Editing Diacritic (section)

==Types==
{{hatnote|Larger renditions of these glyphs are given at {{slink|Diacritic|List of diacritics in Unicode|nopage=y}}, below}}
Among the types of diacritic used in alphabets based on the [[Latin script]] are:
* accents (so called because the acute, grave, and circumflex were originally used to indicate different types of [[pitch accent]]s in the [[polytonic transcription]] of [[Greek language|Greek]])
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** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌́}}</span> – [[acute accent|acute]]  ({{langx|la|[[apex (diacritic)|apex]]}}); for example {{char|ó}}
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̀}}</span> – [[grave accent|grave]]; for example {{char|ò}} 
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̂}}</span> – [[circumflex accent|circumflex]]; for example {{char|ô}}
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̌}}</span> – [[caron]], wedge; for example {{char|ǒ}}
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̋}}</span> – [[double acute accent|double acute]]; for example {{char|ő}}
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̏}}</span> – [[double grave accent|double grave]]; for example {{char|ȍ}}
** <!-- called {{lang|es|[[virgulillia]]}} in Spanish but not in English and this is en.wikipedia -->
* [[dot (diacritic)|one dot]]
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̇}}</span> – an [[dot (diacritic)#Overdot|overdot]] is used in many orthographies and transcriptions; for example {{char|ȯ}}
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̣}}</span> – an [[dot (diacritic)#Underdot|underdot]] is also used in many orthographies and transcriptions; for example {{char|ọ}}
** {{char|◌·◌}} – an [[interpunct]] is used in the [[Catalan language|Catalan]] {{lang|ca|[[ela geminada]]}} (l·l)
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌͘ }}</span> – a dot above right is used in [[Pe̍h-ōe-jī]]
** [[tittle]], the superscript dot of the modern [[lowercase]] Latin {{angbr|i}} and {{angbr|j}}
*[[two dots (diacritic)|two dots]]: 
** two overdots  <span style="font-family: serif">({{char|◌̈}}</span>) are used for [[umlaut (diacritic)|umlaut]], [[diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis]] and others; (for example {{char|ö}})
** [[two dots (diacritic)#Diacritic underneath|two underdots]]  (<span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̤}}</span>) are used in the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]] (IPA) and the [[ALA-LC romanization]] system
** {{char|◌ː}} – [[colon (punctuation)|triangular colon]], used in the IPA to mark [[vowel length|long vowels]] (the "dots" are triangular, not circular).
* curves
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̆}}</span>  – [[breve]]; for example {{char|ŏ}}
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̑}}</span>  – [[inverted breve]]; for example {{char|ȏ}}
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌͗}}</span>  – [[sicilicus]], a [[palaeography|palaeographic]] diacritic similar to a caron or breve
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̃}}</span>  – [[tilde]]; for example {{char|õ}}
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌҃}}</span>  – [[titlo]]
* vertical stroke
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̩}}</span>  – a subscript vertical stroke is used in [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]] to mark [[syllabic consonant|syllabicity]] and in {{lang|de|[[Rheinische Dokumenta]]|italic=no}} to mark a [[schwa]]
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̍}}</span>  – a superscript vertical stroke is used in [[Pe̍h-ōe-jī]]
* macron or horizontal line
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̄}}</span>  – [[Macron (diacritic)|macron]]; for example {{char|ō}}
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̱}}</span>  – [[Macron below|underbar]]
* overlays
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌⃓}}</span>  – [[bar (diacritic)|vertical bar]] through the character
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̷}}</span>  – [[bar (diacritic)|slash]] through the character; for example {{char|ø}}
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̵}}</span>  – [[bar (diacritic)|crossbar]] through the character
* ring
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̊}}</span>  – [[ring (diacritic)|overring]]: for example {{char|å}}
* superscript curls
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̓}}</span>  – [[apostrophe]]
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̒}}</span>  – [[inverted apostrophe]]
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̔}}</span>  – [[reversed apostrophe]]
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̉}}</span>  – [[hook above]] ({{langx|vi|dấu hỏi}})
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̛}}</span>  – [[horn (diacritic)|horn]] ({{langx|vi|dấu móc}}); for example {{char|ơ}}
* subscript curls
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̦}}</span>  – [[comma#Diacritical usage|undercomma]]; for example {{char|ș}}
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̧}}</span>  – [[cedilla]]; for example {{char|ç}}
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̡ ◌̢}}</span>  – [[hook (diacritic)|hook]], left or right, sometimes superscript
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̨}}</span>  – [[ogonek]]; for example {{char|ǫ}}
* double marks (over or under two base characters)
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌͝◌}}</span>  – [[tie (typography)|double breve]]
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌͡◌}}</span>  – [[tie (typography)|tie bar]] or top ligature
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌᷍◌}}</span>  – double circumflex
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌͞◌}}</span>  – longum
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌͠◌}}</span>  – double tilde
* double sub/superscript diacritics
**<span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̧ ̧}}</span>  – [[double cedilla]]
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̨ ̨}}</span>  – [[double ogonek]]
** <span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̈ ̈}}</span>  – double diaeresis
**<span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌ͅͺ}}</span>  – [[double ypogegrammeni]]

The tilde, dot, comma, [[titlo]], apostrophe, bar, and colon are sometimes diacritical marks, but also have other uses.

Not all diacritics occur adjacent to the letter they modify. In the [[Wali language (Gur)|Wali language]] of Ghana, for example, an apostrophe indicates a change of vowel quality, but occurs at the beginning of the word, as in the dialects ''’Bulengee'' and ''’Dolimi''. Because of [[vowel harmony]], all vowels in a word are affected, so the scope of the diacritic is the entire word. In [[abugida]] scripts, like those used to write [[Hindi]] and [[Thai language|Thai]], diacritics indicate vowels, and may occur above, below, before, after, or around the consonant letter they modify.

The [[tittle]] (dot) on the letter {{angbr|i}} or the letter {{angbr|j}}, of the Latin alphabet originated as a diacritic to clearly distinguish {{angbr|i}} from the [[minim (palaeography)|minims]] (downstrokes) of adjacent letters. It first appeared in the 11th century in the sequence ''ii'' (as in {{lang|la|ingeníí}}), then spread to ''i'' adjacent to ''m, n, u'', and finally to all lowercase ''i''s. The {{angbr|j}}, originally a variant of ''i'', inherited the tittle. The shape of the diacritic developed from initially resembling today's acute accent to a long flourish by the 15th century. With the advent of [[Roman type]] it was reduced to the round dot we have today.<ref>''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''</ref>

Several languages of eastern Europe use diacritics on both consonants and vowels, whereas in western Europe [[digraph (orthography)|digraph]]s are more often used to change consonant sounds. Most languages in Europe use diacritics on vowels, aside from English where there are typically none (with [[English terms with diacritical marks|some exceptions]]).