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Do the tittles on `i` and `j` count as diacritics? In English those vowel symbols never appear without their tittles. (In contrast, the related vowel symbol `y`
by cvoss 1y ago
Do the tittles on `i` and `j` count as diacritics? In English those vowel symbols never appear without their tittles. (In contrast, the related vowel symbol `y`, which is like an `ij` combo and is named "Greek I" in French, never appears with tittles!) In some sense, the glyphs are idiomatically atomic with the diacritics permanently stuck to them.
- RiverCrochet 1y agoI don't think so; the tittle is part of the lowercase form of the letter. If it was a diacritic, it could appear with the uppercase forms as well.
- dawnofdusk 1y agoIn French you can (and most people do) drop diacritics from all uppercase forms.
- bazoom42 1y agoThey are not diacritics since they don’t alter the sound of the letter.
- cvoss 1y agoI don't know what a headless `i` or `j` would sound like in English, since they aren't used. So it's not really a verifiable claim that the tittles don't alter the sound.
- bazoom42 1y agoThe term “diacritic” has a specific mening. It means a symbol added to a letter to alter or disambiguate its sound. The dot in i and j does not have that function (in English), therefore they are not diacritics but part of the letter itself. The dot evolved to make the letter more visually distinct in handwriting, not to indicate a sound change.
- adolph 1y agoFor the record, Wikipedia states they are diacritics. I'm leaning toward agreeing due to this observation: "In most Latin-based orthographies, the lowercase letter i conventionally has its dot replaced when a diacritical mark atop the letter, such as a tilde or caron, is placed." Ex: aeiouyj, âêîôûyj, äëïöüÿj, áéíóúyj́ (oops, my example shows an accent above the J's tittle–down one, but three up) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tittle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tittle