The circumflex () is a
diacritic
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...
in the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
and
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various
romanization
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...
and
transcription schemes. It received its English name from la, circumflexus "bent around"a translation of the el, περισπωμένη ().
The circumflex in the Latin script is
chevron
Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to:
Science and technology
* Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines
* Chevron (anatomy), a bone
* '' Eulithis testata'', a moth
* Chevron (geology), a fold in rock la ...
-shaped (
), while the Greek circumflex may be displayed either like a
tilde
The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) i ...
(
) or like an
inverted breve
Inverted breve or arch is a diacritical mark, shaped like the top half of a circle ( ̑ ), that is, like an upside-down breve (˘). It looks similar to the circumflex (ˆ), which has a sharp tip (''Â â Ê ê Î î Ô ô Û û''), whi ...
(
). For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin alphabet,
precomposed character
A precomposed character (alternatively composite character or decomposable character) is a Unicode entity that can also be defined as a sequence of one or more other characters. A precomposed character may typically represent a letter with a diacri ...
s are available.
In
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
, the circumflex, like other diacritics, is sometimes retained on
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...
s that used it in the original language (for example, ''
crème brûlée'').
In mathematics and
statistics
Statistics (from German: '' Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, indust ...
, the circumflex diacritic is sometimes used to denote a function and is called a ''
hat operator''.
A free-standing version of the circumflex symbol, , has become known as ''
caret
Caret is the name used familiarly for the character , provided on most QWERTY keyboards by typing . The symbol has a variety of uses in programming and mathematics. The name "caret" arose from its visual similarity to the original proofreade ...
'' and has acquired special uses, particularly in
computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...
and
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
. The
original caret,
, is used in
proofreading
Proofreading is the reading of a galley proof or an electronic copy of a publication to find and correct reproduction errors of text or art. Proofreading is the final step in the editorial cycle before publication.
Professional
Traditional ...
to indicate insertion.
Uses
Diacritic on vowels
Pitch
The circumflex has its origins in the
polytonic orthography of
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
, where it marked
long vowels that were pronounced with high and then falling
pitch. In a similar vein, the circumflex is today used to mark
tone contour
A tone contour, or contour tone, is a tone in a tonal language which shifts from one pitch to another over the course of the syllable or word. Tone contours are especially common in East, Southeast Asia, West Africa, Nilo-Saharan languages, Kh ...
in the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
. This is also how it is used in
Bamanankan
Bambara (Arabic script: ), also known as Bamana ( N'Ko script: ) or Bamanankan (), is a lingua franca and national language of Mali spoken by perhaps 15 million people, natively by 5 million Bambara people and about 10 million second-languag ...
(as opposed to a
háček, which signifies a rising tone on a syllable).
The shape of the circumflex was originally a combination of the
acute
Acute may refer to:
Science and technology
* Acute angle
** Acute triangle
** Acute, a leaf shape in the glossary of leaf morphology
* Acute (medicine), a disease that it is of short duration and of recent onset.
** Acute toxicity, the adverse ef ...
and
grave accent
The grave accent () ( or ) is a diacritical mark used to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian and many other western European languages, as well as for a few unusual uses in English. It is also used in other languages usin ...
s (^), as it marked a
syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological ...
contracted from two vowels: an acute-accented vowel and a non-accented vowel (all non-accented syllables in Ancient Greek were once marked with a grave accent). Later a variant similar to the
tilde
The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) i ...
(~) was also used.
The term "circumflex" is also used to describe similar tonal accents that result from combining two vowels in related languages such as Sanskrit and Latin.
Since
Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
has a
stress accent instead of a pitch accent, the circumflex has been replaced with an
acute accent
The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed ...
in the modern monotonic orthography.
Length
The circumflex accent marks a
long vowel
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
in the
orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...
or
transliteration
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...
of several languages.
* In
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gr ...
