Circumflex

The circumflex comes from the Greek alphabet where it marked pitch. It was originally a combination of acute and grave accent. Note that the circumflex is easily confused with the similar looking inverted breve ◌̑.

Circumflex in Unicode

Characters with Circumflex

^

ˆ

◌̂

Â

â

Ấ

ấ

Ầ

ầ

Ẩ

ẩ

Ẫ

ẫ

U+005E

U+02C6

U+0302

U+00C2

U+00E2

U+1EA4

U+1EA5

U+1EA6

U+1EA7

U+1EA8

U+1EA9

U+1EAA

U+1EAB

Circumflex Accent

Modifier Letter Circumflex Accent

Combining Circumflex Accent

Latin Capital Letter A With Circumflex

Latin Small Letter A With Circumflex

Latin Capital Letter A With Circumflex And Acute

Latin Small Letter A With Circumflex And Acute

Latin Capital Letter A With Circumflex And Grave

Latin Small Letter A With Circumflex And Grave

Latin Capital Letter A With Circumflex And Hook Above

Latin Small Letter A With Circumflex And Hook Above

Latin Capital Letter A With Circumflex And Tilde

Latin Small Letter A With Circumflex And Tilde

Note: May be confused with Modifier Letter Up Arrowhead, ˄ (U+02C4); or Up Arrowhead, ⌃ (U+2303).

