Circumflex

The circumflex (^), also known as the caret or "l'accent circonflexe" in French, is a diacritic used most commonly in French, but can also be seen in languages such as Slovak, Welsh, Portuguese, and Vietnamese. Its name is derived from the Latin circumflexus, meaning "bent around", referring to its shape, which resembles a little hat, placed over a vowel. Originally, the circumflex was an acute accent and a grave accent put together.

In French, the circumflex usually shows the loss of a letter, usually the loss of the letter S. Example: maistre (Middle French) > maître (modern French). From here, its function is historical. Furthermore, less often, it is used to distinguish between homophones. These are words spelt the same, but with different meanings. Example: sur = on, but sûr = safe or certain. In those cases, the pronunciation of the two words may be different.

In English, the circumflex is sometimes retained on loanwords. For example, crème brûlée.

References

Catach, Nina (ed) 1995. Dictionnaire historique de l'orthographe française. Paris: Larousse.
Casagrande, Jean 1984. The sound system of French. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. 

Category:Alphabetic diacritics