, the circumflex marks a
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...
with a lengthened pronunciation, often arising from
compensatory lengthening
Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda, or of a vowel in an adjacent syllable. Lengthening triggered ...
due to the loss of from the original
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
form. Examples of circumflex use in Afrikaans are ''sê'' "to say", ''wêreld'' "world", ''môre'' "tomorrow", ''brûe'' "bridges".
*
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic ...
. In the transliteration of this language, the circumflex indicates a long vowel resulting from an
aleph
Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician , Hebrew , Aramaic , Syriac , Arabic ʾ and North Arabian 𐪑. It also appears as South Arabian 𐩱 and Ge'ez .
These lett ...
contraction.
* In western
Cree
The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations.
In Canada, over 350,000 people are Cree o ...
,
Sauk, and
Saulteaux
The Saulteaux (pronounced , or in imitation of the French pronunciation , also written Salteaux, Saulteau and other variants), otherwise known as the Plains Ojibwe, are a First Nations band government in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan ...
, the Algonquianist Standard Roman Orthography (SRO) indicates long vowels either with a circumflex ⟨''â ê î ô''⟩ or with a
macron ⟨''ā ē ī ō''⟩.
* The PDA orthography for
Domari
Domari is an endangered Indo-Aryan language, spoken by Dom people scattered across the Middle East and North Africa. The language is reported to be spoken as far north as Azerbaijan and as far south as central Sudan, in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Pal ...
uses circumflex-bearing vowels for length.
* In
Emilian, ''â î û'' are used to represent
*
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
. In some varieties, such as in
Belgian French
Belgian French (french: français de Belgique) is the variety of French spoken mainly among the French Community of Belgium, alongside related Oïl languages of the region such as Walloon, Picard, Champenois, and Lorrain (Gaumais). The Frenc ...
,
Swiss French
Swiss French (french: français de Suisse or ') is the variety of French spoken in the French-speaking area of Switzerland known as Romandy. French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, the others being German, Italian, and ...
and
Acadian French
Acadian French (french: français acadien, acadjonne) is a variety of French spoken by Acadians, mostly in the region of Acadia, Canada. Acadian French has 7 regional accents, including chiac and brayon.
Phonology
Since there was relatively li ...
, vowels with a circumflex are long: ''fête'' (party) is longer than ''faite'' . This
length compensates for a deleted consonant, usually ''s''.
*
Standard Friulian
Furlan standard or Furlan normalizât also known as coinè or lenghe comun, it is the lenghe scrite or the standard written language for the entire Friulian community. The main association to foster the use and development of Friulian is the ' ...
.
*
Japanese. In the
Nihon-shiki
Nihon-shiki ( ja, 日本式ローマ字, "Japan-style," romanized as ''Nihonsiki'' in the system itself), is a romanization system for transliterating the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Among the major romanization systems for Japan ...
system of
romanization
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...
, the circumflex is used to indicate long vowels. The
Kunrei-shiki
is the Cabinet-ordered romanization system for transcribing the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Its name is rendered ''Kunreisiki rômazi'' in the system itself. Kunrei-shiki is sometimes known as the Monbushō system in English bec ...
system, which is based on Nihon-shiki system, also uses the circumflex. The Traditional and Modified forms of the
Hepburn system use the
macron for this purpose, though some users may use the circumflex as a substitute if there are difficulties inputting the macron, as the two diacritics are visually similar.
*
Jèrriais
(french: Jersiais, also known as the Jersey Language, Jersey French and Jersey Norman French in English) is a Romance language and the traditional language of the Jersey people. It is a form of the Norman language spoken in Jersey, an island i ...
.
* In
Kurmanji Kurdish
Kurmanji ( ku, کورمانجی, lit=Kurdish, translit=Kurmancî, also termed Northern Kurdish, is the northern dialect of the Kurdish languages, spoken predominantly in southeast Turkey, northwest and northeast Iran, northern Iraq, northern ...
, ⟨ê î û⟩ are used to represent .
* In
Mikasuki
The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida is a federally recognized Native American tribe in the U.S. state of Florida. They were part of the Seminole nation until the mid-20th century, when they organized as an independent tribe, receiving f ...
