Caron

For other uses, seeCaron (disambiguation).

"Hacek" redirects here. For the group of bacteria, seeHACEK organisms.

◌̌
Caron
U+030C◌̌COMBINING CARON

Acaronis adiacriticmark (◌̌) placed over certain letters in the orthography of some languages, to indicate a change of the related letter's pronunciation.

The symbol is common in theBaltic,Slavic,Finnic,SamicandBerberlanguages.

The use of the caron differs according to the orthographic rules of a language. In most Slavic and other European languages it indicates present or historicalpalatalization(e→ě;[e] → [ʲe]),iotation,orpostalveolar articulation(c→č;[ts]→[tʃ]). InSalishan languages,it often represents auvular consonant(x →x̌;[x] →[χ]). When placed over vowel symbols, the caron can indicate a contourtone,for instance the falling and then rising tone in thePinyinromanizationofMandarinChinese. It is also used to decorate symbols in mathematics, where it is often pronounced/ˈtʃɛk/( "check" ).

The caron is shaped approximately like a small letter "v". Forseriftypefaces, the caron generally has one of two forms: either symmetrical, essentially identical to an invertedcircumflex;or with the left stroke thicker than the right, like the usual serif form of the letter "v" (v,but without serifs). The latter form is often preferred by Czech designers for use inCzech,while for other uses the symmetrical form tends to predominate,as it does also amongsans-seriftypefaces.

The caron is not to be confused with thebreve(◌̆,which is curved rather than angled):

Breve vs. caron

Breve	Ă ă Ĕ ĕ Ĭ ĭ Ŏ ŏ Ŭ ŭ Y̆ y̆
Caron	Ǎ ǎ Ě ě Ǐ ǐ Ǒ ǒ Ǔ ǔ Y̌ y̌

Names

Different disciplines generally refer to this diacritic mark by different names. Typography tends to use the termcaron.Linguistics more often useshaček(with no long mark), largely due to the influence of thePrague School(particularly on Structuralist linguists who subsequently developed alphabets for previously unwritten languages of the Americas). Pullum's and Ladusaw'sPhonetic Symbol Guide(Chicago, 1996) uses the termwedge.

The termcaronis used in the official names ofUnicodecharacters (e.g., "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH CARON" ). TheUnicode Consortiumexplicitly statesthat the reason for this is unknown, but its earliest known use was in theUnited States Government Printing OfficeStyle Manual of 1967, and it was later used in character sets such as DIN 31624 (1979), ISO 5426 (1980), ISO/IEC 6937 (1983) and ISO/IEC 8859-2 (1985).Its actual origin remains obscure, but some have suggested that it may derive from a fusion ofcaretandmacron.Though this may befolk etymology,it is plausible, particularly in the absence of other suggestions. A Unicode technical note states that the name "hacek" should have been used instead.

TheOxford English Dictionarygives 1953 as the earliest appearance in English forháček.InCzech,háček([ˈɦaːtʃɛk]) means 'smallhook', thediminutiveform ofhák([ˈɦaːk],'hook') ". The name appears in most English dictionaries, but they treat the long mark (acute accent) differently. British dictionaries, such as theOED,ODE,CED,writeháček(with the mark) in the headwords, while American ones, such as theMerriam-Webster,NOAD,AHD,omit the acute and writehaček,however, theNOADgivesháčekas an alternative spelling.

InSlovakit is calledmäkčeň([ˈmɛɐktʂeɲ],i.e., 'softener' or 'palatalizationmark'), inSerbo-Croatiankvakaorkvačica('angled hook' or 'small angled hook'), inSlovenianstrešica('littleroof') orkljukica('little hook'), inLithuanianpaukščiukas('little bird') orvarnelė('littlejackdaw'), inEstoniankatus('roof'), inFinnishhattu('hat'), and inLakotaičášleče('wedge').

Origin

The caron evolved from thedot abovediacritic, whichJan Husintroduced intoCzech orthography(along with theacute accent) in hisDe Orthographia Bohemica(1412). The original form still exists inPolishż.However, Hus's work was hardly known at that time, andháčekbecame widespread only in the 16th century with the introduction of printing.

Usage

For the fricativesš[ʃ],ž[ʒ],and the affricateč[tʃ]only, the caron is used in most northwestern Uralic languages that use the Latin alphabet, such asKarelian,Veps,Northern Sami,andInari Sami(although not inSouthern Sami).EstonianandFinnishusešandž(but notč), but only for transcribing foreign names and loanwords (albeit common loanwords such asšekkiortšekk'check'); the sounds (and letters) are native and common in Karelian, Veps, and Sami.

