# Accent marks (diacritics) on capital letters



## AndrasBP

Hello all,

I've noticed that accent marks on capital letters are sometimes omitted in French and Spanish, e.g. I've seen book covers that say STEPHANE MALLARME and LUIS SEPULVEDA, but inside the books the accents were used: Stéphane Mallarmé and Luis Sepúlveda. I was not familiar with the French poet, so I thought his name would be pronounced /malarm/, not /malarme/, as it should be. I remember seeing accentless all-capital inscriptions on French buildings, too.

It appeared strange to me, because in Hungarian the accent mark is an integral part of the letter; if it's omitted, it's just plain wrong, it's a spelling mistake. I'm aware that in Spanish the accent marks do not modify the vowel, they're just there to show word stress, but why not use them on capital letters, too, if it's an orthographic convention?
In Romanian, diacritics don't always appear on capital letters either.

What about your language? German Ö and Ü? Czech Č? Italian word-final stress marks like in 'città' or 'Forlì'?


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## ilocas2

Czech is like Hungarian here.


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## apmoy70

Modern Greek omits accent marks on capital letters too, with the exception of the accent that's placed before the capital letter, rather than above, when the initial letter is accented, it's capitalised, and is followed by lowercase fonts, e.g:

*«Άγκυρα»* [ˈaɲɟiɾa] (fem.) --> _Ankara_ (Turkey's capital)
*«Όσλο»* [ˈoslo] (neut.) --> _Oslo_ (Norwegian capital)

but

*«ΑΓΚΥΡΑ»* (no accent mark), *«ΟΣΛΟ»* (no accent marks either).

Ancient Greek (after the 3rd c. BCE) omitted accent or breathing marks on capital letters too, with the exception of the accent or breathing marks that's placed before the initial capital letter, rather than above, followed by lowercase fonts, e.g:

*«Ἄγκυρα»* [ˈaŋguːraː]
*«Ἀθῆναι»* [aˈtʰeːnai̯]
*«Ὕμνος»* [ˈhuːmnos] (masc.) --> _hymn_


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## Penyafort

Many Spanish speakers still believe that not using graphic accents on capital letters is acceptable. They are wrong. The rules are the same as for the lower-case ones.

The misconception comes from the fact that using a typewriter often forced the accented letter to be in lower-case so that both signs were in the same space. This was however solved with more complex typewriters, even before the use of computers. But the mistaken idea of it being acceptable remained.


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## DearPrudence

Actually, the situation for French is the same as for Spanish; capital letters should be accented as well, especially since this can lead to confusion.
Accentuer les capitales : pourquoi ? - Langue-fr.net

But in everyday life, it is hardly respected (or even known). Computers don't have those accented characters. So we have to use other ways to type them.
Personally, I use alt codes, so I type:
alt 0192 for À
alt 144 for É
...
(and alt 0156 for œ. And in theory, we should also use alt +0171 & alt + 0187 for « » respectively, but truth be told, these change automatically in word processors)
But on a laptop with no keypad (since we have to press "CAP" to write numbers), I don't know how to do this  If I want to write "Ça va", I use a word before, like "Alors, ça va ?", in order to avoid having "Ca va ?" written!  )


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## AndrasBP

Thank you for your replies.



Penyafort said:


> Many Spanish speakers still believe that not using graphic accents on capital letters is acceptable. They are wrong. The rules are the same as for the lower-case ones.


But they wouldn't leave out the tilde off an Ñ, would they? ESPANA?


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## bibax

In France, you can see e.g. REGION ILE-DE-FRANCE, AVENUE des CHAMPS-ELYSEES, ENTREE EST FERMEE, ... esp. on the signs.

METROPOLITAIN is common (in fact you'll hardly see MÉTROPOLITAIN signs in Paris).



DearPrudence said:


> But on a laptop with no keypad, I don't know how to do this ...


The Czech IBM-PC keyboard has the so called "dead keys" for the accent marks *´ ˇ ¨*  (on the mechanical typewriters they are typed without movement of the cylinder, so the following character is typed on the same place):

*É Š Ä*
(most /but not all/ accented lower case characters /á é í ú ý š č ř ž .../ have dedicated keys, so the dead keys are not necessary for them).

Using the *AltGr* key I can also type other accent marks: *^ ˘ ° ˛ ` ·  ˝ ¸* (ă ç ş ţ ö ő ò ó ô ż ų ę å ů î)

Try *AltGr*+_[an upper row key]_ and then upper case A, C, ... :

*Â Ă Å Ą À Á Ä
Ça va ?*


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## Penyafort

AndrasBP said:


> But they wouldn't leave out the tilde off an Ñ, would they? ESPANA?



Certainly not. The difference can be important.

*Tiene 20 años* = He is 20 years old
*Tiene 20 anos* = He's got 20 anuses

*¿Quieres una caña?* = Would you like a beer?
*¿Quieres una cana?* = Would you like a grey hair?

