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I've found specifically these ones: á, à, â, å, ä. I believe they COULD be used in the English language, or root ones such as Celtic & Germanic, but I don't know how they are pronounced.

Oh, and I've glanced at the articles What does the grave accent mark on words mean? and Diacritic if that helps jumpstart you on your assistance. Thank you, and please give examples of how they are used!

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Hawc Productions
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2 Answers2

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The uses of diacritic marks in modern English are quite limited, and diacritic marks can always be omitted without being incorrect. This applies equally to A and any other letter.

Recent foreign borrowings: e.g. rôle, coup d'état, façade, etc. but role, coup d'etat, and facade are also all correct.

Stage and poetry prosody: e.g. learnèd indicating a normally silent vowel is to be pronounced

Diaeresis: e.g. Brontë, Chloë, Zoë (also indicating a silent vowel is to be pronounced) or naïve, Boötes, and noël (indicating a vowel is to be pronounced separately).

Artistic or humorous effect: e.g. Blue Öyster Cult

As for pronunciation: in English, including or not including the diacritic does not change the pronunciation, though it may clarify it. In other languages diacritics have many different pronunciations and you would have to look at each language for details.

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Mark Beadles
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  • Sorry, I really can’t agree with you that *facade should be considered correct. There is no other word in the English language that has a soft c preceding an a. It is insane to create a brand new never-before-seen rule for just one single word. Either mark it correctly, or respell it to conform to the rule of English. – tchrist Dec 06 '12 at 00:18
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    Given how seldom English is spelled with any diacritics, facade is probably inevitable. It's certainly in dictionaries. – Andrew Lazarus Dec 06 '12 at 02:40
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    @tchrist: much as it may pain a purist, facade is evidently considered correct enough by publishers like Wiley, Infinity, and the UCal Press. – J.R. Dec 06 '12 at 10:19
  • OED lists façade not facade, but includes both spellings among its citations, e.g. "1656 T. Blount Glossographia, Facade [sic], the fore-front forepart, outside or representation of the outside of a house.", "1796 J. Morse Amer. Universal Geogr. (new ed.) I. 754 Their estates [in Demerara] are regularly laid out in lots along the sea shore, called facades [sic]"; sics mine. – Mark Beadles Dec 06 '12 at 16:50
  • @tchrist The New York Times uses the c sans cedille so I'm really going to have to call facade 'correct' if there is any such thing. – Mark Beadles Dec 06 '12 at 16:53
  • @MarkBeadles You believe haphazardly adding brand new one-shot rules for individual words in a system already burgeoning with complexity is a good thing? I call it foul, and hold my position: mark it correctly, or respell it to fit within the existing parameters of English spelling instead of fabricating a new one. Either is acceptable. Doing neither is ridiculous and cumbersome. – tchrist Dec 06 '12 at 16:56
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    @tchrist I'm sceptical of your indictment, but am too tired to respond as my muscles are still flaccid after my recent soccer game. – Mark Beadles Dec 06 '12 at 17:03
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Apart from rare accented E, there's no diacritics in English. In any case, all modified letters are pronounced as per particular foreign word in question, as specific words are often pronounced specifically, apart from the generic sound implied by a diacritic.

Chris
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