There are four accents marks + diaresis.

´	acute accent
^	circumflex accent
~	tilde
`	grave accent
¨	diaresis

 

The following table has some letters with accents. You can test that your browser shows the accents correctly (there is an image of every letter compared with what your browser shows).

Browser Image   Browser Image   Browser Image   Browser Image á   â   ã   à é   ê             í                   ó   ô   õ

 

	acute accent opens the vowel
	circumflex accent closes the vowel
	tilde nasalizes the vowel
	grave accent is used when there is a contraction of preposition a with an article or pronoun: a + a = à (à casa, to the house) a + as = às (às casas, to the houses) a + aquilo = àquilo (to that)
	diaresis separates two adjacent wovels.

What is an accent?
From the Webster's Encyclopedic Unabriged Dictionary of the English language:

Accent
1. a mark indicating stress, vowel quality (as French grave `, acute ´, circumflex ^), or form (as French la "the" versus là "there").
2. any similar mark.

Dia(e)resis
1. The separation of of two adjacent vowels, dividing one syllable into two.
2. a sign ( ¨ ) placed over the second of two adjacent vowels to indicate separate pronunciation, as in naïve

Latest update: 1999-07-17 (YYYY-MM-DD)
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