*Deshazte de ese moño *= Get rid of that chignon
*Deshazte de ese mono *= Get rid of that monkey






​


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## AndrasBP

Penyafort said:


> Certainly not. The difference can be important.


OK, I see. However, if the omission of the accent marks was indeed caused by a technical problem with old typewriters, they still somehow managed to make space for a tilde above an N, is that right? So they could have capitalised the stressed vowels, too. Or would it have been too much trouble, the Ñ being rarer?

What about Catalan accent marks on capital letters? Is the situation the same as in Spanish?


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## Penyafort

AndrasBP said:


> OK, I see. However, if the omission of the accent marks was indeed caused by a technical problem with old typewriters, they still somehow managed to make space for a tilde above an N, is that right? So they could have capitalised the stressed vowels, too. Or would it have been too much trouble, the Ñ being rarer?



Well, I'm no expert in typography. But I don't remember any problem with ñ's, other than some machines not having the key. The tilde is usually very close to the n, while graphic accents were more detached. But I'm not sure about what the real reason there was.



AndrasBP said:


> What about Catalan accent marks on capital letters? Is the situation the same as in Spanish?



They are always written. If not, it's a mistake. 

To some extent, the importance of accent marks in Catalan is even higher, as not only they mark stress, but also the quality of the vowels.


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## bibax

The mechanical typewriters have very limited number of keys. So there is a problem if an alphabet has many accented  types. The selection of the types must be a compromise.

For example, the Czech typewriters have no keys for the parentheses ( ) and even for 0 and 1.
e.g. *100 l (= 1 hl)* is written *lOO l /= l hl/*

Also there are no dedicated keys for the accented upper case letters, they are typed exclusively using "dead" keys for the accent marks *´ ˇ ¨*. However there is no key for *°*, so there is no simple way how to type the Czech letter *Ů* (e.g. DŮM = HOUSE).

I think that French allows (or allowed in the past) to type the accented upper case letters without the accents (*ILE-DE-FRANCE*).


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## elroy

AndrasBP said:


> German Ö and Ü?


Always included.  Same with Ä.



Penyafort said:


> *Tiene 20 años* = He is 20 years old​*Tiene 20 anos* = He's got 20 anuses​​*¿Quieres una caña?* = Would you like a beer?​*¿Quieres una cana?* = Would you like a grey hair?​​*Deshazte de ese moño *= Get rid of that chignon​*Deshazte de ese mono *= Get rid of that monkey​


Examples from German:

_In dieser Äußerung ist kein s*a*chliches Wort._ = There’s not a single objective word in this utterance.
_In dieser Äußerung ist kein s*ä*chliches Wort._ = There’s not a single neuter word in this utterance. [word of neuter gender]

_Du bist sch*o*n nass._ = You’re already wet.
_Du bist sch*ö*n nass._ = You’re nice and wet [very wet].

_Ich kann das nicht ausdr*u*cken_. = I can’t print that.
_Ich kann das nicht ausdr*ü*cken._ = I can’t express that.

Some plural nouns are only distinguished from their singular versions by an umlaut:

Apfel — Äpfel
Garten — Gärten 
Boden — Böden 
Vogel — Vögel 
Bruder — Brüder
Mutter — Mütter


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## Ansku89

Finnish, Swedish, and as far as I know, all other Scandinavian languages too do the same as German. This is because Ä, Ö, Å etc. are seen as completely separate letters, not just "A with some stuff on top". And there are definitely words where leaving out the dots would change the meaning completely.


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## AndrasBP

Ansku89 said:


> Finnish, Swedish, and as far as I know, all other Scandinavian languages too do the same as German.


So you can't have a "JYVASKYLA" sign on a railway station, right? 

In France, "*Nîmes*" is just "NIMES" if capitalized:


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## Penyafort

German (and I'd say Swedish and maybe Danish too, from what I recall) used to write an _e_ after the vowel when an umlaut wasn't possible, I guess that for the very same reason I mentioned for Spanish in the case of graphic accents. I'm assuming the choice of an _e_ is because the two dots derived from a previous little _e, _much as _ñ_ came from a little n upon the n. This is why we can still see surnames such as Haendel, Goethe or Duerer in many sources.


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## elroy

Penyafort said:


> German … used to write an _e_ after the vowel


This is still done occasionally, in informal communication when typing using a keyboard with no umlauts. 

And yes, this survives in some official spellings, as in “Goethe.”


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## Awwal12

In Russian accent marks denote stressed vowels and (unluckily) are generally optional, though theoretically nothing prevents you from placing them above capital letters when you find it necessary.


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## Ansku89

AndrasBP said:


> So you can't have a "JYVASKYLA" sign on a railway station, right?


Definitely not. It would look like a mistake or that the dots have fallen off 😀 However in this particular case people wouldn't mix it with anything else. It would be another story with Hämeenlinna - it would change from "castle of Häme province" to "castle of a skirt" without the dots...


