skal vi hen meaning "That's where we're going".

Letter extension

Other uses

English

As with other diacritical marks, a number of (usually French) loanwords are sometimes spelled in English with an acute accent as used in the original language: these include attaché, blasé, canapé, cliché, communiqué, café, décor, déjà vu, détente, élite, entrée, exposé, mêlée, fiancé, fiancée, papier-mâché, passé, pâté, piqué, plié, repoussé, résumé, risqué, sauté, roué, séance, naïveté, toupée and touché. Retention of the accent is common only in the French ending é or ée, as in these examples, where its absence would tend to suggest a different pronunciation. Thus the French word résumé is commonly seen in English as resumé, with only one accent (but also with both or none).

Acute accents are sometimes added to loanwords where a final e is not silent, for example, maté from Spanish mate, the Maldivian capital Malé, saké, and Pokémon from the Japanese compound for pocket monster, the last three from languages which do not use the Roman alphabet, and where transcriptions do not normally use acute accents.

For foreign terms used in English that have not been assimilated into English or are not in general English usage, italics are generally used with the appropriate accents: for example, coup d'état, pièce de résistance, crème brûlée and ancien régime.

The acute accent is sometimes (though rarely) used for poetic purposes:

The layout of some European PC keyboards, combined with problematic keyboard-driver semantics, causes some users to use an acute accent or a grave accent instead of an apostrophe when typing in English (e.g. typing John`s or John´s instead of John's).[6]

Technical notes

description character Unicode HTML
acute
above
́
combining, accent
U+0301 ́
́
combining, tone
U+0341 ́
´
spacing
U+00B4 ´
´
ˊ
spacing
U+02CA ˊ
double
acute
̋
combining
U+030B ̋
˝
spacing
U+02DD ˝
acute
below
̗
combining
U+0317 ̗
additional
diacritic
Latin
Á
á
U+00C1
U+00E1
Á
á
É
é
U+00C9
U+00E9
É
é
Í
í
U+00CD
U+00ED
Í
í
Ó
ó
U+00D3
U+00F3
Ó
ó
Ú
ú
U+00DA
U+00FA
Ú
ú
Ý
ý
U+00DD
U+00FD
Ý
ý
Ǽ
ǽ
U+01FC
U+01FD
Ǽ
ǽ
Ǿ
ǿ
U+01FE
U+01FF
Ǿ
ǿ
Ć
ć
U+0106
U+0107
Ć
ć
Ǵ
ǵ
U+01F4
U+01F5
Ǵ
ǵ

U+1E30
U+1E31
Ḱ
ḱ
Ĺ
ĺ
U+0139
U+013A
Ĺ
ĺ

ḿ
U+1E3E
U+1E3F
Ḿ
ḿ
Ń
ń
U+0143
U+0144
Ń
ń

U+1E54
U+1E55
Ṕ
ṕ
Ŕ
ŕ
U+0154
U+0155
Ŕ
ŕ
Ś
ś
U+015A
U+015B
Ś
ś

U+1E82
U+1E83
Ẃ
ẃ
Ź
ź
U+0179
U+017A
Ź
ź
double
acute
Ő
ő
U+0150
U+0151
Ő
ő
Ű
ű
U+0170
U+0171
Ű
ű
diaeresis Ǘ
ǘ
U+01D7
U+01D8
Ǘ
ǘ

U+1E2E
U+1E2F
Ḯ
ḯ
ring Ǻ
ǻ
U+01FA
U+01FB
Ǻ
ǻ
cedilla
U+1E08
U+1E09
Ḉ
ḉ
macron
U+1E16
U+1E17
Ḗ
ḗ

