diacriticus

Diacriticus is a hypothetical diacritic system proposed in theoretical linguistics and conlang communities to annotate phonetic and prosodic features within standard letters. It envisions a compact set of diacritics placed on base characters to encode information such as vowel length, nasalization, stress, and certain consonant qualities alongside the base text.

Etymology and scope: The name diacriticus is a neo-Latin coinage formed from diacritic and the adjectival suffix -icus. There is no universal standard, and the system remains primarily in discussion, design, and experimental use. Advocates argue that it could reduce ambiguity by keeping phonological distinctions visible in the orthography itself, without separate transcription lines.

Notation and features: The system uses a small, compatible set of marks. An acute accent can mark primary stress; a macron can denote vowel length; a tilde can indicate nasalization; a caron can signal palatalization; and a dot below can imply breathy voice. Marks may be stacked on a single vowel or consonant to express multiple features, subject to a language’s typographic conventions and input methods.

Examples: kála suggests stress on the first syllable; kāla marks a long vowel; mãla indicates nasalization of a; pač denotes palatalization of the preceding consonant using a c with caron. These examples show how diacriticus could encode phonological distinctions within a single orthography, though any real implementation would require formal standards and broad community acceptance.

See also: diacritics, orthography, constructed language.