InItalian,š,ž,andčare routinely used as in Slovenian to transcribeSlavicnames in theCyrillic scriptsince in native Italian words, the sounds represented by these letters must be followed by a vowel, and Italian useschfor/k/,not/tʃ/.OtherRomance languages,by contrast, tend to use their own orthographies, or in a few cases such as Spanish, borrow Englishshorzh.

The caron is also used in theRomany alphabet.TheFaggin-Nazziwriting system forFriulianmakes use of the caron over the lettersc,g,ands.

The caron is also often used as a diacritical mark on consonants forromanizationof text from non-Latin writing systems, particularly in thescientific transliterationof Slavic languages. Philologists and the standard Finnish orthography often prefer using it to express sounds for which English require a digraph (sh, ch,andzh) because most Slavic languages use only one character to spell the sounds (the key exceptions are Polishszandcz). Its use for that purpose can even be found in the United States because certainatlasesuse it in romanization of foreignplace names.On the typographical side, Š/š and Ž/ž are likely the easiest among non-Western European diacritic characters to adopt for Westerners because the two are part of theWindows-1252character encoding.

Esperantouses thecircumflexoverc,g,j,andsin similar ways; the circumflex was chosen because there was no caron on most Western Europeantypewriters,but the circumflex existed onFrenchones.

It is also used as an accent mark on vowels to indicate thetoneof a syllable. The main example is inPinyinforChinesein which it represents a falling-rising tone. It is used in transliterations ofThaito indicate a rising tone.

Phonetics

The caron ⟨ǎ⟩ represents a rising tone in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet.It is used in theUralic Phonetic Alphabetfor indicating postalveolar consonants and inAmericanist phonetic notationto indicate various types of pronunciation.

The caron below ⟨p̬⟩ representsvoicing.

Writing and printing carons

In printed Czech and Slovak text, the caron combined with certain letters (lower-case ť, ď, ľ, and upper-case Ľ) is reduced to a small stroke. That is optional in handwritten text. Latin fonts are typically set to display this way by default. Some fonts have an option to display a normal caron over these letters, but for those that don't, an option is to combine the letter and caron with thecombining grapheme joiner,U+034F, resulting in t͏̌, d͏̌, l͏̌. However, using CGJ in this way can result in the caron mark being misaligned with respect to its letter, as is true for the font Gentium Plus, for instance.

InLazuriorthography, the lower-casekwith caron sometimes has its caron reduced to a stroke while the lower-casetwith caron preserves its caron shape.

Although the stroke looks similar to anapostrophe,thekerningis significantly different. Using an apostrophe in place of a caron can be perceived as very unprofessional, but it is still often found on imported goods meant for sale in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (compare t’ to ť, L’ahko to Ľahko). (Apostrophes appearing as palatalization marks in someFinnic languages,such asVõroandKarelian,are not forms of caron either.) Foreigners also sometimes mistake the caron for theacute accent(compare Ĺ to Ľ, ĺ to ľ).

In Balto-Slavic languages

The following are theCzechandSlovakletters anddigraphswith the caron (Czech:háček,Slovak:mäkčeň):

• Č/č(pronounced[t͡ʃ],similar to 'ch' incheap:Česká republika,which meansCzech Republic)
• Š/š(pronounced[ʃ],similar to 'sh' inshe:inŠkoda)
• Ž/ž(pronounced[ʒ],similar to 's' intreasure:žal'sorrow')
• Ř/ř(only in Czech: a special voiced or unvoiced fricative trill[r̝]or[r̝̊],the former transcribed as[ɼ]in pre-1989 IPA:Antonín Dvořák)
• Ď/ď,Ť/ť,Ň/ň(palatals, pronounced[ɟ],[c],[ɲ],slightly different from palatalized consonants as found in Russian):Ďábel a sťatý kůň,'The Devil and a beheaded horse')
• Ľ/ľ(only in Slovak, pronounced as palatal[ʎ]:podnikateľ,'businessman')
• DŽ/Dž/dž(considered a single letter in Slovak, Macedonian, andSerbo-Croatian,two letters in Czech, pronounced[d͡ʒ]džungľa"jungle" - identical to thejsound injungleand thegingenius,found mostly in borrowings.)
• Ě/ě(only in Czech) indicates mostly palatalization of preceding consonant:
  • dě,tě,něare[ɟɛ],[cɛ],[ɲɛ];
  • butměis[mɲɛ]or[mjɛ],andbě,pě,vě,fěare[bjɛ,pjɛ,vjɛ,fjɛ].
• Furthermore, until the 19th century,Ǧ/ǧwas used to represent[g]whileG/gwas used to represent[j].

