Grave Accent

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The grave accent originates from the Greek alphabet where it was used for marking low pitch.[1][2]

Grave Accent in Unicode

Characters with Grave Accent
` ˋ ˴ ◌̀ ◌̀ À à È è
U+0060 U+02CB U+02F4 U+0300 U+0340 U+00C0 U+00E0 U+1EA6 U+1EA7 U+1EB0 U+1EB1 U+00C8 U+00E8
Grave Accent Modifier Letter Grave Accent Modifier Letter Middle Grave Accent Combining Grave Accent Combining Grave Tone Mark Latin Capital Letter A With Grave Latin Small Letter A With Grave Latin Capital Letter A With Circumflex And Grave Latin Small Letter A With Circumflex And Grave Latin Capital Letter A With Breve And Grave Latin Small Letter A With Breve And Grave Latin Capital Letter E With Grave Latin Small Letter E With Grave
Note: The tone mark was created for Vietnamese, but its use is now discouraged.[3]
Ì ì Ǹ ǹ Ò ò
U+1E14 U+1E15 U+1EC0 U+1EC1 U+00CC U+00EC U+01F8 U+01F9 U+00D2 U+00F2 U+1E50 U+1E51 U+1ED2
Latin Capital Letter E With Macron And Grave Latin Small Letter E With Macron And Grave Latin Capital Letter E With Circumflex And Grave Latin Small Letter E With Circumflex And Grave Latin Capital Letter I With Grave Latin Small Letter I With Grave Latin Capital Letter N With Grave Latin Small Letter N With Grave Latin Capital Letter O With Grave Latin Small Letter O With Grave Latin Capital Letter O With Macron And Grave Latin Small Letter O With Macron And Grave Latin Capital Letter O With Circumflex And Grave
Ù ù Ǜ ǜ
U+1ED3 U+1EDC U+1EDD U+00D9 U+00F9 U+01DB U+01DC U+1EEA U+1EEB U+1E80 U+1E81 U+1EF2 U+1EF3
Latin Small Letter O With Circumflex And Grave Latin Capital Letter O With Horn And Grave Latin Small Letter O With Horn And Grave Latin Capital Letter U With Grave Latin Small Letter U With Grave Latin Capital Letter U With Diaeresis And Grave Latin Small Letter U With Diaeresis And Grave Latin Capital Letter U With Horn And Grave Latin Small Letter U With Horn And Grave Latin Capital Letter W With Grave Latin Small Letter W With Grave Latin Capital Letter Y With Grave Latin Small Letter Y With Grave

