page_title: Diacritic
section_title: Diacritics that do not produce new letters
hierarchical_section_title: Diacritic / Diacritics that do not produce new letters
caption_attribution_description: English: Blackboard used in Spanish language class at Harvard University reveals students' difficulty in correctly placing the acute accent used in Spanish orthography. March 4, 2008 photo by John Stephen Dwyer
context_page_description: A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter or basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek διακριτικός, from διακρίνω. Diacritic is primarily an adjective, though sometimes used as a noun, whereas diacritical is only ever an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave, are often called accents. Diacritical marks may appear above or below a letter, or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters.
  The main use of diacritical marks in the Latin script is to change the sound-values of the letters to which they are added. Examples are the diaereses in the borrowed French words naïve and Noël, which show that the vowel with the diaeresis mark is pronounced separately from the preceding vowel; the acute and grave accents, which can indicate that a final vowel is to be pronounced, as in saké and poetic breathèd; and the cedilla under the "c" in the borrowed French word façade, which shows it is pronounced rather than. In other Latin-script alphabets, they may distinguish between homonyms, such as the French là versus la that are both pronounced. In Gaelic type, a dot over a consonant indicates lenition of the consonant in question.
caption: Blackboard used in class at Harvard shows students' efforts at placing the ü and acute accent diacritic used in Spanish orthography.
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