InLower SorbianandUpper Sorbian,the following letters and digraphs have the caron:

• Č/č (pronounced[t͡ʃ]like 'ch' incheap)
• Š/š (pronounced[ʃ]like 'sh' inshe)
• Ž/ž (pronounced[ʒ]like 's' intreasure)
• Ř/ř (only in Upper Sorbian: pronounced[ʃ]like 'sh' inshe)
• Tř/tř (digraph, only in Upper Sorbian, soft (palatalized)[t͡s]sound)
• Ě/ě (pronounced[e]like 'e' inbed)

Balto-SlavicSerbo-Croatian,Slovenian,LatvianandLithuanianuse č, š and ž. The digraph dž is also used in these languages but is considered a separate letter only in Serbo-Croatian. TheBelarusianLacinka alphabetalso contains the digraph dž (as a separate letter), and Latin transcriptions ofBulgarianandMacedonianmay use them at times, for transcription of the letter-combination ДЖ (Bulgarian) and the letter Џ (Macedonian).

In Uralic languages

In theFinnic languages,Estonian(and transcriptions toFinnish) uses Š/š and Ž/ž, andKarelianuses Č/č, Š/š and Ž/ž. Dž is not a separate letter. Č is present because it may be phonemicallygeminate:in Karelian, the phoneme 'čč' is found, and is distinct from 'č', which is not the case in Finnish or Estonian, for which only one length is recognized for 'tš'. (Incidentally, in transcriptions, Finnish orthography has to employ complicated notations likemettšäor even themettshäto express Karelianmeččä.) On some Finnish keyboards, it is possible to write those letters by typingsorzwhile holding rightAlt keyorAltGr key,though that is not supported by the Microsoft Windows keyboard device driver KBDFI.DLL for the Finnish language. The Finnish multilingual keyboard layout allows typing the lettersŠ/šandŽ/žby pressing AltGr+'+S foršand AltGr+'+Z forž.

In Estonian, Finnish and Karelian these arenotpalatalizedbut postalveolar consonants. For example, EstonianNissi(palatalized) is distinct fromnišši(postalveolar).Palatalizationis typically ignored in spelling, but some Karelian and Võro orthographies use anapostrophe(') or an acute accent (´). In Finnish and Estonian,šandž(and in Estonian, very rarelyč) appear in loanwords and foreignproper namesonly and when not available, they can be substituted with 'h': 'sh' for 'š', in print.

In the orthographies of theSami languages,the letters Č/č, Š/š and Ž/ž appear inNorthern Sami,Inari SamiandSkolt Sami.Skolt Sami also uses three other consonants with the caron: Ǯ/ǯ (ezh-caron) to mark the voiced postalveolar affricate[dʒ](plain Ʒ/ʒ marks the alveolar affricate[dz]), Ǧ/ǧ to mark the voiced palatal affricate[ɟʝ]and Ǩ/ǩ the corresponding voiceless palatal affricate[cç].More often than not, they are geminated:vuäǯǯad"to get". The orthographies of the more southern Sami languages of Sweden and Norway such asLule Samido not use caron, and prefer instead thedigraphstjandsj.

Finno-Ugric transcription

Most other Uralic languages (includingKildin Sami) are normally written withCyrillicinstead of the Latin script. In their scientifictranscription,theFinno-Ugric Transcription/Uralic Phonetic Alphabethowever employs the lettersš,žand occasionallyč,ǯ(alternatelytš,dž) for the postalveolar consonants. These serve as basic letters, and with further diacritics are used to transcribe also other fricative and affricate sounds.Retroflex consonantsare marked by a caron and anunderdot(ṣ̌,ẓ̌= IPA[ʂ],[ʐ]),alveolo-palatal(palatalized postalveolar) consonants by a caron and anacute(š́,ž́= IPA[ɕ],[ʑ]). Thus, for example, the postalveolar consonants of theUdmurtlanguage, normally written as Ж/ж, Ӝ/ӝ, Ӵ/ӵ, Ш/ш are in Uralic studies normally transcribed asž,ǯ,č,šrespectively, and the alveolo-palatal consonants normally written as Зь/зь, Ӟ/ӟ, Сь/сь, Ч/ч are normally transcribed asž́,ǯ́,š́,č́respectively.

In other languages

In theBerber Latin alphabetof theBerber language(North Africa) the following letters and digraphs are used with the caron:

• Č/č (pronounced[t͡ʃ]like the English "ch" in China)
• Ǧ/ǧ (pronounced[d͡ʒ]like the English "j" in the words "joke" and "James" )
• Ř/ř (only inRiffian Berber:pronounced[r]) (no English equivalent).