, circumflexed vowels indicate a rising and falling pitch or tone.
* In
Adûnaic
Adûnaic (or Adunaic) ("language of the West") is one of the fictional languages devised by J. R. R. Tolkien for his fantasy works.
One of the languages of Arda in Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, Adûnaic was spoken by the Men of Númenor ...
, the
Black Speech, and
Khuzdul
Khuzdul is a fictional language created by J. R. R. Tolkien, one of the languages of Middle-earth, specifically the secret and private language of the Dwarves.
External history
Tolkien began developing Khuzdul before the publication in 1936 ...
, constructed languages of
J. R. R. Tolkien, all long vowels are transcribed with the circumflex. In
Sindarin
Sindarin is one of the fictional languages devised by J. R. R. Tolkien for use in his fantasy stories set in Arda, primarily in Middle-earth. Sindarin is one of the many languages spoken by the Elves. The word is a Quenya word.
Called in E ...
, another of Tolkien's languages, long vowels in
polysyllabic words take the
acute
Acute may refer to:
Science and technology
* Acute angle
** Acute triangle
** Acute, a leaf shape in the glossary of leaf morphology
* Acute (medicine), a disease that it is of short duration and of recent onset.
** Acute toxicity, the adverse ef ...
, but a circumflex in monosyllables, to mark a
non-phonemic extra lengthening.
Stress
The circumflex accent marks the
stressed vowel of a word in some languages:
*
Portuguese ''â'', ''ê'', and ''ô'' are stressed "closed" vowels, opposed to their open counterparts ''á'', ''é'', and ''ó'' (see below).
*
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
: the circumflex, due to its function as a disambiguating lengthening sign (see above), is used in polysyllabic words with word-final long vowels. The circumflex thus indicates the stressed syllable (which would normally be on the
penultimate syllable), since in Welsh, non-stressed vowels may not normally be long. This happens notably where the singular ends in an ''a'', to, e.g. singular ''camera'', ''drama'', ''opera'', ''sinema'' → plural ''camerâu'', ''dramâu'', ''operâu'', ''sinemâu''; however, it also occurs in singular nominal forms, e.g. ''arwyddocâd''; in verbal forms, e.g. ''deffrônt'', ''cryffânt''; etc.
Vowel quality
*In
Breton, it is used on an ''e'' to show that the letter is pronounced
open
Open or OPEN may refer to:
Music
* Open (band), Australian pop/rock band
* The Open (band), English indie rock band
* Open (Blues Image album), ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969
* Open (Gotthard album), ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999
* Open (C ...
instead of closed.
* In
Bulgarian, the sound represented in Bulgarian by the Cyrillic letter ''ъ'' (''er goljam'') is usually transliterated as ''â'' in systems used prior to 1989. Although called a
schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
(misleadingly suggesting an unstressed lax sound), it is more accurately described as a
mid back unrounded vowel . Unlike
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
or
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, but similar to
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
** Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
**Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...
and
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gr ...
, it can be stressed.
* In
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
romanized
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
, ''ê'' is used to represent the sound in isolation, which occurs sometimes as an exclamation.
* In French, the letter ''ê'' is normally pronounced
open
Open or OPEN may refer to:
Music
* Open (band), Australian pop/rock band
* The Open (band), English indie rock band
* Open (Blues Image album), ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969
* Open (Gotthard album), ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999
* Open (C ...
, like ''è''. In the usual pronunciations of central and northern
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, ''ô'' is pronounced
close, like ''eau''; in Southern France, no distinction is made between
close and
open
Open or OPEN may refer to:
Music
* Open (band), Australian pop/rock band
* The Open (band), English indie rock band
* Open (Blues Image album), ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969
* Open (Gotthard album), ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999
* Open (C ...
''o''.
* In
Phuthi, ''î'' and ''û'' are used to mark superclose vowels and , respectively.
*
Portuguese ''â'' , ''ê'' , and ''ô'' are stressed high vowels, in opposition to ''á'' , ''é'' , and ''ó'' , which are stressed low vowels.
