English terms with diacritical marks

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Letter o with diaeresis

English rarely uses diacritics, which are symbols indicating the modification of a letter's sound when spoken.^[1] Most of the affected words are in terms imported from other languages.^[2] Certain diacritics are often called accents. The only diacritic native to Modern English is the two dots (representing a vowel hiatus): its usage has tended to fall off except in certain publications and particular cases.^[3]^[a]

Proper nouns are not generally counted as English terms except when accepted into the language as an eponym – such as Geiger–Müller tube.

Unlike continental European languages, English orthography tends to use digraphs (like "sh", "oo", and "ea") rather than diacritics to indicate more sounds than can be accommodated by the letters of the Latin alphabet. Unlike other systems (such as Spanish orthography) where the spelling indicates the pronunciation, English spelling is highly varied, and diacritics alone would be insufficient to make it reliably phonetic. (See English orthography § History.)

^ Ambrose, Gavin; Harris, Paul (2007). The Fundamentals of Typography. AVA. p. 92. ISBN 9782940373451. OCLC 842600469. Diacritical marks – Diacritical marks are a range of accents and other symbols, which indicate that the sound of a letter is modified during pronunciation. These are rare in English but relatively common in other languages.
^ Garner, Bryan A (2002). The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style. p. 100. Diacritical Marks, also known as 'diacritics', are orthographical characters that indicate a special phonetic quality for a given character. They occur mostly in foreign languages. But in English a fair number of imported terms have diacritical marks"
^ Burchfield, R.W. (1996). Fowlers's Modern English Usage (3 ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 210. ISBN 0-19-869126-2.
^ Burchfield, R.W. (1996). Fowlers's Modern English Usage (3 ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 77. ISBN 0-19-869126-2.

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[1] Ambrose, Gavin; Harris, Paul (2007). The Fundamentals of Typography. AVA. p. 92. ISBN 9782940373451. OCLC 842600469. Diacritical marks – Diacritical marks are a range of accents and other symbols, which indicate that the sound of a letter is modified during pronunciation. These are rare in English but relatively common in other languages.

[2] Garner, Bryan A (2002). The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style. p. 100. Diacritical Marks, also known as 'diacritics', are orthographical characters that indicate a special phonetic quality for a given character. They occur mostly in foreign languages. But in English a fair number of imported terms have diacritical marks"

[Fowler-3] Burchfield, R.W. (1996). Fowlers's Modern English Usage (3 ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 210. ISBN 0-19-869126-2.

[attaché-4] Burchfield, R.W. (1996). Fowlers's Modern English Usage (3 ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 77. ISBN 0-19-869126-2.

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