` grave accent

¨ diaeresis

˜ tilde

´ acute

ˆ circumflex

So far we’ve used examples containing acute (right-leaning) accent marks. French and Italian (but not Spanish) words often contain grave (left-leaning) accents; in Italian it’s a caffè. It is important not to substitute one kind of accent for the other.

The diaeresis over a letter signifies that it is to be pronounced as a separate syllable: “noël” and “naïve” are sometimes spelled with a diaeresis, for instance. The umlaut, which looks identical, modifies the sound of a vowel, as in German Fräulein (girl), where the accent mark changes the “frow” sound of Frau (woman) to “froy.” Rock groups like “Blue Öyster Cult” scattered umlauts about nonsensically to create an exotic look.

Spanish words not completely assimilated into English like piñata and niño retain the tilde, which tells you that an “N” is to be pronounced with a “Y” sound after it.

In English-language publications accent marks are often discarded, but the acute and grave accents are the ones most often retained.