Dot (diacritic) explained

When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot primarily refers to the glyphs "combining dot above" (

), and "combining dot below" ()which may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets in use in a variety of languages. Similar marks are used with other scripts.

Overdot

Language scripts or transcription schemes that use the dot above a letter as a diacritical mark:

• In some forms of Arabic romanization, stands for ghayn (غ).
• The Latin orthography for Chechen includes ċ, ç̇, ġ, q̇ and ẋ, corresponding to Cyrillic цӏ, чӏ, гӏ, къ and хь and representing pronounced as //t͡sʼ//, pronounced as //t͡ʃʼ//, pronounced as //ɣ//, pronounced as //qʼ// and pronounced as //ħ// respectively.
• Traditional Irish typography, where the dot denotes lenition, and is called a Irish: ponc séimhithe or Irish: buailte "dot of lenition": ḃ ċ ḋ ḟ ġ ṁ ṗ ṡ ṫ. Alternatively, lenition may be represented by a following letter h, thus: bh ch dh fh gh mh ph sh th. In Old Irish orthography, the dot was used only for ḟ ṡ, while the following h was used for ch ph th; lenition of other letters was not indicated. Later the two systems spread to the entire set of lenitable consonants and competed with each other. Eventually the standard practice was to use the dot when writing in Gaelic script and the following h when writing in antiqua. Thus ċ and ch represent the same phonetic element in Modern Irish.
• lt|ė is pronounced as pronounced as /[eː]/, as opposed to ę, which is pronounced a lower pronounced as /[æː]/ (formerly nasalised), or e, pronounced pronounced as /[ɛ, æː]/.
• Livonian uses ȯ as one of its eight vowels, pronounced as pronounced as //ɤ//.
• mt|ċ is used for a voiceless palato-alveolar affricate, ġ for a voiced palato-alveolar affricate, and ż for a voiced alveolar sibilant.
• Old English: In modernized orthography, ċ is used for a voiceless palato-alveolar affricate pronounced as //t͡ʃ//, ġ for a palatal approximant pronounced as //j// (probably a voiced palatal fricative pronounced as //ʝ// in the earliest texts), and (more rarely) sċ for a voiceless palato-alveolar fricative pronounced as //ʃ// and cġ for a voiced palato-alveolar affricate pronounced as //d͡ʒ//.
• pl|ż is used for a voiced retroflex sibilant pronounced as //ʐ//.
• The Siouan languages such as Lakota, Osage, and Crow sometimes use the dot above to indicate ejective stops.
• In the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics orthography for the Cree, Ojibwe, and Inuktitut languages, a dot above a symbol signifies that the symbol's vowel should be a long vowel—the equivalent effect using the Roman orthography is achieved by doubling the vowel (ᒥ = mi, ᒦ = mii), placing a macron over the vowel (ᑲ = ka, ᑳ = kā), or placing a circumflex over the vowel (ᓄ = no, ᓅ = nô).
• In Turkish, the dot above lowercase i and j (and uppercase İ) is not regarded as an independent diacritic but as an integral part of the letter. It is called a tittle. I without an overdot is a separate letter.
• In the Rheinische Dokumenta phonetic writing system overdots denote a special pronunciation of r.
• The Ulithian alphabet includes ȧ, ė, and ȯ.^[1]
• The ISO 9 (1968) Romanization of Cyrillic uses ė, ḟ, and ẏ.
• In the ISO 259 Romanization of Hebrew, the overdot is used to transcribe the dagesh: (ḃ ḋ ġ ḣ ṁ ṅ ṙ ṡ ṥ ṧ ṩ ṫ); (ẇ) transcribes the shuruk.
• In IAST and National Library at Calcutta romanization transcribing languages of India, ṅ is used to represent pronounced as //ŋ//.
• UNGEGN romanization of Urdu includes ṙ.^[1]
• In the Venda language, ṅ is used to represent pronounced as //ŋ//.
• Some countries use the overdot as a decimal mark.
• The overdot is also used in the Devanagari script, where it is called anusvara.

In mathematics and physics, when using Newton's notation the dot denotes the time derivative as in

. In addition, the overdot is one way used to indicate an infinitely repeating set of numbers in decimal notation, as in , which is equal to the fraction, and or , which is equal to .