Grave Accent in Natlangs

Uses of Grave Accent
Use Language Letters Notes
Contraction Portuguese Àà /a/, Òò In modern Portuguese, only Àà is officially used. It marks crasis on Aa, meaning that two Aa in separate words are contracted, forming one word out of the two. Òò is used inofficially for a similar purpose.[4]
Disambiguation of homographs Malagasy Àà /ˈa/, Èè /ˈe/, Ìì /ˈi/, Òò /ˈu/, Ỳỳ /ˈi/ The grave accent marks stress, but it usually only used for distinguishing between homographs. With pairs of these words, it is the one with exceptional stress placement that is marked with the grave, while the other word is unmarked. Dictionaries however may mark the stress of all words.[5]
Falling tone Fon Àà [â], Èè [ê], Ɛ̀ɛ̀ [ɛ̂], Ìì [î], Òò [ô], Ɔ̀ɔ̀[ɔ̂], Ùù [û] The falling tone is not phonemic in Fon, but it is still marked with a grave accent. Tones are however not always marked at all.[6] Note that Ɛ̀ɛ̀ and Ɔ̀ɔ̀ are not precomposed characters.
Mandarin (Pinyin romanization) Àà /a˥˩/, Èè /ə˥˩/, Ìì /i˥˩/, Òò /ə˥˩/, Ùù /u˥˩/, Ǜǜ /y˥˩/ Pinyin was created in the 1950s, and its tone marks were based on the Bopomofo phonetic notation.[7] Note that these tone values are based on the Beijing dialect.[8]
Min Dong (Fuzhou dialect, Foochow romanization) Àà /a˥˧, ɑ˥˧/, À̤à̤ /ɛ˥˧, a˥˧/, Èè /ɛi˥˧/, È̤è̤ /œ˥˧/, Ìì /i˥˧/, Òò /ou˥˧/, Ò̤ò̤ /o˥˧, ɔ˥˧/, Ùù /u˥˧/, Ṳ̀ṳ̀ /y˥˧/ Note that the letters here that contain ◌̤ are not precomposed characters.
Min Nan (Pe̍h-ōe-jī orthography) Àà /a˨˩/, Àⁿ àⁿ /ã˨˩/, Èè /e˨˩/, Èⁿ èⁿ /ẽ˨˩/, Ìì /i˨˩/, Ìⁿ ìⁿ /ĩ˨˩/, M̀m̀ /m̩˨˩/, Ǹg ǹg /ŋ̍˨˩/, Òò /ə˨˩/, Òⁿ òⁿ /ɔ̃˨˩/, Ò͘ò͘ /ɔ˨˩/, Ùù /u˨˩/, Ùⁿ ùⁿ /u˨˩/ There is much variation in the tones and vowel qualities between different dialects of Min Nan. The vowel qualities here seem to be an approximation between the dialects,[9] while the tones here are as they are pronounced in Taipei.[10]
Vietnamese Àà /a̤ː˨˩/, Ằằ /a̤˨˩/, Ầầ /ə̤˨˩/, Èè /ɛ̤˨˩/, Ềề /e̤˨˩/, Ìì /i̤˨˩/, Òò /ɔ̤˨˩/, Ồồ /o̤˨˩/, Ờờ /ə̤ː˨˩/, Ùù /ṳ˨˩/, Ừừ /ɨ̤˨˩/, Ỳỳ /i̤˨˩/ The grave accent stands for low falling tone with breathy voice. There are many exceptions to the phonemic values of these letters though.[11]
Lowered vowel Portuguese Èè /ɛ/, Òò /ɔ/ Used by some grammarians to show that unstressed Ee and Oo are realized as lowered vowels, not as /e, o/. This use is not official in Portuguese orthography.[4]
Short vowel Croatian, Serbian Àà /ǎ/, Èè /ě/, Ìì /ǐ/, Òò /ǒ/, R̀r̀ /ř̩/, Ùù /ǔ/ The grave accent marks that these vowels are short and have rising pitch. These letters are not used in the standard orthography of Croatian or Serbian, but in linguistic materials.[12]
Slovene (orthography with dynamic accentuation) Àà /ˈa/, Èè /ˈɛ/, Ìì /ˈi/, Òò /ˈɔ/, R̀r̀ /ˈəɾ/, Ùù /ˈu/ The grave accent marks that these vowels are stressed and short, and that Èè and Òò are mid-open vowels rather than mid-close. These letters are not used in the standard orthography of Slovene, but in language materials.[13]
Slovene (orthography with tonal accentuation) Àà /á/, Èè /ɛ́/, Ẹ̀ẹ̀ /é/, Ìì /í/, Òò /ɔ́/, Ọ̀ọ̀ /ó/, R̀r̀ /ə́ɾ/, Ùù /ú/ The grave accent marks that these vowels are short and have high pitch. These letters are not used in the standard orthography of Slovene, but in language materials.[13]
Welsh Àà /a/, Èè /ɛ/, Ìì /ɪ/, Òò /ɔ/, Ùù /ɨ̞, ɪ/, Ẁẁ /ʊ/, Ỳỳ /ɨ̞, ɪ/ The grave accent is used for marking vowels that are short, in environments where a long vowel would otherwise be expected. Oftentimes it is omitted altogether, though.[14] Regarding Ùù and Ỳỳ: The first pronunciation given is used in northern dialects and the second in southern dialects.[15] Letters with diacritics do not count as separate letters in Welsh.[16]
Stress Catalan Àà /ˈa/, Èè /ˈɛ/, Òò /ˈɔ/ The rules for when stress is to be marked in Catalan are quite complex. The grave accent also distinguishes stressed /ɛ ɔ/ from /e o/,[17] see Acute Accent, Acute Accent in Natlangs.
Portuguese Àà, Èè, Ìì, Òò, Ùù Used for marking irregular stress. This usage started to disappear in the 1970's.[4]
Varying length Arabic (ISO 233 romanization) Ỳỳ [a(ː)] Ỳỳ is used for transcribing the Arabic letter ى‎, which is phonemically long but is often realized short.[18] Yy is probably used as base letter because ى is a dotless version of ي which stands for /j/ (and other sounds), transcribed Yy.
Arabic (ISO/R 233 romanization) Àà [a(ː)] Àà is used for transcribing the Arabic letter ى‎, which is phonemically long but is often realized short.[18]