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## Delvo

I am shocked that anybody whose language uses the Roman alphabet could possibly still end up with a keyboard which doesn't do whatever diacritics are needed for that language, at this late date. I've seen German keyboards with buttons for the umlauts and ß, Spanish keyboards with buttons for accented vowels and Ññ and the upside-down punctuation marks, and Scandinavian keyboards with buttons for things like Åå, Ðð, Þþ, and Øø... and even my American computer I got 21 years ago (Apple, not IBM-clone) already had a button which, when combined with [`], [_'_], [^], [:], [~], or [,], would add the nearest-looking real diacritic to the following letter I typed if it could take it, producing things like è, é, ê, ë, ẽ, and ç, even though that was in the USA where our main language doesn't use them and foreign countries are much farther away and outside the realm of our experience for most of us. So how in the world is it even _possible_ for France to have ended up without something so basic this much later?


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## elroy

Delvo said:


> I am shocked that anybody whose language uses the Roman alphabet could possibly still end up with a keyboard which doesn't do whatever diacritics are needed for that language, at this late date.


Agreed!


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## elroy

Penyafort said:


> Certainly not. The difference can be important.


Another example:

Let’s say a distressed teenage girl breaks a nail and texts her boyfriend to complain about it.  If she writes, “Se me ha roto *una una*,” he might get really alarmed and wonder what body part she’s hesitating to tell him about! 😱 ¡¿Una, una qué?!


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## Welsh_Sion

Delvo said:


> I am shocked that anybody whose language uses the Roman alphabet could possibly still end up with a keyboard which doesn't do whatever diacritics are needed for that language, at this late date. I've seen German keyboards with buttons for the umlauts and ß, Spanish keyboards with buttons for accented vowels and Ññ and the upside-down punctuation marks, and Scandinavian keyboards with buttons for things like Åå, Ðð, Þþ, and Øø... and even my American computer I got 21 years ago (Apple, not IBM-clone) already had a button which, when combined with [`], [_'_], [^], [:], [~], or [,], would add the nearest-looking real diacritic to the following letter I typed if it could take it, producing things like è, é, ê, ë, ẽ, and ç, even though that was in the USA where our main language doesn't use them and foreign countries are much farther away and outside the realm of our experience for most of us. So how in the world is it even _possible_ for France to have ended up without something so basic this much later?


But it's only recently, after petitioning Microsoft, have we been allowed to type in <ŵ> and <ŷ> in Word. Welsh entrepreneurs have had to fill in these gaps themselves via specialist software. (Which is what I'm using for this post). Of course, Welsh is not the only language to use these diacritics on these vowels, but it might be the only one in Europe to do so.

I note that they don't yet figure here in WR Special Characters.


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## Terio

Delvo said:


> I am shocked that anybody whose language uses the Roman alphabet could possibly still end up with a keyboard which doesn't do whatever diacritics are needed for that language, at this late date. I've seen German keyboards with buttons for the umlauts and ß, Spanish keyboards with buttons for accented vowels and Ññ and the upside-down punctuation marks, and Scandinavian keyboards with buttons for things like Åå, Ðð, Þþ, and Øø... and even my American computer I got 21 years ago (Apple, not IBM-clone) already had a button which, when combined with [`], [_'_], [^], [:], [~], or [,], would add the nearest-looking real diacritic to the following letter I typed if it could take it, producing things like è, é, ê, ë, ẽ, and ç, even though that was in the USA where our main language doesn't use them and foreign countries are much farther away and outside the realm of our experience for most of us. So how in the world is it even _possible_ for France to have ended up without something so basic this much later?


So do I. It's amazing that that keyboard has a button for ù while there is only one world written with ù (où = where). Why not then a button for où ! There is also a button for à, which appears only in a few words and another for è. The French Canadian keyboard is far more practical and makes it very easy to type capitalized letters with diacritics : À È Ì Ò Ù Ç Ä Ë Ï Ö Ü É Â Ê Î Ô Û.


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## Delvo

Then why would French people in France not use that?


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## Terio

They probably don't even know it exists. And it is qwerty, instead of azerty.

And there is the misconception that "you don't put accent marks on capital letters" while it used to be only tolerated not to put them, since it was impossible with typewriters and technically difficult or more costly in typography.


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## Rallino

I can type more French diacritics on my Turkish keyboard than I can on a French keyboard. The only special character I can't type is œ, but it's not possible to type it on a French keyboard, either. The French keyboard is a total joke.

As far as I know, the Canadian French keyboard doesn't feature the œ, either. Is that true, @Terio ?


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## Terio

Yets, it is true. But softwares like Words corrects it. (It does'n work on this forum, thoug.) There is also the possibility to assign a personnal fuction (ex. : control o) to this character.


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## JeanDeSponde

French keyboards are highly inefficient - no accented capital letters, but there always is a "ù" key which is _uniquely _used for "où"...!
Why don't we French have to use accented caps...? Why is there a British monarch...? Why can one enter a US school with an automatic weapon...? Tradition.


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