English Alphabet - Diacritics

Diacritics

Diacritic marks mainly appear in loanwords such as naïve and façade. As such words become naturalised there is a tendency to drop the diacritics, as is now often the case with the two mentioned; however, automatic spell-checkers, as in Microsoft Office, often automatically add the diacritics back in, which has slowed their disappearance in recent years. Words that are still perceived as foreign tend to retain them; for example, the only spelling of soupçon found in English dictionaries (the OED and others) uses the diacritic. Diacritics are also more likely to be retained where there would otherwise be confusion with another word (for example, résumé rather than resume), and, rarely, even added (as in maté, from Spanish yerba mate, but following the pattern of café, from French).

Occasionally, especially in older writing, diacritics are used to indicate the syllables of a word: cursed (verb) is pronounced with one syllable, while cursèd (adjective) is pronounced with two. È is used widely in poetry, e.g. in Shakespeare's sonnets. Similarly, while in chicken coop the letters -oo- represent a single vowel sound (a digraph), in zoölogist and coöperation, they represent two. An acute, grave or diaeresis may also be placed over an 'e' at the end of a word to indicate that it is not silent, and to show how it should be pronounced instead. These devices, are, however, optional, and are in practice not used even where they would serve to alleviate some degree of confusion.