Acute Accent in Phonetic Transcription

Uses of grave accent
Use Transcription system Characters Notes
Low tone International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) ◌̀ Used on top of vowels (or syllabic consonants). Alternatively, one may use the low tone bar (˨) instead, placing it after the affected syllable.

Grave Accent in Conlangs

Uses of Grave Accent
Usage Language Creator Letters Notes
Low pitch Inng (external transcription) Qwynegold Àà /à/, Èè /ə̀, ì/, Ìì /ì/, L̀l̀ /l̩̀/, M̀m̀ /ŋ̩̀/, Ǹǹ /ŋ̩̀/, Òò /ò, ə̀, à/, Ùù /ù/ Some of these accented letters only appear as part of a digraph when representing a certain sound.[19]
Low tone Lhueslue (external romanization) Qwynegold Àà /ɑ̀/, Àe àe /æ̀/, Èè /è/. Èe èe /ɛ̀/, Ìì /ì/, Ìe ìe /ɘ̀/, Òò /ò/, Òe òe /ø̀/, Ùù /ù/, Ùe ùe /ỳ/ This tone may be realized as either a low level tone, or a falling tone. Unaccented vowels have mid level tone.[20]
Stress Liu (external romanization) Qwynegold Àà /ˈa/, Èè /ˈe/, Ìì /ˈi/, Òò /ˈo/, Ùù /ˈu/ The grave accent marks that the vowel is stressed and short. In the native script, the corresponding diacritic would be placed on the first letter of the syllable, whether it's a vowel or a consonant, but in the romanization it is only used on vowel letters for simplicity's sake.

See Also

References

  1. grave at Everything2.
  2. Grave accent, Greek at Wikipedia.
  3. This was due to positioning issues in Vietnamese diacritic stacking, but this is now handled by the regular combining grave. Sources:
    Unicode, Inc. 2014. Combining Diacritical Marks.
    Vietnamese language and computers, Vietnamese Alphabet at Wikipedia.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 Portuguese language, Diacritics at Wikipedia.
  5. Malagasy language, Diacritics at Wikipedia.
  6. Fon language, Tone marking at Wikipedia. See also Fon language, Tone for a short overview of the tonal system of Fon.
  7. Pinyin, History after 1949 at Wikipedia.
  8. Mandarin Chinese, Tones at Wikipedia.
  9. Pe̍h-ōe-jī, Current system at Wikipedia.
  10. Taiwanese Hokkien, Tones at Wikipedia.
  11. Vietnamese orthography, Pronunciation at Wikipedia.
  12. Serbo-Croatian phonology, Pitch accent at Wikipedia.
  13. 13.0 13.1 Slovene language, Prosody at Wikipedia.
  14. Welsh orthography, Diacritics at Wikipedia.
  15. Welsh orthography, Letter names and sounds values at Wikipedia.
  16. Welsh orthography at Wikipedia.
  17. Catalan alphabet, Acute and grave accents at Wikipedia.
  18. 18.0 18.1 Aleph, Arabic variants at Wikipedia.
  19. Inng, Transcription at FrathWiki.
  20. Lhueslue, Tones at FrathWiki.