The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin script and Greek alphabet scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from "bent around"a translation of the ().
The circumflex in the Latin script is chevron-shaped (), while the Greek circumflex may be displayed either like a tilde () or like an inverted breve (). For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin alphabet, precomposed characters are available.
In English language, the circumflex, like other diacritics, is sometimes retained on that used it in the original language (for example entrepôt, crème brûlée).
In mathematics and statistics, the circumflex diacritic is sometimes used to denote a function and is called a hat operator.
A free-standing version of the circumflex symbol, , is encoded in ASCII and Unicode and has become known as caret and has acquired special uses, particularly in computing and mathematics. The original caret, , is used in proofreading to indicate insertion.
Uses
Diacritic on vowels
Pitch
The circumflex has its origins in the
Greek diacritics of
Ancient Greek, where it marked
vowel length that were pronounced with high and then falling
Pitch accent. In a similar vein, the circumflex is today used to mark
tone contour in the International Phonetic Alphabet. This is also how it is used in Bamanankan (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 accent and (^), as it marked a syllable 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).[: "155. The ancients regarded the grave originally as belonging to every syllable not accented with the acute or circumflex; and some Mss. show this in practice, e.g. πὰγκρὰτής. ..."] Later a variant similar to the tilde (~) was also used.
|
| νόος | contraction
→
(synaeresis) | ν- ´ō`-ς = νō͂ς = νοῦς |
| nóos | n- ´ō`-s = nō̂s = noûs |
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 has a stress accent instead of a pitch accent, the circumflex has been replaced with an acute accent in the modern monotonic orthography.
Length
The circumflex accent marks a
vowel length in the
orthography or
transliteration of several languages.
-
In Afrikaans, the circumflex marks a vowel with a lengthened pronunciation, often arising from compensatory lengthening due to the loss of from the original Dutch language form. Examples of circumflex use in Afrikaans are sê "to say", wêreld "world", môre "tomorrow", brûe "bridges".
-
In the transliteration of Akkadian, the circumflex indicates a long vowel resulting from an aleph contraction.
-
In western Cree language, Sauk, and Saulteaux, 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 language uses circumflex-bearing vowels for length.
-
In Emilian dialect, , are used to represent
-
French language: In some varieties such as in Northern French, Belgian French, Swiss French and Quebec French vowels with a circumflex are usually long: fête (party) is longer than faite . This length compensates for a deleted consonant, usually . French words with deleted include châtain and hôpital.
-
Standard Friulian.
-
Japanese: In the Nihon-shiki system of Romaji, the circumflex is used to indicate long vowels which were inherited from the Portuguese alphabet ( in particular). The Kunrei-shiki 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 fairly similar.
-
Jèrriais.
-
In UNGEGN romanization system for Khmer language: is used to represent , in first series and in second series, and for . There are also additional vowels which are such as , , , and .
-
In Kurmanji, are used to represent .
-
In Mikasuki, circumflexed vowels indicate a rising and falling pitch or tone.
-
In Adûnaic, Black Speech and Khuzdul constructed languages of J. R. R. Tolkien all long vowels are transcribed with the circumflex. In Sindarin another of Tolkien's languages long vowels in syllable words take the acute accent but a circumflex in monosyllables used to mark a phoneme extra lengthening.
Stress
The circumflex accent marks the stressed vowel of a word in some languages:
-
Portuguese , and are stressed close vowels, opposed to their open counterparts , and (see below).
-
Welsh language: 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 penult), since in Welsh, non-stressed vowels may not normally be long. This happens notably where the singular ends in an , 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 language, it is used on an to show that the letter is pronounced Vowel height 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 (misleadingly suggesting an unstressed lax sound), it is more accurately described as a mid back unrounded vowel . Unlike English language or French language, but similar to Romanian and Afrikaans, it can be stressed.
-
In Pinyin romanized Mandarin Chinese, is used to represent the sound in isolation, which occurs sometimes as an exclamation.