* In
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
** Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
**Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...
, the circumflex is used on the vowels ''â'' and ''î'' to mark the vowel , similar to Russian ''
yery
Yeru or Eru (Ы ы; italics: ), usually called Y in modern Russian or Yery or Ery historically and in modern Church Slavonic, is a letter in the Cyrillic script. It represents the close central unrounded vowel (more rear or upper than i) ...
''. The names of these accented letters are ''â din a'' and ''î din i'', respectively. (The letter ''â'' only appears in the middle of words; thus, its
majuscule
Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
version appears only in all-capitals inscriptions.)
* In
Slovak, the circumflex (''vokáň'') on ''ô'' indicates a
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
.
* In
Swedish dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...
and
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, rangin ...
literature
Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...
the circumflex is used to indicate the phonemes or ''(â)'', or (''ô'') and (''û'') in dialects and regional accents where these are distinct from (''a''), (''ö'') or (''o'' or ''å'') and (''u'') respectively, unlike Standard Swedish where and , and are short and long allophones of the phonemes and respectively, and where
Old Swedish
Old Swedish (Modern Swedish: ) is the name for two distinct stages of the Swedish language that were spoken in the Middle Ages: Early Old Swedish (), spoken from about 1225 until about 1375, and Late Old Swedish (), spoken from about 1375 unti ...
short (''ŏ'') has merged with from Old Swedish (''ā'', Modern Swedish ''
å'') instead of centralizing to or fronting to and remaining a distinct phoneme (''ô'') as in the dialects in question. Different methods can be found in different literature, so some author may use ''æ'' instead of ''â'', or use ''â'' where others use ''å̂'' (''å'' with a circumflex; for a sound between and ).
*
Vietnamese ''â'' , ''ê'' , and ''ô'' are higher vowels than ''a'' , ''e'' , and ''o'' . The circumflex can appear together with a
tone mark on the same vowel, as in the word ''Việt''. Vowels with circumflex are considered separate letters from the base vowels.
Nasality
* In
Luxembourgish
Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; Luxembourgish: ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide.
As a standard form of th ...
''m̂ n̂'' can be used to indicate nasalisation of a vowel. Also, the circumflex can be over the vowel to indicate nasalisation. In either case, the circumflex is rare.
* In several
indigenous languages of New Caledonia, a circumflex indicates
nasality on vowels: e.g. the orthography
Xârâcùù
Xârâcùù (), or Kanala, is an Oceanic language spoken in New Caledonia. It has about 5,000 speakers. Xârâcùù is most commonly spoken in the south Central area of New Caledonia in and around the city of Canala and the municipalities of Can ...
contrasts its
oral vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced witho ...
s ''a'' , ''e'' , ''i'' , ''u'' with its nasal vowels ''â'' , ''ê'' , ''î'' , ''ô'' , ''û'' – with duplicated variants indicating length (e.g. ''êê'' , etc.). Due to typographical shortage of characters, some nasal vowels in Xârâcùù are encoded with an
umlaut: e.g. ''ä'' , ''ü'' ).
Other articulatory features
* In
Emilian, ''ê ô'' denote both length and height. In
Romagnol, they are used to represent the diphthongs , whose specific articulation varies between dialects, e.g. ''sêl'' "salt".
* In
Philippine languages
The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (language ...
, the circumflex (''pakupyâ'') is used to represent the simultaneous occurrence of a stress and a
glottal stop
The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
in the last vowel of the word.
* In
Old Tupi
Old Tupi, Ancient Tupi or Classical Tupi (also spelled as Tupí) is an extinct Tupian language which was spoken by the aboriginal Tupi people of Brazil, mostly those who inhabited coastal regions in South and Southeast Brazil. It belongs to ...
, the circumflex changed a vowel into a
semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...
: ''î'' , ''û'' , and ''ŷ'' .
*In
Rusyn
Rusyn may refer to:
* Rusyn people, an East Slavic people
** Pannonian Rusyn people, a branch of Rusyn people
** Lemkos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people
** Boykos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people
* Rusyn language, an East Slavic l ...
