Natlang Uses of Diacritics in the Latin Alphabet

This page will list different uses of diacritical marks that have natlang precedence. Conlangers can use this to find inspiration for their own conlang romanizations.
Note that in this article combining diacritics are attached to a ◌. Diacritics without a ◌, like ¨ for example, are non-combining. Non-combining diacritics are sometimes called modifier letters in Unicode. The non-combining forms may for example be used when writing about a conlang's orthography, when one wants to refer to a diacritic without using any base letter with it.
When a letter is referred to without concerning about case, it is displayed like so: Ťť. This is for clarity's sake because some diacritics may look different depending on the letter's case.

Diacritics

Diacritic name	Other names	Character	Notes
Acute accent		ˊ
Bar	Stroke, horizontal bar, middle tilde	◌̵	Eth (Ðð) and capital African D (Ɖ) are listed here. See also stroke.
Breve		˘
Caron	Háček, haček	ˇ
Cedilla		¸	Some of the letters included here have in practice comma below, but Şş and Ţţ are listed under comma below.
Circumflex		ˆ
Comma below		◌̦	This article includes Şş and Ţţ, but not other letters containing a comma looking diacritic. Instead, see cedilla.
Diaeresis/umlaut	Tréma, trema	¨
Dot above		˙
Dot below	Underdot	◌̣
Double acute accent	Hungarumlaut	˝
Double grave accent		​ ◌̏
Grave accent		ˋ
Hook above	Dấu hỏi	◌̉
Horn	Dấu móc	◌̛
Inverted breve	Arch	◌̑
Macron		ˉ
Middle dot	Interpunct, interpoint, centered dot, centred dot, space dot	·
Ogonek		˛
Retroflex hook	Hook, tail	◌̢
Ring above		˚
Ring below		˳
Stroke	Diagonal stroke, solidus, strikethrough	◌̷	Bar may also be called stroke. Eth (Ðð) is not listed here, but under bar.
Tilde		˜
Vertical line below		ˌ

Middle Dot

Precomposed Letters with Middle Dot

·	Ŀ	ŀ
U+00B7	U+013F	U+0140
Middle Dot	Latin Capital Letter L With Middle Dot	Latin Small Letter L With Middle Dot
Note: May be confused with Modifier Letter Half Triangular Colon, ˑ (U+02D1); Bullet, • (U+2022); Bullet Operator, ∙ (U+2219); Dot Operator, ⋅ (U+22C5); or Hyphenation Point, ‧ (U+2027).

The middle dot is also known by the names interpunct, interpoint, centered (centred) dot and space dot. The dot operator ⋅ (U+22C5) may also be called middle dot.[[1]
In ancient Latin and several other scripts, the middle dot was used instead of space for separating words.[2]

Uses of Middle Dot

Usage	Language	Letters	Notes
Digraph disambiguation	Catalan	Ŀl ŀl /lː/	Ll ll without middle dot stands for /ʎ/.[3]

Ogonek

Precomposed Letters with Ogonek

˛

◌̨

Ą

ą

Ę

ę

Į

į

Ǫ

ǫ

Ǭ

ǭ

Ų

U+02DB

U+0328

U+0104

U+0105

U+0118

U+0119

U+012E

U+012F

U+01EA

U+01EB

U+01EC

U+01ED

U+0172

Ogonek

Combining Ogonek

Latin Capital Letter A With Ogonek

Latin Small Letter A With Ogonek

Latin Capital Letter E With Ogonek

Latin Small Letter E With Ogonek

Latin Capital Letter I With Ogonek

Latin Small Letter I With Ogonek

Latin Capital Letter O With Ogonek

Latin Small Letter O With Ogonek

Latin Capital Letter O With Ogonek And Macron

Latin Small Letter O With Ogonek And Macron

Latin Capital Letter U With Ogonek

ų

U+0173

Latin Small Letter U With Ogonek

In European languages the ogonek is attached to the right side of Aa, Ee and u, but in Native American languages it is supposed to be placed directly under the letter if technically possible.[4] There are no separate Unicode poins for these variants. Note that the ogonek may be confused with cedilla ¸.

