hypographen

Hypographen is a term that appears in a limited range of typographic and paleographic discussions. It denotes glyphs or signs that are associated with a base letter and occur in the lower region of the writing, either as diacritical marks placed under letters or as secondary signs inscribed below the main body of a character or line. The term is not part of the standard typographic vocabulary in major dictionaries and varies in usage; it is most often found in scholarly descriptions rather than in everyday typesetting.

In practice, hypographs can include diacritics placed below a letter, such as marks or strokes used in certain transliteration or phonetic systems, or lower-placed marginal signs that accompany the main line in manuscripts, such as corrections or glosses written beneath the line. In some paleographic descriptions, hypographs refer to any element situated under the baseline, distinguishing them from epigraphs (above the line) or the primary text.

The concept overlaps with subscript text and with broader diacritic categories. Because the term lacks standardization, researchers may use it differently or prefer more precise terms such as diacritic below, subscript, or marginalia. Overall, hypographen describe a lower-positioned writing element and are discussed mainly within scholarly analyses of historical scripts and typographic practices.