, the letter ''ŷ'' is sometimes used to transliterate the
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...
''ы''.
* In
Turkish, the circumflex over ''a'' and ''u'' is sometimes used in words of
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
or
Persian derivation to indicate when a preceding consonant (''k'', ''g'', ''l'') is to be pronounced as a
palatal plosive; , (''kâğıt'', ''gâvur'', ''mahkûm'', ''Gülgûn''). The circumflex over ''i'' is used to indicate a
nisba suffix (''millî'', ''dinî'').
Visual discrimination between homographs
* In
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...
the circumflex can be used to distinguish
homograph
A homograph (from the el, ὁμός, ''homós'', "same" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a word that shares the same written form as another word but has a different meaning. However, some dictionaries insist that the words must also ...
s, and it is called the "genitive sign" or "length sign". Examples include ''sam'' "am" versus ''sâm'' "alone". For example, the phrase "I am alone" may be written ''Ja sam sâm'' to improve clarity. Another example: ''da'' "yes", ''dâ'' "gives".
*
Turkish. According to
Turkish Language Association
The Turkish Language Association ( tr, Türk Dil Kurumu, TDK) is the regulatory body for the Turkish language, founded on 12 July 1932 by the initiative of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and headquartered in Ankara, Turkey. The Institution acts as the ...
orthography, ''düzeltme işareti'' "correction mark" over ''a'', ''i'' and ''u'' marks a
long vowel
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
to disambiguate similar words. For example, compare ''ama'' "but" and ''âmâ'' "blind", ''şura'' 'that place, there' and ''şûra'' "council".
In general, circumflexes occur only in
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
and
Persian loanwords
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
as vowel length in early Turkish was not phonemic. However, this standard was never applied entirely consistently and by the late 20th century many publications had stopped using circumflexes almost entirely.
*
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
. The circumflex is known as ''hirnod'' "long sign" or ''acen grom'' "crooked accent", but more usually and colloquially as ''to bach'' "little roof". It lengthens a stressed vowel (''a, e, i, o, u, w, y''), and is used particularly to differentiate between
homographs; e.g. ''tan'' and ''tân'', ''ffon'' and ''ffôn'', ''gem'' and ''gêm'', ''cyn'' and ''cŷn'', or ''gwn'' and ''gŵn''. However the circumflex is only required on elongated vowels if the same word exists without the circumflex - "nos" (night), for example, has an elongated "o" sound but a circumflex is not required as the same word with a shortened "o" doesn't exist.
* The
orthography of French
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 AD, ...
has a few pairs of
homophone
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (pa ...
s that are only distinguished by the circumflex: e.g. ''
du'' (
partitive In linguistics, the partitive is a word, phrase, or case that indicates partialness. Nominal partitives are syntactic constructions, such as "some of the children", and may be classified semantically as either set partitives or entity partitives ba ...
article) vs. ''
dû'' 'due'.
Diacritic on consonants
* In
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
, the romanized writing of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
, ''ẑ'', ''ĉ'', and ''ŝ'' are, albeit rarely, used to represent ''zh'' , ''ch'' , and ''sh'' , respectively.
* In
Esperanto
Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...
, the circumflex is used on ''ĉ'' , ''ĝ'' , ''ĥ'' , ''ĵ'' , ''ŝ'' . Each indicates a different consonant from the unaccented form, and is considered a separate letter for purposes of
collation
Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office filin ...
. (See
Esperanto orthography.)
* In
Nsenga, ''ŵ'' denotes the
labiodental approximant .
* In
Chichewa
Chewa (also known as Nyanja, ) is a Bantu language spoken in much of Southern, Southeast and East Africa, namely the countries of Malawi , where it is an official language, and Mozambique and Zambia. The noun class prefix ''chi-'' is used for l ...
, ''ŵ'' (present for example in the name of the country ''
Malaŵi'') used to denote the
voiced bilabial fricative
The voiced bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is B. The official symbol is the ...