Ậ

ậ

Ĉ

ĉ

Ê

ê

Ế

ế

Ề

ề

Ể

ể

Ễ

U+1EAC

U+1EAD

U+0108

U+0109

U+00CA

​ U+00EA

U+1EBE

U+1EBF

U+1EC0

U+1EC1

U+1EC2

U+1EC3

U+1EC4

Latin Capital Letter A With Circumflex And Dot Below

Latin Small Letter A With Circumflex And Dot Below

Latin Capital Letter C With Circumflex

Latin Small Letter C With Circumflex

​ Latin Capital Letter E With Circumflex

Latin Small Letter E With Circumflex

Latin Capital Letter E With Circumflex And Acute

Latin Small Letter E With Circumflex And Acute

Latin Capital Letter E With Circumflex And Grave

Latin Small Letter E With Circumflex And Grave

Latin Capital Letter E With Circumflex And Hook Above

Latin Small Letter E With Circumflex And Hook Above

Latin Capital Letter E With Circumflex And Tilde

ễ

Ệ

ệ

Ĝ

ĝ

Ĥ

ĥ

Î

î

Ĵ

ĵ

Ô

ô

U+1EC5

U+1EC6

U+1EC7

U+011C

U+011D

U+0124

U+0125

U+00CE

U+00EE

U+0134

U+0135

U+00D4

U+00F4

Latin Small Letter E With Circumflex And Tilde

Latin Capital Letter E With Circumflex And Dot Below

Latin Small Letter E With Circumflex And Dot Below

Latin Capital Letter G With Circumflex

Latin Small Letter G With Circumflex

Latin Capital Letter H With Circumflex

Latin Small Letter H With Circumflex

Latin Capital Letter I With Circumflex

Latin Small Ltter I With Circumflex

Latin Capital Letter J With Circumflex

Latin Small Letter J With Circumflex

Latin Capital Letter O With Circumflex

Latin Small Letter O With Circumflex

Ố

ố

Ồ

ồ

Ổ

ổ

Ỗ

ỗ

Ộ

ộ

Ŝ

ŝ

Û

U+1ED0

U+1ED1

U+1ED2

U+1ED3

U+1ED4

U+1ED5

U+1ED6

U+1ED7

U+1ED8

U+1ED9

U+015C

U+015D

U+00DB

Latin Capital Letter O With Circumflex And Acute

Latin Small Letter O With Circumflex And Acute

Latin Capital Letter O With Circumflex And Grave

Latin Small Letter O With Circumflex And Grave

Latin Capital Letter O With Circumflex And Hook Above

Latin Small Letter O With Circumflex And Hook Above

Latin Capital Letter O With Circumflex And Tilde

Latin Small Letter O With Circumflex And Tilde

Latin Capital Letter O With Circumflex And Dot Below

Latin Small Letter O With Circumflex And Dot Below

Latin Capital Letter S With Circumflex

Latin Small Letter S With Circumflex

Latin Capital Letter U With Circumflex

û

Ŵ

ŵ

Ŷ

ŷ

Ẑ

ẑ

U+00FB

​ U+0174

U+0175

U+0176

U+0177

U+1E90

U+1E91

Latin Small Letter U With Circumflex

Latin Capital Letter W With Circumflex

Latin Small Letter W With Circumflex

Latin Capital Letter Y With Circumflex

Latin Small Letter Y With Circumflex

Latin Capital Letter Z With Circumflex

Latin Small Letter Z With Circumflex

Circumflex in Natlangs

Uses of Circumflex

Usage	Language	Letters	Notes
Central vowel	Moldovan	Ââ /ɨ/, Îî /ɨ/	Ââ and Îî both stand for the same sound, but Ââ is used word-internally, and Îî initially and finally. Exceptions are compound words and proper nouns.
	Pashto (BGN/PCGN 2007 romanization)	Êê /ə/	Unaccented Ee stands for /e/.
	Romanian	Ââ /ɨ/, Îî /ɨ/	Ââ and Îî both stand for the same sound, but Ââ is used word-internally, and Îî initially and finally. Exceptions are compound words and proper nouns.
Diphthong	Slovak	Ôô /u̯o/
Disambiguation of homographs	Turkish	Ââ /a/, Îî /i/, Ûû /u/	The circumflex may optionally be used on Aa, Ii and Uu for distinguishing words that would otherwise be homographs. See also the Turkish sections on Long vowel and on Palatal phoneme further down in this table.
Long vowel	Arabic (ISO 233 romanization)	Ââ /aː/	This letter is only found in the sequence ʾÂ ʾâ which is used for transcribing آ /ʔaː/.
	Japanese (Nihon-siki romanization)	Ââ /aː/, Êê /eː/, Îî /iː/, Ôô /oː/, Ûû /uː/	This is the official way of spelling the long vowels, but it is not always followed. See the note about Japanese on Macron.
	Turkish	Ââ /aː/, Îî /iː/, Ûû /uː/	Îî is just a long /iː/, while the circumflex on Ââ and Ûû may mark that the vowel is long and/or that the previous consonant is not velar. see Palatal phoneme below. Ââ, Îî and Ûû are not counted as distinct letters in the Turkish alphabet. See also Disambiguation of homographs further up in this table.
	Welsh	Ââ /ɑː/, Êê /eː/, Îî /iː/, Ôô /oː/, Ûû /ɨː, iː/, Ŵŵ /uː/, Ŷŷ /ɨː, iː/	Vowel length is not marked when it is predictable. Regarding Ûû and Ŷŷ: The first pronunciation given is used in northern dialects and the second in southern dialects. Letters with diacritics do not count as separate letters in Welsh.
Long vowel with low pitch	Slovene (orthography with tonal accentuation)	Ââ /àː/, Êê /ɛ̀ː/, Ệệ /èː/, Îî /ìː/, Ôô /ɔ̀ː/, Ộộ /òː/, Ûû /ùː/	Inverted breve may be used instead of circumflex. These letters are not used in the standard orthography of Slovene, but in language materials.
Palatal phoneme	Turkish	Ââ /a(ː)/, Ûû /u(ː)/	The circumflex on these vowels marks that a previous Gg, Kk, Ll stand for /ɟ, c, l/ instead of /ɡ, k, ɫ/, and/or that the vowel is long. See also the Turkish sections on Long vowel and on Disambiguation of homographs further up in this table.
Raised vowel	Portuguese	Ââ /ˈɐ/, Êê /ˈe/, Ôô /ˈo/	The circumflex marks the vowels as being stressed and having a raised realization (rather than /a, ɛ, ɔ/). It also marks the vowel as being oral, unless it is followed by Mm or Nn and second consonant, in which case they are nasalized. Another exception is that Êê followed by a wordfinal Mm is also nasalized.
	Slovene (orthography with dynamic accentuation)	Êê /ˈeː/, Ôô /ˈoː/	The circumflex marks that these vowel are stressed, long, and mid-close instead of mid-open. These letters are not used in the standard orthography of Slovene, but in language materials.
	Vietnamese	Ââ /ə˧/, Ấấ /ə˧˥/, Ầầ /ə̤˨˩/, Ẩẩ /ə˧˩˧/, Ẫẫ /əˀ˧˥/, Ậậ /ə̰ʔ˧˨/, Êê /e˧/, Ếế /e˧˥/, Ềề /e̤˨˩/, Ểể /e˧˩˧/, Ễễ /eˀ˧˥/, Ệệ /ḛʔ˧˨/, Ôô /o˧/, Ốố /o˧˥/, Ồồ /o̤˨˩/, Ổổ /o˧˩˧/, Ỗỗ /oˀ˧˥/, Ộộ /o̰ʔ˧˨/	Generally, unaccented Aa, Ee, Oo stand for /aː, ɛ, ɔ/. There are many exceptions to the phonemic value of all these letters though.
Rising tone	Min Nan (Pe̍h-ōe-jī orthography)	Ââ /a˨˦/, Âⁿ âⁿ /ã˨˦/, Êê /e˨˦/, Êⁿ êⁿ /ẽ˨˦/, Îî /i˨˦/, Îⁿ îⁿ /ĩ˨˦/, M̂m̂ /m̩˨˦/, N̂g n̂g /ŋ̍˨˦/, Ôô /ə˨˦/, Ôⁿ ôⁿ /ɔ̃˨˦/, Ô͘ô͘ /ɔ˨˦/, Ûû /u˨˦/, Ûⁿ ûⁿ /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, while the tones here are as they are pronounced in Taipei.
Rising-falling (peaking) tone	Fon	Ââ [a᷈], Êê [e᷈], Ɛ̂ɛ̂ [ɛ᷈], Îî [i᷈], Ôô [o᷈], Ɔ̂ɔ̂ [ɔ᷈], Ûû [u᷈]	The rising-falling tone is not phonemic in Fon, but it is still marked with a circumflex. Tones are however not always marked at all. Note that Ɛ̂ɛ̂ and Ɔ̂ɔ̂ are not precomposed characters.
	Min Dong (Fuzhou dialect, Foochow romanization)	Ââ /a˨˦˨, ɑ˨˦˨/, Â̤â̤ /ɛ˨˦˨, a˨˦˨/, Êê /ɛi˨˦˨/, Ê̤ê̤ /œ˨˦˨/, Îî /i˨˦˨/, Ôô /ou˨˦˨/, Ô̤ô̤ /o˨˦˨, ɔ˨˦˨/, Ûû /u˨˦˨/, Ṳ̂ṳ̂ /y˨˦˨/	Note that the letters here that contain ◌̤ are not precomposed characters.
Stress	Portuguese	Ââ /ˈɐ/, Êê /ˈe/, Ôô /ˈo/	See the note on Portuguese in Raised vowel further up in this table.
Other	Darī (Yaqubi romanization)	Ââ	Darī distinguishes /a/ and /ɑ/, but it is unclear what Ââ is used for.
	Malagasy	Ââ /a/, Êê /e/, Ôô /o/	Â and Ê are single letter words in Malagasy. The circumflex on these words is not obligatory, and it does not really have any significance, as these letters are pronounced just the same unaccented. Ôô is distinguished from Oo which stands for /u/. Ôô is used only in some dialects, and in loan words, where it is not obligatory when not needed for disambiguation.
	Pashto (Yaqubi romanization)	Ââ	Pashto distinguishes /a/ and /ɑ/, but it is unclear what Ââ is used for.

