Five Diacritical Marks with Fun Names

Diacritical marks are interesting things in language. Not every language uses the same diacritical marks and then some languages import diacritical marks from other languages. Punctuation marks are sometimes known as diacritical marks, but they usually are not known as this as punctuation marks tend to give patterns to how to say sentences and diacritical marks tend to let people know how to say words. Here are the top five diacritical marks by fun pronunciation.

5. Tilde

A tilde is that curved line that appears above the letter n in Spanish. It should appear above the N in the word "Pi ñ a" that is the name of one of Columbus's ships. It should also appear above the second N in "El Ni ñ o" and "La Ni ñ a." This tells people that the letter n sounds like a y comes after it making "Pi ñ a" sound like "Peenya."

4. Macron

Macon is a fun word to say, and it obvious means something "large" or something "long" as it sounds like it is related to "macro," which is the opposite of "micro," which means "small." A macron is the line placed above a vowel in a pronunciation of a word to indicate that the vowel has the long vowel sound. Thus, the pronunciation of "rate" would most likely appear as "r ā t," so people know that the pronunciation is not the same as the word "rat."

3. Ogonek

An ogonek is rarely used in English. It is a small hook placed under vowels to indicate nasality. It curves in the same direction as a C, but it looks more like a flattened c that appears on the bottom right of the letter. Polish is probably the most commonly known language that uses the ogonek. Examples of letters with ogoneks are ą, ę, and y̨.

2. Interpunct

The most common place to see interpuncts in English is in the dictionary. These are the dots used between the letters of a word to indicate the separation of syllables. British English uses interpuncts more than American English and they are called "space dots." Some word processors have the option of turning space dots on so they can be seen in a document to help people know when one or two spaces have been used. British English also uses interpuncts, or space dots, as decimal points, such as 3• 14 instead of the American way of writing 3.14 as the estimation for Pi.

1. Umlaut

Umlaut is a fun word to say. Most people know that an umlaut is the two dots found on top of a vowel, most commonly the u. This has entered English from German, mostly when people say "uber," knowing that it should be spelled, " ü ber," to indicate the sound shift to "oo" from the sound "uh" that is found in the German word "wunderbar," meaning "wonderful." Other languages use this diacritical mark and it may appear on consonants. Sometimes the word "umlaut" is used, but the diacritical mark also has the names trema and diaeresis.