; nowadays, however, most Chichewa-speakers pronounce it as a regular .
* In
Nias
Nias ( id, Pulau Nias, Nias language: ''Tanö Niha'') (sometimes called Little Sumatra in English) is an island located off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Nias is also the name of the archipelago () of which the island is the centre ...
, ''ŵ'' denotes the
semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...
.
* In the African language
Venda
Venda () was a Bantustan in northern South Africa, which is fairly close to the South African border with Zimbabwe to the north, while to the south and east, it shared a long border with another black homeland, Gazankulu. It is now part of t ...
, a circumflex below d, l, n, and t is used to represent dental consonants: ḓ, ḽ, ṋ, ṱ.
* In the 18th century, the
Real Academia Española
The Royal Spanish Academy ( es, Real Academia Española, generally abbreviated as RAE) is Spain's official royal institution with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, and is affiliated with ...
introduced the circumflex accent in Spanish to mark that a ''ch'' or ''x'' were pronounced and respectively (instead of and , which were the default values): ''châracteres, exâcto'' (spelled today ''caracteres, exacto''). This usage was quickly abandoned during the same century, once the RAE decided to use ''ch'' and ''x'' with one assigned pronunciation only: and respectively.
* In
Domari
Domari is an endangered Indo-Aryan language, spoken by Dom people scattered across the Middle East and North Africa. The language is reported to be spoken as far north as Azerbaijan and as far south as central Sudan, in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Pal ...
(according to the Pan-Domari Alphabet orthography), the circumflex is used on the letters <''ĉ ĝ ĵ ŝ ẑ''> to represent the sounds of . It is also used above vowels to indicate length.
Abbreviation, contraction, and disambiguation
English
In 18th century
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadl ...
, before the cheap
Penny Post and while paper was taxed, the combination ''ough'' was occasionally shortened to ''ô'' when the ''gh'' was not pronounced, to save space: ''thô'' for ''though'', ''thorô'' for ''thorough'', and ''brôt'' for ''brought''.
French
In
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, the circumflex generally marks the former presence of a consonant (usually ''s'') that was
deleted and is no longer pronounced. (The corresponding
Norman French
Norman or Norman French (, french: Normand, Guernésiais: , Jèrriais: ) is a Romance language which can be classified as one of the Oïl languages along with French, Picard and Walloon. The name "Norman French" is sometimes used to descri ...
words, and consequently the words derived from them in English, frequently retain the lost consonant.) For example:
*''ancêtre'' "ancestor"
*''hôpital'' "hospital"
*''hôtel'' "hostel"
*''forêt'' "forest"
*''rôtir'' "to roast"
*''côte'' "rib, coast, slope"
*''pâté'' "paste"
*''août'' "August"
*''dépôt'' (from the Latin ''depositum'' 'deposit', but now referring to both a deposit or a storehouse of any kind)
Some
homophone
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (pa ...
s (or near-homophones in some varieties of French) are distinguished by the circumflex. However, â, ê and ô distinguish different sounds in most varieties of French, for instance ''cote'' "level, mark, code number" and ''côte'' "rib, coast, hillside".
In handwritten French, for example in taking notes, an ''m'' with a circumflex (m̂) is an informal abbreviation for ''même'' "same".
In February 2016, the Académie française decided to remove the circumflex from about 2,000 words, a plan that had been outlined since 1990. However, usage of the circumflex would not be considered incorrect.
Italian
In
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
, ''î'' is occasionally used in the plural of nouns and adjectives ending with ''-io'' as a
crasis
Crasis (; from the Greek , "mixing", "blending"); cf. , "I mix" ''wine with water''; '' kratēr'' "mixing-bowl" is related. is a type of contraction in which two vowels or diphthongs merge into one new vowel or diphthong, making one word out of ...
mark. Other possible spellings are ''-ii'' and obsolete ''-j'' or ''-ij''. For example, the plural of "various" can be spelt , , ; the pronunciation will usually stay with only one . The plural forms of "prince" and of "principle, beginning" can be confusing. In pronunciation, they are distinguished by whether the stress is on the first or on the second syllable, but would be a correct spelling of both. When necessary to avoid ambiguity, it is advised to write the plural of as or as .
