Typography Word of the Day: Diacritic

Next in our regular series: Those little marks around all them letters…

English has none (unless you look in the dictionary). German has öne nötable öne. Spañish has at least one ñotable one too. French has sévéral.

Our clever little attempt to illustrate them (we hope you didn’t try to say those words that way!) steer us toward what we’re trying to define today; those little marks that flit around word in many non-English languages and in English dictionaries. We call them diacritics.

Dia-what?

According to yourDictionary.com, the root of the word diacritic means to distinguish, in this wise, to create a difference between one thing and another thing that, while similar, are not identical. in the case of a versus
á, the appearance suggests that they are fundamentally related but the letter with the bit over it is modified in some way from the one without the extra bit.

In the case of simple communication this concept carries through. Most people literate in the latinate scripts will usually assume that one also exhibits a sound change over the other.

In the case of type, and especially so in this OpenType-Unicode world, the typographer treats diacritical marks with a certain eye. Diacritics must be designed with the form and theme of the major letterform elements referenced (design concept: unity) and the letterforms must be designed with respect to the diacritics so that they look like they belong on top of, attached to, or under them.

So what are they?

Amongst the diacritical marks you may or may not run into but should probably be aware of are:

• é – accent acute
• è – accent grave
• ê – circumflex
• ë – umlaut or diaerisis
• ç – cedilla
• ñ – tilde
• ø – streg
• ð – eth (capital form Ð)
• Ã¥ – bolle
• æ – ligature
• Ä“ – macron
• č – háček
• Å­ – crescent

We will define them as appropriate or where they strike our fancy, depending.