Ogonek
The ogonek (Polish for "little tail", the diminutive of ogon) is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet used in several European and Native American languages.
Diacritical marks |
accent
breve ( ˘ )
hook / dấu hỏi ( ̉ ) |
Marks sometimes used as diacritics |
apostrophe ( ’ ) |
Contents |
History
The e caudata (ę), a symbol similar to an e with ogonek, evolved from a ligature of a and e in medieval scripts, in Latin and Irish palaeography.
Languages that use the ogonek
- Polish (letters ą, ę)
- Lithuanian (ą, ę, į, ų)
- Creek, Navajo and Western Apache (ą, ąą, ę, ęę, į, įį, ǫ, ǫǫ)
- Chiricahua and Mescalero (ą, ąą, ę, ęę, į, įį, ų, ųų),
- Tutchone and Elfdalian (ą, ę, į, ų, y̨ and ą̊),
- Gwich'in.
- Modern scholarly transcriptions of Old Norse (letter ǫ)
Ą | ą |
ą̊ | |
Ę | ę |
Į | į |
Ǫ | ǫ |
Ǭ | ǭ |
Ų | ų |
y̨ | |
(Ą, Ą̊, Ę, Į, Ǫ, Ǭ, Ų, Y̨) | (ą, ą̊, ę, į, ǫ, ǭ, ų, y̨) |
Example in Polish:
- Wół go pyta: „Panie chrząszczu,
- Po co pan tak brzęczy w gąszczu?”
Example in Lithuanian:
- Lydėdami gęstančią žarą vėlai
- Pakilo į dangų margi sakalai
- — Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas, Margi sakalai
Example in Elfdalian:
- "Ja, eð war įe plåg að gęslkallum, dar eð war slaik uondlostjyner i gęslun."
- — Vikar Margit Andersdotter, I fäbodlivet i gamla tider.
Values
Nasalization
The use of the ogonek to indicate nasality is common in the transcription of the indigenous languages of the Americas. This usage originated in the orthographies created by Christian missionaries to transcribe these languages. Later, the practice was continued by Americanist anthropologists and linguists who still follow this convention in phonetic transcription to the present day (see Americanist phonetic notation).
The ogonek is also used in academic transliteration of Old Church Slavonic and Old Norse. In Polish, Old Church Slavonic, Navajo, Western Apache, Chiricahua, and Dalecarlian it indicates that the vowel is nasalized. Even if ę is nasalized e in Polish, ą is nasalized o not a.
Length
In Lithuanian, where it formerly indicated nasalization which is no longer distinctive, it indicates that a vowel is long. The Lithuanian word for "ogonek" is nosinė which literally means "nasal".
Tone
In Navajo, Chiricahua, Western Apache, and Mescalero it can be combined with the acute and grave accents where it indicates high tone, or in long vowels high, falling, rising tone (e.g. ą́, ǫ́ǫ́, į́į). In the orthography conventions of Willem de Reuse, Western Apache has combinations of ogonek and macron (e.g. ǭ, į̄į̄).
Typographical notes
The ogonek should be almost the same size as a descender (in larger type sizes may be relatively quite shorter) and should not be confused with the cedilla or comma diacritic marks used in other languages.
The HTML/Unicode numbers for ogonek letters are:
Upper Case | Lower Case | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Letter | HTML | Alt Code | Letter | HTML | Alt Code |
Ą | Ą | Alt + 0260 | ą | ą | Alt + 0261 |
Ę | Ę | Alt + 0280 | ę | ę | Alt + 0281 |
Į | Į | Alt + 0302 | į | į | Alt + 0303 |
Ǫ | Ǫ | Alt + 0490 | ǫ | ǫ | Alt + 0491 |
Ų | Ų | Alt + 0370 | ų | ų | Alt + 0371 |
˛ | ˛ | Alt + 0731 |
Other encodings
E with ogonek is present in both Latin-2 and Latin-4, as CA (uppercase) and EA (lowercase). In Latin-10 it is located at DD (uppercase) and FD (lowercase).
LaTeX2e
In LaTeX2e macro \k will typeset a letter with ogonek, if it is supported by the font encoding , e.g. \k{a} will typeset ą. The package TIPA activated by using the command "\usepackage{tipa}", offers a different way: "\textpolhook{a}" will produce ą.
See also
References
External links
- Diacritics Project — All you need to design a font with correct accents
- Polish Diacritics — How To?
- Förslag till en enhetlig stavning för älvdalska (March, 2005)
The ISO basic Latin alphabet | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Aa | Bb | Cc | Dd | Ee | Ff | Gg | Hh | Ii | Jj | Kk | Ll | Mm | Nn | Oo | Pp | Rr | Ss | Tt | Uu | Vv | Ww | Xx | Yy | Zz | |
Letters using ogonek sign
history • palaeography • derivations • diacritics • punctuation • numerals • Unicode • list of letters |