Circumflex

This article is about the diacritic used to modify other characters. For use as an independent, spacing character, seeCaret (proofreading)andCaret (computing).

◌̂
Circumflex (diacritic)
U+0302◌̂COMBINING CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT

^
Circumflex (symbol)
InUnicode	U+005E^CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT(freestanding symbol, seebelow) U+02C6ˆMODIFIER LETTER CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT(IPA, UPA etc. symbol) U+FF3E＾FULLWIDTH CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT(freestanding)
Different from
Different from	U+0302◌̂COMBINING CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT(diacritic) U+2038‸CARET U+2227∧LOGICAL AND
Related
See also	Similar free-standing accent symbols: U+0060`GRAVE ACCENT U+007E~TILDE U+00B4´ACUTE ACCENT

Thecircumflex(◌̂) is adiacriticin theLatinandGreekscripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in variousromanizationandtranscriptionschemes. It received its English name fromLatin:circumflexus"bent around" —a translation of theGreek:περισπωμένη(perispōménē).

The circumflex in the Latin script ischevron-shaped (◌̂), while the Greek circumflex may be displayed either like atilde(◌̃) or like aninverted breve(◌̑). For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin Alpha bet,precomposed charactersare available.

InEnglish,the circumflex, like other diacritics, is sometimes retained onloanwordsthat used it in the original language (for exampleentrepôt,crème brûlée). In mathematics andstatistics,the circumflex diacritic is sometimes used to denote a function and is called ahat operator.

A free-standing version of the circumflex symbol,^,is encoded inASCIIandUnicodeand has become known ascaretand has acquired special uses, particularly incomputingandmathematics.Theoriginal caret,‸,is used inproofreadingto indicate insertion.

Uses

Diacritic on vowels

Pitch

See also:Ancient Greek accent

The circumflex has its origins in thepolytonic orthographyofAncient Greek,where it markedlong vowelsthat were pronounced with high and then fallingpitch.In a similar vein, the circumflex is today used to marktone contourin theInternational Phonetic Alphabet.This is also how it is used inBamanankan(as opposed to aháček,which signifies a rising tone on a syllable).

The shape of the circumflex was originally a combination of theacuteandgrave accents(^), as it marked asyllablecontracted from two vowels: an acute-accented vowel and a non-accented vowel (all non-accented syllables in Ancient Greek were once marked with a grave accent).Later a variant similar to thetilde(~) was also used.

νόος	contraction → (synaeresis)	ν-´ō`-ς = νō͂ς = νοῦς
nóos		n-´ō`-s = nō̂s = noûs

The term "circumflex" is also used to describe similar tonal accents that result from combining two vowels in related languages such as Sanskrit and Latin.

SinceModern Greekhas astress accentinstead of a pitch accent, the circumflex has been replaced with anacute accentin the modern monotonic orthography.

Length

The circumflex accent marks along vowelin theorthographyortransliterationof several languages.

• InAfrikaans,the circumflex marks avowelwith a lengthened pronunciation, often arising fromcompensatory lengtheningdue to the loss of⟨g⟩from the originalDutchform. Examples of circumflex use in Afrikaans aresê"to say",wêreld"world",môre"tomorrow",brûe"bridges".
• Akkadian.In the transliteration of this language, the circumflex indicates a long vowel resulting from analephcontraction.
• In westernCree,Sauk,andSaulteaux,the Algonquianist Standard Roman Orthography (SRO) indicates long vowels[aːeːiːoː~uː]either with a circumflex ⟨â ê î ô⟩ or with amacron⟨ā ē ī ō⟩.
• The PDA orthography forDomariuses circumflex-bearing vowels for length.
• InEmilian,â î ûare used to represent[aː,iː,uː]
• French.In some varieties, such as inBelgian French,Swiss FrenchandAcadian French,vowels with a circumflex are long:fête[fɛːt](party) is longer thanfaite[fɛt].Thislength compensatesfor a deleted consonant, usuallys.
• Standard Friulian.
• Japanese.In theNihon-shikisystem ofromanization,the circumflex is used to indicate long vowels. TheKunrei-shikisystem, which is based on Nihon-shiki system, also uses the circumflex. The Traditional and Modified forms of theHepburnsystem use themacronfor this purpose, though some users may use the circumflex as a substitute if there are difficulties inputting the macron, as the two diacritics are visually similar.
• Jèrriais.
• InUNGEGNromanization system forKhmer,âis used to represent[ɑː],ê[ae]in first series and[ɛː]in second series, andôfor[ɔː].There are also additional vowels which arediphthongssuch asaô[ao],âu[ʔɨw],âm[ɑm],ŏâm[oəm]andaôh[ɑh].
• InKurmanji Kurdish,⟨ê î û⟩ are used to represent/eːiːuː/.
• InMikasuki,circumflexed vowels indicate a rising and falling pitch or tone.
• InAdûnaic,theBlack Speech,andKhuzdul,constructed languages ofJ. R. R. Tolkien,all long vowels are transcribed with the circumflex. InSindarin,another of Tolkien's languages, long vowels inpolysyllabicwords take theacute,but a circumflex in monosyllables, to mark anon-phonemicextra lengthening.