Uses of Ogonek

Usage	Language	Letters	Notes

Retroflex Hook

Precomposed Letters with Retroflex Hook

◌̢

ɖ

ʯ

ɭ

ᶩ

ɳ

ᶯ

Ɽ

ɽ

ɻ

ʵ

ʂ

ᶳ

U+0322

U+0256

U+02AF

U+026D

U+1DA9

U+0273

U+1DAF

U+2C64

U+027D

U+027B

U+02B5

U+0282

U+1DB3

Combining Retroflex Hook Below

Latin Small Letter D With Tail

Latin Small Letter Turned H With Fishhook And Tail

Latin Small Letter L With Retroflex Hook

Modifier Letter Small L With Retroflex Hook

Latin Small Letter N With Retroflex Hook

Modifier Letter Small N With Retroflex Hook

Latin Capital Letter R With Tail

Latin Small Letter R With Tail

Latin Small Letter Turned R With Hook

Modifier Letter Small Turned R With Hook

Latin Small Letter S With Hook

Modifier Letter Small S With Hook

Note: It is not recommended that this combining diacritic is used with letters to create new characters.[5]

Note: Upper case of this letter is Latin Capital Letter African D, Ɖ (U+0189).

Note: Phonetic character used by sinologist to denote [ʐ̩ʷ].[6] Not used in any orthography.

Note: Phonetic character used in IPA. Not used in any orthography.

Note: Phonetic character; not used in any orthography.

Note: Phonetic character used in IPA. Not used in any orthography.

Note: Phonetic character; not used in any orthography.

Note: Phonetic character used in IPA. Not used in any orthography.

Note: Phonetic character; not used in any orthography.

Note: Phonetic character used in IPA. Not used in any orthography.

Note: Phonetic character; not used in any orthography.

Ʈ

ʈ

ʐ

ᶼ

U+01AE

U+0288

U+0290

U+1DBC

Latin Capital Letter T With Retroflex Hook

Latin Small Letter T With Retroflex Hook

Latin Small Letter Z With Retroflex Hook

Modifier Letter Small Z With Retroflex Hook

Note: Phonetic character used in IPA. Not used in any orthography.

Note: Phonetic character; not used in any orthography.

The retroflex hook is variously also called just a hook, or a tail, in Unicode. They all have in common that it is a hook turning towards the right, attached to the bottom of a letter. The majority of these letters are used in IPA to represent retroflex consonants.
Note that the retroflex hook is easily confused with the similar looking Palatalized Hook ◌̡. There are also letters with other hooks, such as Ɓɓ, Ƈƈ, Ɗɗ, Ƒƒ, Ɠɠ, ʛ, ɦ, ɧ, Ƙƙ, ɱ, Ɲɲ, Ɋɋ, ʠ, Ƥƥ, Ƭƭ, Ʋʋ, Ƴƴ, Ȥȥ.

Uses of Retroflex Hook

Usage	Language	Letters	Notes

Ring Above

Precomposed Letters with Ring Above

˚	◌̊	Å	å	Ǻ	ǻ	Ů	ů	ẘ	ẙ
U+02DA	U+030A	U+00C5	U+00E5	U+01FA	U+01FB	U+016E	U+016F	U+1E98	U+1E99
Ring Above	Combining Ring Above	Latin Capital Letter A With Ring Above	Latin Small Letter A With Ring Above	Latin Capital Letter A With Ring Above And Acute	Latin Small Letter A With Ring Above And Acute	Latin Capital Letter U With Ring Above	Latin Small Letter U With Ring Above	Latin Small Letter W With Ring Above	Latin Small Letter Y With Ring Above
Note: May be confused with the Degree Sign ° (U+00B0)		Note: May be confused with the Ångström Sign Å (U+212B).

