This Acute Accent Keyboard is an online tool that allows anyone to create, make or put an Acute accent mark above or below any letter or character in just three steps.
We all know that our keyboards have a standard set of letters, numbers, and symbols on them. To type these characters, we usually don’t need to press more than a few keys at once. There are times, however, when we need to type special letters, such as those with the Acute accent mark below or above them.
There are several ways to type these special letters on the keyboard, however, with some level of difficulty. And if you’re someone who frequently types any of the Acute Accented letters, you may find it time-consuming to try to find ways to get those symbols with your keyboard.
That’s why we created this free Acute Accent Keyboard for people like you to use, as it enables anyone irrespective of their technical knowledge to type and put Acute accents on any letter or character.
Thus, to type letters with the Acute accent marks (below or above them), use this free online keyboard tool. You can do so following the steps below:
Now that you’ve gotten the tool to type any letter with the Acute accent, we will like to use this opportunity to educate you more about this symbol.
The acute accent or what we commonly know in today's modern language as the l'accent aigu is a French staple. You see it in French music videos, recipes, YouTube videos, French film subtitles, etc. It is the most common accent mark or diacritic in the French language.
But is there more to the acute accent than just being a French accent mark? Here's what you need to know about the acute accent, from its origins to how you can use it with modern-day technology.
The acute accent we know today isn't what linguists used in the Greek and Roman eras. The earliest instance of the acute accent was in Latin. During that time, the acute accent went by the word the apex (plural "apices").
In written Latin, the apex is what we now refer to as the acute accent or l'accent aigu. Linguists during this era used the apex to suggest long syllables.
You can find the apex in thousands of inscriptions and wax tablets of the last six decades of the Roman Republic and the first two centuries of the Principate.
The Roman Republic was a state of the classical Roman civilization that ran from 509 BC to 27BC.
The Principate is the name given to the first period of the Roman Empire (from the beginning of the reign of Augustus in 27 BC to the end of the Crisis of the Third Century in AD 284). It then evolved into the Dominate.
These inscriptions allowed linguists to discover the use of apices in the older written languages. This method is how linguists discovered the function of apices.
One of the earliest works that showcase the apex or the acute accent is from the Roman educator and rhetorician Quintilian. But before the Romans conquered the Greeks, the Greeks had more advanced writing systems that affected Roman culture and writing systems.
Let's look at the acute accent from ancient Greece before the Roman invasion.
One of the earliest instances of the acute accent in Greek writings is in Plato's works. The acute accent (όξεΐα τάσις) appears in various of Plato's writings. Here's an instance of the acute accent in Plato's Cratylus:
ΐΐρώτον μεν γάρ τό τοώνδε εννοησαυ τερί
ονομάτων, ότι ττολλάκις εττεμβάλλομεν γράμματα, τά δ έξαιρουμεν,
παρ’ δ βουλόμεθα όνομάζοντες, και τάς οξύτητα ς μεταβάλλομεν.
olov Αιι φίλος τούτο ΐνα αντί ρήματος όνομα ήμΐν γ ενηται,
τό τε έτερον αύτόθεν ιώτα έξείλομεν καϊ αντί οξείας της μέσης
συλλαβής βαρεΐαν εφθε^ξάμεθα 3
Cratylus is a dialogue by Plato (He was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece).
You can see the acute accent in various parts of this inscription. The Greek acute accent was a high pitch which is why the word accent (τόνος, τάσις, προσωδία present in the inscription translation: tone, tasis, prosody) are all musical terms.
The linguists or grammarians during this time described accents as a matter of pitch.
The Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus described the accent as 'a modification of the musical voice, by elevation in
the acute, by leveling in the grave, by breaking in the circumflex.'
Latin is the language of ancient Rome. After Rome conquered Greece and, Greece swallowed Roman culture, these two languages carried more similarities than differences.