Stress

Bilingual sign showing the use of the circumflex in Welsh as an indicator of length and stress:parêd[paˈreːd] "parade", as opposed topared[ˈparɛd] "partition wall".

The circumflex accent marks thestressed vowelof a word in some languages:

• Portugueseâ,ê,andôare stressedclose vowels,opposed to their open counterpartsá,é,andó(see below).
• Welsh:the circumflex, due to its function as a disambiguating lengthening sign (see above), is used in polysyllabic words with word-final long vowels. The circumflex thus indicates the stressed syllable (which would normally be on thepenultimate syllable), since in Welsh, non-stressed vowels may not normally be long. This happens notably where the singular ends in ana,to, e.g. singularcamera,drama,opera,sinema→ pluralcamerâu,dramâu,operâu,sinemâu;however, it also occurs in singular nominal forms, e.g.arwyddocâd;in verbal forms, e.g.deffrônt,cryffânt;etc.

Vowel quality

• InBreton,it is used on aneto show that the letter is pronouncedopeninstead of closed.
• InBulgarian,the sound represented in Bulgarian by the Cyrillic letterъ(er goljam) is usually transliterated asâin systems used prior to 1989. Although called aschwa(misleadingly suggesting an unstressed lax sound), it is more accurately described as amid back unrounded vowel/ɤ/.UnlikeEnglishorFrench,but similar toRomanianandAfrikaans,it can be stressed.
• InPinyinromanizedMandarin Chinese,êis used to represent the sound/ɛ/in isolation, which occurs sometimes as an exclamation.
• In French, the letterêis normally pronouncedopen,likeè.In the usual pronunciations of central and northernFrance,ôis pronouncedclose,likeeau;in Southern France, no distinction is made betweencloseandopeno.
• InPhuthi,îandûare used to marksuperclose vowels/ɪ/and/ʊ/,respectively.
• Portugueseâ/ɐ/,ê/e/,andô/o/are stressed high vowels, in opposition toá/a/,é/ɛ/,andó/ɔ/,which are stressed low vowels.
• InRomanian,the circumflex is used on the vowelsâandîto mark the vowel/ɨ/,similar to Russianyery.The names of these accented letters areâ din aandî din i,respectively. (The letterâonly appears in the middle of words; thus, itsmajusculeversion appears only in all-capitals inscriptions.)
• InSlovak,the circumflex (vokáň) onôindicates adiphthong[ʊɔ].
• InSwedishdialectandfolkloreliteraturethe circumflex is used to indicate the phonemes/a(ː)/or/æ(ː)/(â),/ɶ(ː)/or/ɞ(ː)/(ô) and/ɵ(ː)/(û) in dialects and regional accents where these are distinct from/ɑ(ː)/(a),/ø(ː)/(ö) or/o(ː)/(oorå) and/ʉ(ː)/(u) respectively, unlike Standard Swedish where[a]and[ɑː],[ɵ]and[ʉː]are short and long allophones of the phonemes/a/and/ʉ/respectively, and whereOld Swedishshort/o/(ŏ) has merged with/o(ː)/from Old Swedish/ɑː/(ā,Modern Swedishå) instead of centralizing to[ɞ]or fronting to[ɶ]and remaining a distinct phoneme (ô) as in the dialects in question. Different methods can be found in different literature, so some author may useæinstead ofâ,or useâwhere others useå̂(åwith a circumflex; for a sound between/ɑ(ː)/and/o(ː)/).
• Vietnameseâ/ə/,ê/e/,andô/o/are higher vowels thana/ɑ/,e/ɛ/,ando/ɔ/.The circumflex can appear together with atone markon the same vowel, as in the wordViệt.Vowels with circumflex are considered separate letters from the base vowels.