Underdot

• In a number of languages, an underdot indicates a raised or relatively high vowel, often the counterpart of a lower vowel marked with an ogonek or left unmarked.
  • In Rotuman, ạ represents /ɔ/.
  • In Romagnol, ẹ ọ are used to represent [e, o], e.g. part of Riminese dialect fradẹll, ọcc pronounced as /[fraˈdell, ˈotʃː]/ "brothers, eyes".
  • In academic notation of Old Latin, ẹ̄ (e with underdot and macron) represents the long vowel, probably pronounced as /link/, that developed from the early Old Latin diphthong ei. This vowel usually became ī in Classical Latin.
  • In academic transcription of Vulgar Latin, used in describing the development of the Romance languages, ẹ and ọ represent the close-mid vowels pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/, in contrast with the open-mid vowels pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/, which are represented as e and o with ogonek (ę ǫ).
  • Academic transcription of Middle English uses the same conventions as Vulgar Latin above.
  • In academic transcription of Serbo-Croatian dialects, ẹ ọ ạ (typically pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/) represent higher vowels than standard e o a, and the first two often contrast with lower vowels marked with a comma below, e̦ o̦ (typically pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/).
• In Inari Sami, an underdot denotes a half-long voiced consonant: đ̣, j̣, ḷ, ṃ, ṇ, ṇj, ŋ̣, ṛ, and ṿ. The underdot is used in dictionaries, textbooks, and linguistic publications only.
• In IAST and National Library at Calcutta romanization, transcribing languages of India, a dot below a letter distinguishes the retroflex consonants ṭ, ḍ, ṛ, ḷ, ṇ, ṣ, while m with underdot (ṃ) signifies an anusvara and h with underdot (ḥ) signifies a visarga. Very frequently (in modern transliterations of Sanskrit) an underdot is used instead of the ring (diacritic) below the vocalic r and l.
• In romanizations of some Afroasiatic languages, particularly Semitic Languages and Berber Languages, an underdot indicates an emphatic consonant. The romanization of Arabic uses (ḍ ḥ ṣ ṭ ẓ).
• In the DIN 31636 and ALA-LC Romanization of Hebrew, ṿ represents vav (ו), while v without the underdot represents beth (ב). ḳ represents qoph (ק) while k represents kaph (כ). ḥ represents chet (ח).
• The underdot is also used in the PDA orthography for Domari to show pharyngealization—the underdotted consonants (ḍ ḥ ṣ ṭ ẓ) represent the emphaticized sounds pronounced as //d̪ˤ ħ sˤ t̪ˤ zˤ//.
• In Asturian, ḷḷ (underdotted double ll) represents the voiced retroflex plosive or the voiceless retroflex affricate, depending on dialect, and ḥ (underdotted h) the voiceless glottal fricative.
• In the O'odham language, Ḍ (d with underdot) represents a voiced retroflex stop.
• In Vietnamese, The nặng tone (low, glottal) is represented with a dot below the base vowel: ạ ặ ậ ẹ ệ ị ọ ộ ợ ụ ự ỵ.
• In Igbo, an underdot can be used on i, o, and u to make ị, ọ, and ụ. The underdot symbolizes a reduction in the vowel height.
• In Yoruba, an underdot can be used on e and o to make ẹ and ọ, symbolizing a reduction in the vowel height, as well as on s to make ṣ, symbolizing a postalveolar articulation.
• In Americanist phonetic notation, x with underdot x̣ represents a voiceless uvular fricative.
• Underdots are used in the Rheinische Dokumenta phonetic writing system to denote a voiced s and special pronunciations of r and a.
• In the Fiero-Rhodes orthography for Eastern Ojibwe and Odaawaa, in g̣, ḥ, and ḳ, underdot is used to indicate labialization when either (o) or (w) following them was lost in syncope.
• The Sicilian nexus ḍḍ is used to represent pronounced as /[ɖɖ]/.
• In Kalabari, ḅ and ḍ are used.
• In Marshallese, underdots on consonants represent velarization, such as the velarized lateral ḷ.
• UNGEGN romanization of Urdu includes ḍ, g̣, ḳ, ṭ, ẉ, and ỵ.^[1]
• In Mizo, ṭ represents pronounced as //t͡r//.
• The underdot is also used in the Devanagari script, where it is called nukta.

Raised dot and middle dot

In Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, in addition to the middle dot as a letter, centred dot diacritic, and dot above diacritic, there also is a two-dot diacritic in the Naskapi language representing /_w_V/ which depending on the placement on the specific Syllabic letter may resemble a colon when placed vertically, diaeresis when placed horizontally, or a combination of middle dot and dot above diacritic when placed either at an angle or enveloping a small raised letter . Additionally, in Northwestern Ojibwe, a small raised /wi/ as /w/, the middle dot is raised farther up as either or ; there also is a raised dot "Final", which represents /w/ in some Swampy Cree and /y/ in some Northwestern Ojibwe.

Side dot

The diacritics 〮 and 〯 , known as Bangjeom (Korean: 방점; 傍點), were used to mark pitch accents in Hangul for Middle Korean. They were written to the left of a syllable in vertical writing and above a syllable in horizontal writing.

Dot above right

In the Pe̍h-ōe-jī orthography of Hokkien, a dot above right is used in the letter o͘ to represent the vowel /ɔ/.

Encoding

In Unicode, the dot is encoded as a combining diacritic at:

and at:

There is also:

The many precomposed characters can be found at the Unicode Consortium website.

See also

• • • • • • • Arabic alphabet
• Hebrew diacritics
• Dot (disambiguation)
• Two dots (disambiguation)
• Three dots (disambiguation)

External links

• Diacritics Project — All you need to design a font with correct accents

Notes and References

1. Book: Technical reference manual for the standardization of geographical names . United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names . United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names . 2007 . United Nations . New York . 169 . 978-92-1-161500-5.