-
In French, the letter is usually pronounced in some varieties of French: Swiss French and Quebec French. In the usual pronunciations of central and northern France, ô is pronounced , like eau, eû is pronounced , like eux; in Southern France, no distinction is made between and , and .
-
In Phuthi language, and are used to mark and , respectively.
-
Portuguese , , and are stressed high vowels, in opposition to , , and , which are stressed low vowels.
-
In Romanian, the circumflex is used on the vowels and to mark the vowel , similar to Russian yery. The names of these accented letters are â din a and î din i, respectively. (The letter only appears in the middle of words; thus, its majuscule version appears only in all-capitals inscriptions.)
-
In Slovak language, the circumflex ( vokáň) on an (uppercase ) indicates a diphthong .
-
In Swedish language dialect and folklore literature the circumflex is used to indicate the phonemes or (), or ( ô) and ( û) in dialects and regional accents where these are distinct from (), () or ( or ) and () respectively, unlike Standard Swedish where and , and are short and long allophones of the phonemes and respectively, and where Old Swedish short ( ŏ) has merged with from Old Swedish ( ā, Modern Swedish ) instead of centralizing to or fronting to and remaining a distinct phoneme () as in the dialects in question. Different methods can be found in different literature, so some author may use instead of , or use where others use ( with a circumflex; for a sound between and ).
-
Vietnamese , , and are higher vowels than , , and . 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 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 Nasal vowel: e.g. the orthography Xârâcùù contrasts its , , , with its , , , , with duplicated variants indicating length (e.g. ). Due to typographical shortage of characters, some nasal vowels in Xârâcùù are encoded with a two dots diacritic: e.g. , ).
Other articulatory features
-
In Emilian dialect, denote both length and height.
-
In Tagalog language, Cebuano language and most Philippine languages, the circumflex accent ( pakupyâ) is used to represent the simultaneous occurrence of a stress and a glottal stop on the last vowel of a word. Though not part of the official alphabet, possible combinations can include: , , , , and . But in the case of Tboli language, the circumflex accent is only used as a pure unstressed glottal stop. It works as a combination of acute and grave accent; with the case of letters and which represents the sound of and respectively and can be shown as and if it contains a glottal stop.
-
In Romagnol dialect, they are used to represent the diphthongs , whose specific articulation varies between dialects, e.g. sêl "salt".
-
In Old Tupi, the circumflex changed a vowel into a semivowel: , , and .
-
In Rusyn language, the letter is sometimes used to transliterate the Cyrillic script letter .
-
In Turkish language, the circumflex over and is sometimes used in words of Arabic or Persian language derivation to indicate when a preceding consonant (, , ) is to be pronounced as a palatal plosive; , ( kâğıt, gâvur, mahkûm, Gülgûn). The circumflex over is used to indicate a nisba suffix ( millî, dinî).
-
In Pe̍h-ōe-jī romanization of Hokkien, the circumflex over a vowel (, , , , and ) or a syllabic nasal (, ) indicate the tone number 5, traditionally called Yang Level or Light Level (陽平). The tone contour is usually low rising. For example, , n̂g .
Visual discrimination between homographs
-
In Serbo-Croatian the circumflex can be used to distinguish , 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 language. 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".
-
Welsh language. 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; 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 has a few pairs of that are only distinguished by the circumflex: e.g. du (partitive article) vs. dû 'due'.
Diacritic on consonants
-
In Pinyin, the romanized writing of Mandarin Chinese, <ẑ>, <ĉ>, and <ŝ> are, albeit rarely, used to represent , , and , respectively.
-
In Esperanto, 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. (See Esperanto orthography.)
-
In Nsenga language, <ŵ> denotes the labiodental approximant .
-
In Chichewa, <ŵ> (present for example in the name of the country Malawi) used to denote the voiced bilabial fricative ; nowadays, however, most Chichewa-speakers pronounce it as a regular .
-
In Nias, <ŵ> denotes the semivowel .
-
In the African language Venda language, a circumflex below , , , and is used to represent dental consonants: <ḓ>, <ḽ>, <ṋ>, <ṱ>.
