Atitikmuo

Atitikmuo, sometimes translated as diacritic, is a sign added to a letter to modify its pronunciation, stress, or meaning. It appears as a small mark placed above, below, or through a base letter, and is used in many writing systems.

In different languages, atitikmuo serves various functions: indicating vowel quality or length (as in French é or Irish á), signaling tone (as in Vietnamese sắc, huyền), or distinguishing otherwise identical words (as in Polish ą vs a). Diacritics can also indicate palatalization, nasalization, or consonant softness, depending on the language and orthographic rules.

Common types include the acute (´), grave (`), circumflex (ˆ), and tilde (~) on vowels; the umlaut/diaeresis (¨); the cedilla (̧) on c; the caron or háček (ˇ) on letters like č, š, ž; the ogonek ( ̨) on ą, ę; and the ring (˚) on å. Additionally, marks such as the dot above (i, j) or other diacritics modify specific sounds or indicate special spellings.

In Lithuanian, atitikmuo is a central feature of orthography. Vowels and several consonants carry diacritics such as ą, ė, į, ų, ū, č, š, and ž. These marks distinguish phonemes, affect spelling, syllable structure, and sometimes stress placement, making atitikmuo essential for correct pronunciation and meaning.

In digital text, atitikmuo marks are represented as precomposed characters or as combining diacritics in Unicode. Proper rendering requires fonts and input methods that support these marks, and normalization helps ensure consistent encoding across systems.