U+1E52
U+1E53
Ṓ
ṓ
tilde
U+1E4C
U+1E4D
Ṍ
ṍ

U+1E78
U+1E79
Ṹ
ṹ
dot
U+1E64
U+1E65
Ṥ
ṥ
circumflex
U+1EA4
U+1EA5
Ấ
ấ

ế
U+1EBE
U+1EBF
Ế
ế

U+1ED0
U+1ED1
Ố
ố
breve
U+1EAE
U+1EAF
Ắ
ắ
horn
U+1EDA
U+1EDB
Ớ
ớ

U+1EE8
U+1EE9
Ứ
ứ
Greek
Ά
ά
U+0386
U+03AC
Ά
ά
Έ
έ
U+0388
U+03AD
Έ
έ
Ή
ή
U+0389
U+03AE
Ή
ή
Ί
ί
U+038A
U+03AF
Ί
ί
Ό
ό
U+038C
U+03CC
Ό
ό
Ύ
ύ
U+038E
U+03CD
Ύ
ύ
Ώ
ώ
U+038F
U+03CE
Ώ
ώ
diaeresis
ΐ

U+0390

ΐ

ΰ

U+03B0

ΰ
Cyrillic
Ӳ
ӳ
U+04F2
U+04F3
Ӳ
ӳ

The ISO-8859-1 and Windows-1252 character encoding include the letters á, é, í, ó, ú, ý, and their respective capital forms. Dozens more letters with the acute accent are available in Unicode.

Microsoft Windows

On Windows computers, letters with acute accents can be created by holding down the alt key and typing in a three-number code on the number pad to the right of the keyboard before releasing the Alt key. Before the appearance of Spanish keyboards, Spanish speakers had to learn these codes if they wanted to be able to write acute accents, though some preferred using the Microsoft Word spell checker to add the accent for them. Some young computer users got in the habit of not writing accented letters at all.[7] The codes (which come from the IBM PC encoding) are:

On some non-US keyboard layouts (e.g. Hiberno-English), these letters can also be made by holding Ctrl+Alt (or Alt Gr) and the desired letter.

Microsoft Office

To input an accented letter in a Microsoft Office software (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Access, etc.), hold the Ctrl key, press the apostrophe (') key once, release the Ctrl key, and then press the desired letter.

Macintosh OS X

On a Macintosh computer, an acute accent is placed on a vowel by pressing ⌥ Option+e and then the vowel, which can also be capitalised; for example, á is formed by pressing ⌥ Option+e and then a, and Á is formed by pressing ⌥ Option+e and then ⇧ Shift+a.

Keyboards

Because keyboards have only a limited number of keys, English keyboards do not have keys for accented characters. The concept of dead key, a key that modified the meaning of the next key press, was developed to overcome this problem. This acute accent key was already present on typewriters where it typed the accent without moving the carriage, so a normal letter could be written on the same place.

Internet

Some sites, such as Wikipedia or the Alta Vista automatic translator[8] allow inserting such symbols by clicking on a link in a box.

Limitations

In the Dutch language some words (such as blíj́f, míj́, zíj́, and wíj́ten) should be spelled with an acute accent on both the i and j. When there is no character with an acute accent for the letter j, it is often spelled with a single acute accent (as in blíjf, míj, zíj, wíjten), which is orthographically incorrect.[9]

See also

Notes

  1. Polish Diacritics: Kreska: Not exactly acute
  2. Norwegian language council, Diacritics (in Norwegian)
  3. This makes "¿Cómo como? Como como como." correct sentences (How I eat? I eat like I eat.)
  4. Svonni, E Mikael (1984). Sámegiel-ruoŧagiel skuvlasátnelistu. Sámiskuvlastivra. III. ISBN 91-7716-008-8.
  5. Trask, L. The History of Basque Routledge: 1997 ISBN 0-415-13116-2
  6. Kuhn, Markus (7 May 2001). "Apostrophe and acute accent confusion". Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge. Retrieved 4 June 2012.
  7. Sotavent-Pedagogía: Uso y desuso de los acentos {Spanish}
  8. Babelfish automatic translator
  9. http://taaladvies.net/taal/advies/tekst/16/

External links

Look up acute accent in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Look up ´ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Look up á, ć, é, or í in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Look up ĺ, ḿ, or ó in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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