Ó Explained

Ó, ó (o-acute) is a letter in the Czech, Emilian-Romagnol, Faroese, Hungarian, Icelandic, Kashubian, Polish, Slovak, Karakalpak, and Sorbian languages. This letter also appears in the Afrikaans, Catalan, Dutch, Irish, Nynorsk, Bokmål, Occitan, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and Galician languages as a variant of letter "o". In some cases, the letter "ó" is used in some languages as in a high rising tone (e.g. Vietnamese). It is sometimes also used in English for loanwords.

Usage in various languages

Chinese

In Chinese pinyin ó is the yángpíng tone (阳平, high-rising tone) of "o".

Czech and Slovak

Ó is the 24th letter of the Czech alphabet and the 28th letter of the Slovak alphabet. It represents pronounced as //oː//.

Dutch

In Dutch, the acute Ó accent is used to mark different meanings for words, for example Dutch; Flemish: voor and Dutch; Flemish: vóór ("for" / "before"), or Dutch; Flemish: vóórkomen and Dutch; Flemish: voorkómen ("to occur" / "to prevent").

Emilian

In Emilian, ó is used to represent [o], e.g. sótt [sotː] "dry".

Faroese

Ó is the 18th letter of the Faroese alphabet and represents pronounced as //œ// or pronounced as //ɔuː//.

Hungarian

Ó is the 25th letter of the Hungarian alphabet. It represents the long vowel pronounced as //oː//.

Icelandic

Ó is the 19th letter of the Icelandic alphabet and represents pronounced as //oṷ//.

Irish

Ó is widely used in Irish where it has various meanings:

Italian

In Italian, ó is an optional symbol (especially used in dictionaries) sometimes used to indicate that a stressed o should be pronounced with a close sound: córso pronounced as /it/, "course", as opposed to còrso pronounced as /it/, "Corsican" (but both are commonly written with no accent marks when the context is clear). A similar process may occur with é and è, as in *pésca, "fishing", and *pèsca "peach", in which the accent mark is not written (both are written as pesca).

Kashubian

Ó is the 23rd letter of the Kashubian alphabet and represents pronounced as //o//. It also represents pronounced as //u// in southern dialects.

Kazakh

It was proposed in 2018 that Ó should be one of their Latin alphabet to replace Ө and represents pronounced as //œ// (or pronounced as //ʷœ//). The proposal was modified to Ö in late 2019.

Karakalpak

Ó/ȯ is the 21rd letter of the Karakalpak alphabet and represents pronounced as //ʷœ//.

Polish

Polish: Ó is the 21st letter of the Polish alphabet, and represents pronounced as //u//. Historically it represented pronounced as //oː// but morphed to pronounced as //u// over time (similar to English "oo").

Portuguese

In Portuguese, ó is used to mark a stressed pronounced as /link/ in words whose stressed syllable is in an unpredictable location within the word, as in "pó" (dust) and "óculos" (glasses). If the location of the stressed syllable is predictable, the acute accent is not used. Ó pronounced as /link/ contrasts with ô pronounced as /link/.

Romagnol

In Romagnol, ó is used to represent [oː], e.g. alóra [aˈloːra] "then".

Scottish Gaelic

Ó was once widely used in Scottish, but it has now been largely superseded by "ò". It can still be seen in certain writings but is no longer used in standard orthography.

Spanish

Ó is used in the Spanish language to denote an 'o' vowel with abnormal stress.

Sorbian

Ó represents pronounced as //uʊ// in Upper Sorbian and represents pronounced as //ɛ// or pronounced as //ɨ// in, especially, Lower Sorbian.

Vietnamese

In Vietnamese alphabet ó is the sắc tone (high-rising tone) of "o".

Character mappings

Key strokes

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Anglicisation of Irish Surnames - Irish Names and Surnames. www.libraryireland.com. 2019-07-30.
  2. Web site: The Anglicisation of some Gaelic Irish Surnames - translation and change - Irish Genealogy. www.familyhistoryireland.com. 2019-07-30.
  3. Web site: 19 Keyboard Shortcuts for Spanish Accents Alt Codes . Keyxl.com . 2022-08-13.
  4. Web site: How to Type Accent Marks over Letters in Microsoft Word. 27 July 2018 .