Editing Circumflex (section)

====Visual discrimination between homographs====
* In [[Serbo-Croatian]] the circumflex can be used to distinguish [[homograph]]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".<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.srpskijezickiatelje.com/pravopis:ostali-znaci#toc2 |title=Pravopis Srpskog Jezika |language=sr |chapter=Genitivni znak |access-date=2011-04-25 |archive-date=2012-03-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120308121610/http://www.srpskijezickiatelje.com/pravopis:ostali-znaci#toc2 |url-status=live }}</ref>
* [[Turkish language|Turkish]]. According to [[Turkish Language Association]] orthography, ''düzeltme işareti'' "correction mark" over ''a'', ''i'' and ''u'' marks a [[long vowel]] to disambiguate similar words. For example, compare ''ama'' "but" and ''âmâ'' "blind", ''şura'' 'that place, there' and ''şûra'' "council".<ref name="tdk">{{Cite web |title=Düzeltme İşareti |trans-title=Correction Mark |url=http://www.tdk.gov.tr/TR/BelgeGoster.aspx?F6E10F8892433CFFAAF6AA849816B2EF4EC2F94D94121ECE |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070221180227/http://www.tdk.gov.tr/TR/BelgeGoster.aspx?F6E10F8892433CFFAAF6AA849816B2EF4EC2F94D94121ECE |archive-date=February 21, 2007 |website=Türk Dil Kurumu |language=tr}}</ref> In general, circumflexes occur only in [[Arabic]] and [[Persian language|Persian]] [[loanwords]] as vowel length in early Turkish was not phonemic. However, this standard was never applied entirely consistently<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lewis |first=Geoffrey |title=The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-823856-8 |location=Oxford}}</ref> and by the late 20th century many publications had stopped using circumflexes almost entirely.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kornfilt |first=Jaklin |title=Turkish |year=1997 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-00010-6 |location=London|author-link=Jaklin Kornfilt}}</ref> 
* [[Welsh language|Welsh]]. 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 [[homonym|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 [[French orthography|orthography of French]] has a few pairs of [[homophone]]s that are only distinguished by the circumflex: e.g. ''[[:wikt:du#French|du]]'' {{IPA|fr|dy|}} ([[partitive]] article) vs. ''[[:wikt:dû|dû]]'' {{IPA|fr|dy|}} 'due'.