Nasality

• InLuxembourgishm̂ n̂can be used to indicate nasalisation of a vowel. Also, the circumflex can be over the vowel to indicate nasalisation. In either case, the circumflex is rare.
• In severalindigenous languages of New Caledonia,a circumflex indicatesnasality on vowels:e.g. the orthographyXârâcùùcontrasts itsoral vowelsa/ɑ/,e/ɛ/,i/i/,u/u/with itsnasal vowelsâ/ɑ̃/,ê/ɛ̃/,î/ĩ/,ô/ɔ̃/,û/ũ/– with duplicated variants indicating length (e.g.êê/ɛ̃ː/,etc.). Due to typographical shortage of characters, some nasal vowels in Xârâcùù are encoded with anumlaut:e.g.ä/ʌ̃/,ü/ɨ̃/).

Other articulatory features

• InEmilian,ê ô[eː,oː]denote both length and height.
• InTagalogand mostPhilippine languages,the circumflex accent (pakupyâ) is used to represent the simultaneous occurrence of a stress and aglottal stopon the last vowel of a word. Though not part of the official Alpha bet, possible combinations can include: â, ê, î, ô, and û. But in the case ofT'boli,the circumflex accent is only used as a pure unstressed glottal stop. It works as a combination of acute and grave accent; with the case of letters é and ó which represents the sound of/ɛ/and/o/respectively and can be shown as ê and ô if it contains a glottal stop.
• InRomagnol,they are used to represent the diphthongs/eə,oə/,whose specific articulation varies between dialects, e.g.sêl[seəl~seɛl~sæɛl~sɛɘl]"salt".
• InOld Tupi,the circumflex changed a vowel into asemivowel:î[j],û[w],andŷ[ɰ].
• InRusyn,the letterŷ[ɨ]is sometimes used to transliterate theCyrillicы.
• InTurkish,the circumflex overaanduis sometimes used in words ofArabicorPersianderivation to indicate when a preceding consonant (k,g,l) is to be pronounced as apalatalplosive;[c],[ɟ](kâğıt,gâvur,mahkûm,Gülgûn). The circumflex overiis used to indicate anisbasuffix (millî,dinî).
• InPe̍h-ōe-jīromanization ofHokkien,the circumflex over a vowel (a, e, i, o, o͘, u) or a syllabic nasal (m, ng) indicate thetonenumber 5, traditionally called Yang Level or Light Level ( dương bình ). Thetone contouris usually low rising. For example,ê[e˩˧],n̂g[ŋ̩˩˧].

Visual discrimination between homographs

• InSerbo-Croatianthe circumflex can be used to distinguishhomographs,and it is called the "genitive sign" or "length sign". Examples includesam"am" versussâm"alone". For example, the phrase "I am alone" may be writtenJa sam sâmto improve clarity. Another example:da"yes",dâ"gives".
• Turkish.According toTurkish Language Associationorthography,düzeltme işareti"correction mark" overa,iandumarks along vowelto disambiguate similar words. For example, compareama"but" andâmâ"blind",şura'that place, there' andşûra"council".In general, circumflexes occur only inArabicandPersianloanwordsas vowel length in early Turkish was not phonemic. However, this standard was never applied entirely consistentlyand by the late 20th century many publications had stopped using circumflexes almost entirely.
• Welsh.The circumflex is known ashirnod"long sign" oracen grom"crooked accent", but more usually and colloquially asto bach"little roof". It lengthens a stressed vowel (a, e, i, o, u, w, y), and is used particularly to differentiate betweenhomographs;e.g.tanandtân,ffonandffôn,gemandgêm,cynandcŷn,orgwnandgŵn.However the circumflex is only required on elongated vowels if the same word exists without the circumflex - "nos" (night), for example, has an elongated "o" sound but a circumflex is not required as the same word with a shortened "o" doesn't exist.
• Theorthography of Frenchhas a few pairs ofhomophonesthat are only distinguished by the circumflex: e.g.du[dy](partitivearticle) vs.dû[dy]'due'.

