circumflex

The circumflex, or circumflex accent, is a diacritic mark shaped like a small inverted V (ˆ) placed above certain letters in various Latin-based alphabets. It is encoded in Unicode as the combining circumflex accent (U+02C6) and is also represented in precomposed letters such as â, ê, î, ô, and û. The term derives from the Latin circumflexus, meaning bent around.

In languages that use the Latin script, the circumflex serves different purposes. In French, the accent circonflexe appears on vowels a, e, i, o, and u and often signals a historical loss of an earlier letter, typically an s (forêt from forest). It can also indicate vowel length or quality in some dialects, though pronunciation today is often similar to the unaccented form. In Portuguese, the circumflex (circunflexo) marks stressed syllables and a higher, mid-to-close vowel quality, as in pôr or você. In Romanian, letters such as â, î, and ê bear the circumflex and denote specific vowel qualities used in the language.

In typography and computing, the circumflex is recognized as a diacritic that modifies the base letter. It is distinct from the caret symbol ^ in English typography, though the two symbols are sometimes conflated in informal contexts. The circumflex also appears in other languages that use diacritics to indicate phonetic or phonemic distinctions, sometimes combining with tone or other marks to convey additional information.

Overall, the circumflex is a versatile diacritic with historical and linguistic significance across several languages, reflecting changes in pronunciation, etymology, and orthographic conventions.