Accent Marks

What Are Special Characters?

Special characters are accented letters and diacritical marks used in non-English languages. These characters extend the basic Latin alphabet to represent sounds and pronunciations specific to different languages and writing systems.

Understanding Diacritical Marks

Diacritical marks (or diacritics) are symbols added to letters to change their pronunciation or distinguish between similar words. The main types include:

Acute Accent (´)

Appears above vowels to indicate stress or a change in vowel quality. Common in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Irish, Hungarian, and Czech.

• Spanish: "está" (is) vs "esta" (this)
• French: "café" (coffee)
• Portuguese: "José" (Joseph)

Grave Accent (`)

Appears above vowels, primarily in French, Italian, Portuguese, and Catalan. Indicates pronunciation or distinguishes homophones.

• French: "père" (father), "là" (there) vs "la" (the)
• Italian: "città" (city)

Circumflex (ˆ)

Used in French, Portuguese, Romanian, and Welsh. In French, often indicates a historical 's' that was dropped.

• French: "hôtel" (from old French "hostel")
• Portuguese: "você" (you)

Tilde (˜)

Most notably used in Spanish (ñ) and Portuguese (ã, õ). Changes the sound of the letter.

• Spanish: "año" (year) - the ñ is a distinct letter
• Portuguese: "São Paulo" (Saint Paul)

Umlaut/Diaeresis (¨)

Used in German, Swedish, Hungarian, and other languages. Indicates a different vowel sound or that vowels should be pronounced separately.

• German: "über" (over), "Köln" (Cologne)
• French: "naïve" - indicates separate pronunciation
• Spanish: "pingüino" (penguin)

Cedilla (¸)

Appears under the letter 'c' in French, Portuguese, Catalan, and Turkish. Changes the 'c' to an 's' sound.

• French: "français" (French)
• Portuguese: "açúcar" (sugar)

Ligatures

Ligatures are combined letter forms that originated in handwriting and early printing. While less common in modern digital typography, they remain standard in certain words and languages.

Common Ligatures

• æ (ae): Used in Latin-derived words like "encyclopædia" and in Danish/Norwegian
• œ (oe): French words like "cœur" (heart) and "œuvre" (work)
• ß (Eszett): German sharp S, used in words like "Straße" (street)

Special Letters

Scandinavian Letters

• Å (å): Swedish, Norwegian, Danish - distinct letter after Z
• Ø (ø): Norwegian, Danish - represents "eu" sound
• Ö (ö): Swedish, Finnish - similar to German ö

Icelandic Letters

• Ð (ð) - Eth: Represents "th" in "this"
• Þ (þ) - Thorn: Represents "th" in "thing"

Polish Letters

• Ł (ł): L with stroke, pronounced like English "w"

When to Use Special Characters

Proper Names

Always use the correct spelling with diacritics for people's names, places, and brands:

• Beyoncé (not Beyonce)
• São Paulo (not Sao Paulo)
• Zürich (not Zurich)
• Montréal (not Montreal)

Foreign Words

When using words from other languages, maintain their original spelling:

• café, résumé, naïve (French)
• piñata, jalapeño (Spanish)
• über, Gemütlichkeit (German)

Technical Writing

In technical contexts (URLs, programming, file names), accented characters are often converted to plain ASCII equivalents. However, modern systems increasingly support Unicode in these contexts.

Keyboard Input Methods

macOS

Press and hold a letter key to see accent options, or use:

• Option + E, then vowel = acute accent (é)
• Option + `, then vowel = grave accent (è)
• Option + I, then vowel = circumflex (ê)
• Option + N, then letter = tilde (ñ)
• Option + U, then vowel = umlaut (ü)

Windows

Use Alt codes or the International Keyboard layout:

• Alt + 0233 = é
• Alt + 0241 = ñ
• Alt + 0252 = ü

Mobile Devices

Press and hold letter keys to access accented variants on iOS and Android keyboards.

HTML Entities

For web development, you can use HTML entities or numeric character references:

• é or é for é
• ñ or ñ for ñ
• ü or ü for ü
• ç or ç for ç

Common Mistakes

Omitting Diacritics

Writing "resume" instead of "résumé" changes the meaning. "Resume" means to continue, while "résumé" is a CV.

Wrong Accent Type

Each language has specific rules. Don't assume accents are interchangeable.

Anglicizing Names

Removing accents from names is disrespectful and can cause legal/official documentation issues.

SEO and Web Considerations

Search engines handle accented characters well. Using proper spelling can improve SEO for non-English queries. Modern browsers and servers support UTF-8 encoding, making special characters safe for:

• Page titles and headings
• Meta descriptions
• URLs (though ASCII is often preferred for compatibility)
• Body content

Accessibility

Screen readers correctly pronounce accented characters in supported languages. Using proper spelling improves accessibility for non-English speakers.

Best Practices

• Always use correct diacritics for proper nouns (names, places)
• Respect the original spelling of foreign words
• Use UTF-8 encoding for all web content
• Enable international keyboard layouts for frequent use
• In technical contexts, document whether you're using Unicode or ASCII equivalents
• Never strip accents from database entries (names, addresses)