Diacritic on consonants

• InPinyin,the romanized writing ofMandarin Chinese,ẑ,ĉ,andŝare, albeit rarely, used to representzh[tʂ],ch[tʂʰ],andsh[ʂ],respectively.
• InEsperanto,the circumflex is used onĉ[tʃ],ĝ[dʒ],ĥ[x],ĵ[ʒ],ŝ[ʃ].Each indicates a different consonant from the unaccented form, and is considered a separate letter for purposes ofcollation.(SeeEsperanto orthography.)
• InNsenga,ŵdenotes thelabiodental approximant/ʋ/.
• InChichewa,ŵ(present for example in the name of the countryMalaŵi) used to denote thevoiced bilabial fricative/β/;nowadays, however, most Chichewa-speakers pronounce it as a regular[w].
• InNias,ŵdenotes thesemivowel[w].
• In the African languageVenda,a circumflex below d, l, n, and t is used to represent dental consonants: ḓ, ḽ, ṋ, ṱ.
• In the 18th century, theReal Academia Españolaintroduced the circumflex accent in Spanish to mark that achorxwere pronounced/k/and/ɡs/respectively (instead of/tʃ/and/x/,which were the default values):châracteres, exâcto(spelled todaycaracteres, exacto). This usage was quickly abandoned during the same century, once the RAE decided to usechandxwith one assigned pronunciation only:/tʃ/and/ɡs/respectively.
• InDomari(according to the Pan-Domari Alphabet orthography), the circumflex is used on the letters <ĉ ĝ ĵ ŝ ẑ> to represent the sounds of/t͡ʃɣd͡ʒʃʒ/.It is also used above vowels to indicate length.

Abbreviation, contraction, and disambiguation

English

In 18th centuryBritish English,before the cheapPenny Postand while paper was taxed, the combinationoughwas occasionally shortened toôwhen theghwas not pronounced, to save space:thôforthough,thorôforthorough,andbrôtforbrought.

French

Main article:Circumflex in French

InFrench,the circumflex generally marks the former presence of a consonant (usuallys) that wasdeletedand is no longer pronounced. (The correspondingNorman Frenchwords, and consequently the words derived from them in English, frequently retain the lost consonant.) For example:

• ancêtre"ancestor"
• hôpital"hospital"
• hôtel"hostel"
• forêt"forest"
• rôtir"to roast"
• côte"rib, coast, slope"
• pâté"paste"
• août"August"
• dépôt(from the Latindepositum'deposit', but now referring to both a deposit or a storehouse of any kind)

Somehomophones(or near-homophones in some varieties of French) are distinguished by the circumflex. However, â, ê and ô distinguish different sounds in most varieties of French, for instancecote[kɔt]"level, mark, code number" andcôte[kot]"rib, coast, hillside".

In handwritten French, for example in taking notes, anmwith a circumflex (m̂) is an informal abbreviation formême"same".

In February 2016, the Académie française decided to remove the circumflex from about 2,000 words, a plan that had been outlined since 1990. However, usage of the circumflex would not be considered incorrect.

Italian

InItalian,îis occasionally used in the plural of nouns and adjectives ending with-io[jo]as acrasismark. Other possible spellings are-iiand obsolete-jor-ij.For example, the plural ofvario[ˈvaːrjo]"various" can be speltvari,varî,varii;the pronunciation will usually stay[ˈvaːri]with only one[i].The plural forms ofprincipe[ˈprintʃipe]"prince" and ofprincipio[prinˈtʃiːpjo]"principle, beginning" can be confusing. In pronunciation, they are distinguished by whether the stress is on the first or on the second syllable, butprincipiwould be a correct spelling of both. When necessary to avoid ambiguity, it is advised to write the plural ofprincipioasprincipîor asprincipii.

Latin

InNeo-Latin,circumflex was used most often to disambiguate between forms of the same word that used a long vowel, for example ablative of first declension and genitive of fourth declension, or between second and third conjugation verbs. It was also used for the interjectionô.

Norwegian

InNorwegian,the circumflex differentiatesfôr"lining, fodder" from the prepositionfor.From a historical point of view, the circumflex also indicates that the word used to be spelled with the letterðinOld Norse– for example,fôris derived fromfóðr,lêr'leather' fromleðr,andvêr"weather, ram" fromveðr(bothlêrandvêronly occur in theNynorskspelling; inBokmålthese words are spelledlærandvær). After theðdisappeared, it was replaced by ad(fodr, vedr).