Circumflex in Phonetic Transcription

Uses of circumflex

Use	Transcription system	Notes
Falling tone	International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)	Used on top of vowels (or syllabic consonants).

Circumflex in Conlangs

Uses of Circumflex

Usage	Language	Creator	Letters	Notes
Alphabet extension	Esperanto	Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof	Ĥĥ /x/	Unaccented Hh stands for /h/.
Postalveolar consonant	Esperanto	Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof	Ĉĉ /t͡ʃ/, Ĝĝ /d͡ʒ/, Ĵĵ /ʒ/, Ŝŝ /ʃ/	The unaccented versions of these letters are: Cc /t͡s/, Gg /ɡ/, Jj /j/, Ss /s/, meaning that some of the sounds these letters represent do not only change their point, but also their manner, of articulation.
Stressed long vowel	Liu (external romanization)	Qwynegold	Ââ /ˈaː/, Êê /ˈeː/, Îî /ˈiː/, Ôô /ˈoː/, Ûû /ˈuː/	In the native script, the corresponding diacritic would only be used when the syllable lacked an onset, because stress would otherwise be marked on the first consonant. But the romanization marks stress on vowels only, for simplicity's sake.
Stridulant vowel	Hapoish (external romanization)	Khemehekis	Ââ, Êê, Îî, Ôô, Ûû	Stridulant vowels are a phonation similar to creaky voice, wherein a vowel is spoken while stridulating one's apo, a uvula-like structure in the back of the mouths of the Reds, which resembles a three-leaf clover.

See Also

• Natlang Uses of Diacritics in the Latin Alphabet
• Circumflex Below
• Inverted Breve