Latin
In
New Latin
New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...
, circumflex was used most often to disambiguate between forms of the same word that used a long vowel, for example ablative of first declension and genitive of fourth declension, or between second and third conjugation verbs. It was also used for the interjection ''ô''.
Norwegian
In
Norwegian, the circumflex differentiates ''fôr'' "lining, fodder" from the preposition ''for''. From a historical point of view, the circumflex also indicates that the word used to be spelled with the letter ''
ð'' in
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...
for example, ''fôr'' is derived from ''fóðr'', ''lêr'' 'leather' from ''leðr'', and ''vêr'' "weather, ram" from ''veðr'' (both ''lêr'' and ''vêr'' only occur in the
Nynorsk
Nynorsk () () is one of the two written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language ( no, Landsmål) parallel to the Dano-No ...
spelling; in
Bokmål
Bokmål () (, ; ) is an official written standard for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is the preferred written standard of Norwegian for 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. Unlike, for instance, the Italian language, there ...
these words are spelled ''lær'' and ''vær''). After the ''ð'' disappeared, it was replaced by a ''
d'' (''fodr, vedr'').
Portuguese
Circumflexes are used in many common words of the language, such as ''você'' (you/thou), ''ânimo'' (cheer), and ''avô'' (grandfather). In early literacy classes in school, it is commonly nicknamed ''chapéu'' ("hat").
Mathematics
In mathematics, the circumflex is used to modify variable names; it is usually read "hat", e.g., î is "i hat". The
Fourier transform
A Fourier transform (FT) is a mathematical transform that decomposes functions into frequency components, which are represented by the output of the transform as a function of frequency. Most commonly functions of time or space are transformed ...
of a function ''ƒ'' is often denoted by
.
In the notation of
set
Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics
*Set (mathematics), a collection of elements
*Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively
Electro ...
s, a hat above an element signifies that the element was removed from the set, such as in
, the set containing all elements
except
.
In geometry, a hat is sometimes used for an
angle
In Euclidean geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two rays, called the '' sides'' of the angle, sharing a common endpoint, called the ''vertex'' of the angle.
Angles formed by two rays lie in the plane that contains the rays. Angles ...
. For instance, the angles
or
.
In vector notation, a hat above a letter indicates a
unit vector
In mathematics, a unit vector in a normed vector space is a vector (often a spatial vector) of length 1. A unit vector is often denoted by a lowercase letter with a circumflex, or "hat", as in \hat (pronounced "v-hat").
The term ''direction v ...
(a dimensionless
vector
Vector most often refers to:
*Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction
*Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism
Vector may also refer to:
Mathematic ...
with a
magnitude of 1). For instance,
,
, or
stands for a unit vector in the direction of the
x-axis of a
Cartesian coordinate system
A Cartesian coordinate system (, ) in a plane is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely by a pair of numerical coordinates, which are the signed distances to the point from two fixed perpendicular oriented lines, measured in ...
.
In
statistics
Statistics (from German: '' Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, indust ...
, the hat is used to denote an
estimator
In statistics, an estimator is a rule for calculating an estimate of a given quantity based on observed data: thus the rule (the estimator), the quantity of interest (the estimand) and its result (the estimate) are distinguished. For example, the ...
or an estimated value, as opposed to its theoretical counterpart. For example, in
errors and residuals, the hat in
indicates an observable estimate (the residual) of an unobservable quantity called
(the statistical error). It is read ''x-hat'' or ''x-roof'', where ''x'' represents the character under the hat.
Music
In
music theory
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the " rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (k ...
and
musicology
Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some m ...
, a circumflex above a numeral is used to make reference to a particular
scale degree
In music theory, the scale degree is the position of a particular note on a scale relative to the tonic, the first and main note of the scale from which each octave is assumed to begin. Degrees are useful for indicating the size of intervals a ...
.