Uses of Ring Above

Use	Language	Letters	Notes
Back version of front vowel. Often also rounded.	Chamorro	Åå /ɑ/
	Danish, Norwegian	Åå /ɔ/	From an earlier digraph aa representing /ɔ/, which in turn came from /aː/.[7]
	Swedish	Åå /o/	From an earlier digraph aa representing /ɔ/, which in turn came from /aː/.[8]
Long vowel	Czech	Ůů /uː/	This comes from a diphthong /uo/, where the o was sometimes written as a ring above the u. A sound change then turned /uo/ into /uː/.[9]

Ring Below

Precomposed Letters with Ring Below

˳	◌̥	Ḁ	ḁ
U+02F3	U+0325	U+1E00	U+1E01
Modifier Letter Low Ring	Combining Ring Below	Latin Capital Letter A With Ring Below	Latin Small Letter A With Ring Below

Note that this diacritic may be confused with dot below ◌̣ or square below ◌̻, especially in small font sizes.

Uses of Ring Below

Usage	Language	Letters	Notes
Syllabic consonant	ISO 15919 romanization of Indic scripts	L̥l̥ /l̩/, L̥̄l̥̄ /l̩ː/, R̥r̥ /r̩/, R̥̄r̥̄ /r̩ː/

Stroke

Precomposed Letters with Stroke

◌̸

◌̷

Ⱥ

ⱥ

Ȼ

ȼ

Ɇ

ɇ

Ł

ł

ᴌ

ƛ

Ø

U+0338

U+0337

U+023A

U+2C65

U+023B

U+023C

U+0246

U+0247

U+0141

U+0142

U+1D0C

U+019B

U+00D8

Combining Long Solidus Overlay

Combining Short Solidus Overlay

Latin Capital Letter A With Stroke

Latin Small Letter A With Stroke

Latin Capital Letter C With Stroke

Latin Small Letter C With Stroke

Latin Capital Letter E With Stroke

Latin Small Letter E With Stroke

Latin Capital Letter L With Stroke

Latin Small Letter L With Stroke

Latin Letter Small Capital L With Stroke

Latin Small Letter Lambda With Stroke

Latin Capital Letter O With Stroke

Note: May be confused with Cedi Sign, ₵ (U+20B5).

Note: May be confused with Cent Sign, ¢ (U+00A2).

​

Note: Phonetic character; not used in any orthography.

Note: May be confused with Empty Set, ∅ (U+2205).

ø

ᴓ

Ǿ

ǿ

ẜ

Ⱦ

ⱦ

ᵺ

U+00F8

U+1D13

U+01FE

U+01FF

U+1E9C

U+023E

U+2C66

U+1D7A

Latin Small Letter O With Stroke

Latin Small Letter Sideways O With Stroke

Latin Capital Letter O With Stroke And Acute

Latin Small Letter O With Stroke And Acute

Latin Small Letter Long S With Diagonal Stroke

Latin Capital Letter T With Diagonal Stroke

Latin Small Letter T With Diagonal Stroke

Latin Small Letter Th With Strikethrough

Note: May be confused with Diameter Sign, ⌀ (U+2300).

Note: Phonetic character; not used in any orthography.

Note: Phonetic character used in some American dictionaries.[10] Not used in any orthography.

This diacritic, and the one consisting of a horizontal bar, may both be called stroke in Unicode. In this article they are treated as two separate diacritics. Latin Small Letter Eth, ð, is listed under the bar diacritic. There are several currency symbols and mathematical symbols with strokes, but they are not included here.

Uses of Stroke

Usage	Language	Letters	Notes
Letter extension	Sahaptin	ƛ /t͡ɬ/, ƛ’ /t͡ɬʼ/	According to Wikipedia, it is "used in transcribing Sahaptin".[11]
Other	Polish	Łł /w/	Historically it stood for /ɫ/.

Tilde

Precomposed Letters with Tilde

~

˜

​ ◌̃

Ã

ã

Ẫ

ẫ

Ẵ

ẵ

Ẽ

ẽ

Ễ

ễ

U+007E

U+02DC

U+0303

​ U+00C3

U+00E3

​ U+1EAA

U+1EAB

U+1EB4

U+1EB5

U+1EBC

U+1EBD

U+1EC4

U+1EC5

Tilde

Small Tilde

Combining Tilde

Latin Capital Letter A With Tilde

Latin Small Letter A With Tilde

Latin Capital Letter A With Circumflex And Tilde

Latin Small Letter A With Circumflex And Tilde

Latin Capital Letter A With Breve And Tilde

Latin Small Letter A With Breve And Tilde

Latin Capital Letter E With Tilde

Latin Small Letter E With Tilde

Latin Capital Letter E With Circumflex And Tilde

Latin Small Letter E With Circumflex And Tilde

Note: May be confused with swung dash ⁓ (U+2053).