Portuguese

Circumflexes are used in many common words of the language, such as the name of the language,português.Usually,â, êandôappear before nasals (mandn) inproparoxytonewords, likehigiênicobut in many cases in European Portugueseeandowill be marked with an acute accent (e.g.higiénico) since the vowel quality is open (ɛ or ɔ) in this standard variety. In early literacy classes in school, it is commonly nicknamedchapéu(hat).

Welsh

Main article:Welsh orthography § Diacritics

The circumflex (ˆ) is mostly used to marklong vowels,soâ, ê, î, ô, û, ŵ, ŷare always long. However, not all long vowels are marked with a circumflex, so the lettersa, e, i, o, u, w, ywith no circumflex do not necessarily represent short vowels.

Mathematics

Main article:Hat notation

In mathematics, the circumflex is used to modify variable names; it is usually read "hat", e.g.,${\hat {x}}$is "x hat". TheFourier transformof a functionƒis often denoted by${\hat {f}}$.

In geometry, a hat is sometimes used for anangle.For instance, the angles${\hat {A}}$or$A{\hat {B}}C$.

In vector notation, a hat above a letter indicates aunit vector(a dimensionlessvectorwith amagnitudeof 1). For instance,${\hat {\mathbf {\imath } }}$,${\hat {\mathbf {x} }}$,or${\hat {\mathbf {e} }}_{1}$stands for a unit vector in the direction of thex-axisof aCartesian coordinate system.

Instatistics,the hat is used to denote anestimatoror an estimated value, as opposed to its theoretical counterpart. For example, inerrors and residuals,the hat in${\hat {\varepsilon }}$indicates an observable estimate (the residual) of an unobservable quantity called$\varepsilon$(the statistical error). It is readx-hatorx-roof,wherexrepresents the character under the hat.

Music

Inmusic theoryandmusicology,a circumflex above a numeral is used to make reference to a particularscale degree.

Inmusic notation,achevron-shapedsymbol placed above a note indicatesmarcato,a special form of emphasis oraccent.In music forstring instruments,a narrow inverted chevron indicates that a note should be performed up-bow.

Unicode

Unicode encodes a number of cases of "letter with circumflex" asprecomposed charactersand these are displayed below. In addition, many more symbols may be composed using thecombining characterfacility (U+0302◌̂COMBINING CIRCUMFLEX ACCENTandU+032D◌̭COMBINING CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT 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 thus are not shown in the table.

• Circumflex◌̂Â â
• Ĉ ĉ
• Ê ê
• Ĝ ĝ
• Ĥ ĥ
• Î î
• Ĵ ĵ
• Ô ô
• Ố ố
• Ồ ồ
• Ổ ổ
• Ỗ ỗ
• Ộ ộ
• Ŝ ŝ
• Û û
• Ŵ ŵ
• X̂ x̂
• Ŷ ŷ
• Ẑ ẑ

TheGreek diacriticπερισπωμένη,perispōménē,'twisted around' is encoded asU+0342͂COMBINING GREEK PERISPOMENI.In distinction to the angled Latin circumflex, the Greek circumflex is printed in the form of either atilde(◌̃) or an invertedbreve(◌̑).

Freestanding circumflex

Main article:Caret (computing)

There is a similar but larger character,U+005E^CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT(&Hat;), which was originally intended to emulate the typewriter'sdead keyfunction using backspace and overtype. Nowadays, this glyph is more often called acaretinstead (though the term has a long-standing meaning as aproofreader'smark, withits own codepointsin Unicode). It is, however, unsuitable for use as a diacritic on modern computer systems, as it is a spacing character. Two other spacing circumflex characters in Unicode are the smallermodifier lettersU+02C6ˆMODIFIER LETTER CIRCUMFLEX ACCENTandU+A788ꞈMODIFIER LETTER LOW CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT,mainly used inphoneticnotations or as a sample of the diacritic in isolation.

Typing the circumflex accent

FrenchAZERTYlayout with 'combining circumflex' as adead key(besideP)

In countries where the local language(s) routinely include letters with a circumflex, local keyboards are typically engraved with those symbols.

For users with other keyboards, seeQWERTY#Multilingual variantsandUnicode input.

See also

• Caret (disambiguation)
• Caron
• Circumflex in French
• Macron (diacritic)
• Tilde
• Turned v

External links

• Diacritics Project – "All you need to design a font with correct accents"
• Diacs and Quirks in a Nutshell – Afrikaans spelling explained
• Keyboard Help– Learn how to create world language accent marks and other diacritics on a computer