In
music notation
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
, a
chevron-shaped symbol placed above a note indicates
marcato, a special form of emphasis or
accent. In music for
string instrument
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the s ...
s, a narrow inverted chevron indicates that a note should be performed up-bow.
Letters with circumflex
Circumflex in digital character sets
The
precomposed character
A precomposed character (alternatively composite character or decomposable character) is a Unicode entity that can also be defined as a sequence of one or more other characters. A precomposed character may typically represent a letter with a diacri ...
s ''Â/â'', ''Ê/ê'', ''Î/î'', ''Ô/ô'', and ''Û/û'' (which incorporate the circumflex) are included in the
ISO-8859-1
ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998, ''Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1'', is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in ...
character set, and dozens more are available in
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
. In addition, Unicode has and which in principle allow adding the diacritic to any base letter.
The
Greek diacritic grc, περισπωμένη, perispōménē, twisted around, label=none is encoded as .
Freestanding circumflex
For historical reasons, there is a similar but larger character, (
^
in HTML5
[HTML5 is the only version of HTML that has a named entity for the circumflex, see https://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/entities.html ("The following sections present the complete lists of character entity references.") and https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/CR-html5-20140731/syntax.html#named-character-references ("Hat;").]), which is also included in
ASCII
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...
but often called a
caret
Caret is the name used familiarly for the character , provided on most QWERTY keyboards by typing . The symbol has a variety of uses in programming and mathematics. The name "caret" arose from its visual similarity to the original proofreade ...
instead (though this term has a long-standing meaning as a
proofreader's mark, with its own codepoints in Unicode). It is, however, unsuitable for use as a diacritic on modern computer systems, as it is a spacing character. Two other spacing circumflex characters in Unicode are the smaller
modifier letter
A modifier letter, in the Unicode Standard
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of ...
s and , mainly used in
phonetic
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
notations or as a sample of the diacritic in isolation.
Typing the circumflex accent
In countries where the local language(s) routinely include letters with a circumflex, local keyboards are typically engraved with those symbols.
For users with American or British
QWERTY
QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden ty ...
keyboards, the characters â, ĉ, ê, ĝ, ĥ, î, ĵ, ô, ŝ, û, ẃ, ý (and their uppercase equivalents) may be obtained after installing the
International or extended keyboard layout setting. Then, by using (
US Int) or (
UK Ext) (^), then release, then the base letter, produces the accented version. (With this keyboard mapping, or becomes a
dead key that applies the diacritic to the subsequent letter, if such a precomposed character exists. For example, produces as used in
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
.) Alternatively for systems with a
'compose' function, , etc. may be used.
Other methods are available: see
Unicode input
Unicode input is the insertion of a specific Unicode character on a computer by a user; it is a common way to input characters not directly supported by a physical keyboard. Unicode characters can be produced either by selecting them from a dis ...
.
See also
*
Caret (disambiguation)
Caret may refer to:
* A caret is a free-standing character used in computing.
* Caret (proofreading), the proofreader's insertion symbols
* Circumflex, the diacritic in â, ê, î, ô, û.
Other
* CARET Brain Mapping Software
* Caret (sur ...
*
Caron
A caron (), háček or haček (, or ; plural ''háčeks'' or ''háčky'') also known as a hachek, wedge, check, kvačica, strešica, mäkčeň, varnelė, inverted circumflex, inverted hat, flying bird, inverted chevron, is a diacritic mark (� ...
*
Circumflex in French
*
Macron (diacritic)
A macron () is a diacritical mark: it is a straight bar placed above a letter, usually a vowel. Its name derives from Ancient Greek (''makrón'') "long", since it was originally used to mark long or heavy syllables in Greco-Roman metrics. ...
*
Tilde
The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) i ...
*
Turned v
References
External links
Diacritics Project"All you need to design a font with correct accents"''Diacs and Quirks in a NutshellAfrikaans spelling explained''earn how to create world language accent marks and other diacritics on a computer
{{Latin script, , circumflex
Latin-script diacritics
Greek-script diacritics