Even before the fall of Greece, when the Romans and the Greece made contact (probably in the sixth or fifth century B.C.) there was an exchange of information that impacted both of their writing systems.
So how did the acute accent convert into Latin? Roman polymath and author Marcus Terentius Varro described the acute accent as thinner and shorter and in every way less than the grave, as it is easy to learn from music, of which accent is a copy.
Romans of the classical era, referred to all accent marks or diacritics as a pitch. Similar to Greek, they (the accents) also applied to musical phenomena. Marcus Varro compared the acute accent to a stringed instrument. According to him, thinner stringed instruments resulted in a higher pitch. Hence why the acute accent in Latin had a higher pitch.
The Romans created rules for using accent marks. Here are some of the ancient Roman rules of the Latin acute accent:
Not only did the Romans use the acute accent, they had rules speakers followed to use the accent marks. You can find many of these rules in dialogues and commentaries by Roman scholars.
The rules shared above were written by Roman grammarian Aelius Donatus. These rules do not apply to the modern acute accent but to the apex.
Regardless, these rules play a massive role in understanding the long history of the acute accent. Latin wasn't a melodic language, but the accents add the right tone it needed.
The acute accent might be a French staple and well known for being in the French language, but other languages also use the acute accent. Furthermore, they use the accent differently than in French. Let's take a look at some of them.
French is one of the languages known for having the acute accent or l'accent aigu. It's a common diacritic in the language. In French, you can only use the acute accent on the vowel 'e'. It changes the pronunciation from 'e' to 'ay.'
The Blackfoot language aka Siksiká, often anglicized as Siksika, is an Algonquian language spoken by the Blackfoot or Niitsitapi people. They are a native American tribe.
They use the acute accent to show the place of stress in a word. For instance, in the word Siksiká, you can see the acute accent in the 'a' at the end of the word to show stress.
The Italians used the acute accent to denote the stressed syllable in a word, or whether the vowel is "open" or "wide" or "closed" or "narrow."
For instance, take a look at this sentence: Roma è una bellissima città (Translation: Rome is a beautiful city). The acute accent is on top of the 'a' on the word 'citta' showing a stressed syllable.
The acute accent marks the stressed vowel of every polysyllabic word: ά (á), έ (é), ή (í), ί (í), ό (ó), ύ (í), ώ (ó).
The acute accent mark is one of the five accent marks in Portuguese. The acute accent mark indicates a stressed vowel: á, é, í, ó, ú and also indicates the height of the stressed value.
The acute accent indicates stress in Russian. Stress is irregular in Russian, but it (the acute accent) facilitates punctuation. The acute accent is known as "ударение", which means "the stress" or "the stress mark."
The acute accent indicates stressed syllables in polysyllabic words that deviate from the standardized stress patterns. What does that mean?
The acute accent in Spanish indicates that the standard rules of 'word stress' do not apply. Instead, the pronunciation stress will always be on the accented letter.
Furthermore, the Spanish also use the acute accent to ask questions. Lastly, the Spanish use the acute accent to differentiate words. For instance:
In Ukrainian, the acute accent mark is irregular to other common Ukrainian diacritics. The stress mark or in this case, the acute accent, does not belong to the standard written language.
However, there are some instances where they use the acute accent:
Scottish Gaelic use the acute accent in the traditional spelling of the letters á, é, and ó.
The acute accent is famous as a French diacritic by many English speakers. It's a staple in other languages, and it serves different purposes in these languages.
Its history stems from the Greek, which is why it functions for different purposes.
Here are the primary uses of the acute accent:
The acute accent is over thousands of years old, as are most diacritics. It holds historical relevance in several languages, the pronunciation of words, and their writing systems. It isn't part of the English language, but it still carries value in other languages such as French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic, etc.
Even with modern tools, anyone can use the acute accent. It is the most common accent mark worldwide. You can find it on your phone, PC, tablet, etc. You can also add them to modern English text using our virtual keyboard above.