Finnish Kalouses Ȟ/ȟ.

Lakotauses Č/č, Š/š, Ž/ž, Ǧ/ǧ (voiced post-velar fricative) and Ȟ/ȟ (plain post-velar fricative).

Indonesianuses ě (e with caron) informally to mark theschwa(Indonesian:pepet).

Many alphabets of African languages use the caron to mark the rising tone, as in theAfrican reference alphabet.

Outside of the Latin alphabet, the caron is also used forCypriot Greekletters that have a different sound fromStandard Modern Greek:σ̌ κ̌ π̌ τ̌ ζ̌ in words likeτζ̌αι('and'),κάτ̌τ̌ος('cat').

Other transcription and transliteration systems

TheDIN 31635standard for transliteration of Arabic uses Ǧ/ǧ to represent the letterج.ǧīm,on account of the inconsistent pronunciation ofJin European languages, the variable pronunciation of the letter ineducated Arabic[d͡ʒ~ʒ~ɟ~ɡ],and the desire of the DIN committee to have a one-to-one correspondence of Arabic to Latin letters in its system.

Romanization ofPashtouses Č/č, Š/š, Ž/ž, X̌/x̌, to represent the letters ‎چ‎, ‎ش‎, ‎ژ‎, ‎ښ‎, respectively. Additionally, Ṣ̌/ṣ̌ and Ẓ̌/ẓ̌ are used by the southern Pashto dialect only (replaced by X̌/x̌ and Ǵ/ǵ in the north).

The latter Š/š is also used to transcribe the/ʃ/phoneme inSumerianandAkkadiancuneiform, and the/ʃ/phoneme inSemitic languagesrepresented by the lettershin(Phoenicianand its descendants).

The caron is also used inMandarin Chinesepinyinromanization and orthographies of several othertonal languagesto indicate the "falling-rising"tone(similar to the pitch made when asking "Huh?" ). The caron can be placed over the vowels: ǎ, ě, ǐ, ǒ, ǔ, ǚ. The alternative to a caron is a number 3 after the syllable:hǎo=hao3,as the "falling-rising" tone is the third tone inMandarin.

The caron is used in theNew Transliteration SystemofD'niin the symbol š to represent the sound[ʃ](English "sh" ).

A-caron (ǎ) is also used to transliterate theCyrillicletterЪ(er golyam) inBulgarian—it represents themid back unrounded vowel[ɤ̞].

Caron marks a falling and rising tone (bǔ, bǐ) inFonlanguages.

Letters with caron

Unicode encodes a number of cases of "letter with caron" asprecomposed charactersand these are displayed below. In addition, many more symbols may be composed using thecombining characterfacility (U+030C◌̌COMBINING CARONandU+032C◌̬COMBINING CARON BELOW) 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 are not shown in the table.

• Caron◌̌Ǎ ǎ
• Č č
• Ď ď
• Ě ě
• Ǧ ǧ
• Ȟ ȟ
• Ǐ ǐ
• ǰ
• Ǩ ǩ
• Ľ ľ
• Ň ň
• Ǒ ǒ
• Ř ř
• Š š
• Ṧ ṧ
• Š́ š́
• Ť ť
• Ǔ ǔ
• Ǚ ǚ
• Ž ž
• Ǯ ǯ

There are a number of Cyrillic letters with caron but they do not have precomposed characters and thus must be generated using the combining character method. These are:В̌ в̌;Ǯ ǯ;Г̌ г̌;Ғ̌ ғ̌;Д̌ д̌;З̌ з̌;Р̌ р̌;Т̌ т̌;Х̌ х̌

Software

Unicode

For legacy reasons, most letters that carry carons areprecomposed charactersinUnicode,but a caron can also be added to any letter by using thecombining characterU+030C◌̌COMBINING CARON,for example: b̌ q̌ J̌.

The characters Č, č, Ě, ě, Š, š, Ž, ž are a part of theUnicodeLatin Extended-Aset because they occur in Czech and other official languages in Europe, while the rest are inLatin Extended-B,which often causes an inconsistent appearance.

Unicode also encodesU+032C◌̬COMBINING CARON BELOW,for example: p̬.

A combining double caron was proposed for inclusion in April, 2024.

See also

• Acute accent
• Apostrophe
• Breve
• Caret
• Circumflex accent
• Sicilicus
• Soft sign(ь)

External links

• The dictionary definition ofcaronat Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition ofháčekat Wiktionary