Downloaded from https://www.everyspec.com FM 34-54 Five of the letters are referred to collectively as "vowels," while the rest are called collectively "consonants." The rules designating letters as vowels or consonants vary from language to language. Some languages, for instance, consider , , or to be vowels. Most of the Roman alphabet languages modify letters by putting extra marks above, in, or below them. These marks are called diacritics. They are among the best criteria for language recognition. Figure G-2 shows the principal diacritics used by various languages to modify the Roman alphabet. Figure G-3 shows the languages that use these diacritics.
It also summarizes the occurrence of various diacritics in selected Roman alphabet languages and gives examples of letters with diacritics on them. The diacritics are divided into three groups, depending on whether they are written above, in, or below the letter. They are given standard names for convenience; their actual names vary from language to language. DIACRITICS ABOVE THE LETTER Grave > Acute > Circumflex Hacek > Breve > Macron V - Tilde Krouzek > Dot O . Dieresis u > Double Acute _ > Apostrophe Question Umlaut Back Apostrophe л > DIACRITICS IN THE LETTER Bar Slash Horn > DIACRITICS UNDER THE LETTER Cedilla о > Ogonek Comma Low Dot Figure G-2. Table of diacritics.
Western European languages include those commonly called Romance and Germanic languages. G-4 DIACRITICS WESTERN EUROPEAN LANGUAGES