Ĩ

ĩ

Ñ

ñ

Õ

õ

Ȭ

ȭ

Ṍ

ṍ

Ṏ

ṏ

Ỗ

U+0128

U+0129

​ U+00D1

U+00F1

U+00D5

U+00F5

U+022C

U+022D

U+1E4C

U+1E4D

U+1E4E

U+1E4F

U+1ED6

Latin Capital Letter I With Tilde

Latin Small Letter I With Tilde

Latin Capital Letter N With Tilde

Latin Small Letter N With Tilde

Latin Capital Letter O With Tilde

Latin Small Letter O With Tilde

Latin Capital Letter O With Tilde And Macron

Latin Small Letter O With Tilde And Macron

Latin Capital Letter O With Tilde And Acute

Latin Small Letter O With Tilde And Acute

Latin Capital Letter O With Tilde And Diaeresis

Latin Small Letter O With Tilde And Diaeresis

Latin Capital Letter O With Circumflex And Tilde

ỗ

Ỡ

ỡ

Ũ

ũ

Ṹ

ṹ

Ữ

ữ

Ṽ

ṽ

Ỹ

ỹ

U+1ED7

U+1EE0

U+1EE1

U+0168

U+0169

U+1E78

U+1E79

U+1EEE

U+1EEF

U+1E7C

U+1E7D

U+1EF8

U+1EF9

Latin Small Letter O With Circumflex And Tilde

Latin Capital Letter O With Horn And Tilde

Latin Small Letter O With Horn And Tilde

Latin Capital Letter U With Tilde

Latin Small Letter U With Tilde

Latin Capital Letter U With Tilde And Acute

Latin Small Letter U With Tilde And Acute

Latin Capital Letter U With Horn And Tilde

Latin Small Letter U With Horn And Tilde

Latin Capital Letter V With Tilde

Latin Small Letter V With Tilde

Latin Capital Letter Y With Tilde

Latin Small Letter Y With Tilde

Uses of Tilde

Use	Language	Letters	Notes
Glottalized vowel	Vietnamese	Ãã /aˀː˧˥/, Ẵẵ /aˀ˧˥/, Ẫẫ /əˀ˧˥/, Ẽẽ /ɛˀ˧˥/, Ễễ /eˀ˧˥/, Ĩĩ /iˀ˧˥/, Õõ /ɔˀ˧˥/, Ỗỗ /oˀ˧˥/, Ỡỡ /əˀː˧˥/, Ũũ /uˀ˧˥/, Ữữ /ɨˀ˧˥/, Ỹỹ /iˀ˧˥/	The tilde stands for mid rising tone interrupted by a glottal stop.[12] There are many exceptions to the phonemic values of these letters though.[13]
Unrounded vowel	Estonian	Õõ /ɤ/
Other	ISO 15919 romanization of Indic scripts	Ññ	Ññ is used for transcribing the Indic diacritic anusvāra before palatal consonants.[14]
	Livonian	Õõ /ɨ/, Ȭȭ /ɨː/

Vertical Line Below

Precomposed Letters with Vertical Line Below

ˌ	◌̩
U+02CC	U+0329
Modifier Letter Low Vertical Line	Combining Vertical Line Below
Note: Whether this can be said to be the non-combining version of vertical line below is open to debate. This character is used for marking secondary stress in IPA, while combining vertical line below is used for marking syllabic consonants in IPA.

No actual precomposed letters with this diacritic actually exist.

Uses of Vertical Line Below

Usage	Language	Letters	Notes
Lowered vowel with retracted tongue root	Yoruba (current Nigerian alphabet)	E̩e̩ /ɛ̙/, O̩o̩ /ɔ̙/	The vertical line below replaced an earlier dot below. This is because the dots get covered when a word is underlined. In Benin, a different alphabet is used for Yoruba.[15]
Postalveolar consonant	Yoruba (current Nigerian alphabet)	S̩s̩ /ʃ/