-
In the 18th century, the Real Academia Española introduced the circumflex accent in Spanish to mark that a or 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 and with one assigned pronunciation only: and respectively.
-
In Domari language (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, before the cheap
Penny Post and while paper was taxed, the combination
ough was occasionally shortened to when the
gh was not pronounced, to save space:
thô for
though,
thorô for
thorough, and
brôt for
brought.
French
In
French alphabet, the circumflex generally marks the former presence of a consonant (usually
s) that was deleted and is no longer pronounced. (The corresponding
Norman French 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 'deposit', but now referring to both a deposit or a storehouse of any kind)
Some (or near-homophones in some varieties of French) are distinguished by the circumflex. However, , and 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 ' with a circumflex () 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 language, is occasionally used in the plural of nouns and adjectives ending with
-io as a
crasis mark. Other possible spellings are
-ii and obsolete
-j or
-ij. For example, the plural of vario "various" can be spelt vari, varî, varii; the pronunciation will usually stay with only one . The plural forms of principe "prince" and of principio "principle, beginning" can be confusing. In pronunciation, they are distinguished by whether the stress is on the first or on the second syllable, but principi would be a correct spelling of both. When necessary to avoid ambiguity, it is advised to write the plural of principio as principî or as principii.
Latin
In
Neo-Latin, 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 .
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 in Old Norsefor 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 spelling; in Bokmål these words are spelled
lær and
vær). After the disappeared, it was replaced by a (
fodr, vedr).
Portuguese
Circumflexes are used in many common words of the language, such as the name of the language, português. Usually, , and appear before nasals ( and ) in
proparoxytone words, like higiênico but in many cases in European Portuguese and will be marked with an acute accent (e.g. higiénico) since the vowel quality is open (ɛ or ɔ) in this standard variety. In early literacy classes in school, it is commonly nicknamed chapéu (hat).
Welsh
The circumflex (ˆ) is mostly used to mark
vowel length, so are always long. However, not all long vowels are marked with a circumflex, so the letters with no circumflex do not necessarily represent short vowels.
Mathematics
In mathematics, the circumflex is used to modify variable names; it is usually read "hat", e.g.,
is "x hat". The Fourier transform of a function
ƒ is often denoted by
.
In geometry, a hat is sometimes used for an angle. For instance, the angles or .
In vector notation, a hat above a letter indicates a unit vector (a dimensionless vector 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.
In statistics, the hat is used to denote an estimator 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.
In Quantum Mechanics, the hat is sometimes used to mark a quantum observable; the observable is the self-adjoint operator implying a measurement whose moment is when the prevailing quantum state is .
Music
In
music theory and
musicology, a circumflex above a numeral is used to make reference to a particular scale degree.
In music notation, a chevron-shaped symbol placed above a note indicates marcato, a special form of emphasis or accent. In music for string instruments, a narrow inverted chevron indicates that a note should be performed up-bow.
Circumflex below
A
circumflex below a vowelfor example, is a notation used by the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet to indicate a raised variant of the vowel.
The Venda language has four letters with circumflex below , , and to indicate a dental consonant.
Unicode
Unicode encodes a number of cases of "letter with circumflex" as precomposed characters and these are displayed below. In addition, many more symbols may be composed using the combining character facility ( and ) that may be used with any letter or other diacritic to create a customised symbol but this does not mean that the result has any real-world application and thus are not shown in the table.
The Greek diacritic , is encoded as . In distinction to the angled Latin circumflex, the Greek circumflex is printed in the form of either a tilde (◌̃) or an inverted breve (◌̑).
Freestanding circumflex
There is a similar but larger character, , which was originally intended to emulate the typewriter's
dead key function using backspace and overtype. Nowadays, this grapheme is more often called a
caret instead (though that term has a long-standing meaning as a
proofreading 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
and , mainly used in
Phonetics 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 other keyboards, see QWERTY#Multilingual variants and Unicode input.
See also
External links
