Hook (diacritic)

In typesetting, the hook or tail is a diacritic mark attached to letters in many alphabets. In shape it looks like a hook and it can be attached below as a descender, on top as an ascender and sometimes to the side. The orientation of the hook can change its meaning: when it is below and curls to the left it can be interpreted as a palatal hook, and when it curls to the right is called hook tail or tail and can be interpreted as a retroflex hook. It should not be mistaken with the hook above, a diacritical mark used in Vietnamese, or the rhotic hook, used in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

◌̡◌̢◌˞
Hook
In Unicode
  • U+0321  ̡  COMBINING PALATALIZED HOOK BELOW
  • U+0322  ̢  COMBINING RETROFLEX HOOK BELOW

Letter ⟨Z⟩ with tophook - became letter ⟨⟩.

Letter ⟨X⟩ with two high hooks - became letter ⟨⟩.

Different types of hook diacritics

Letters with hook

It could be argued that the hook was used to derive the letter ⟨J⟩ from the letter ⟨I⟩, or the letter Eng ⟨ŋ⟩ from the letter ⟨N⟩. However, these letters are usually not identified as being formed with the hook.

Most letters with hook are used in the International Phonetic Alphabet, and many languages use them (along with capitals) representing the same sounds.

The hook often attaches to the top part of the letter, curling to the left or to the right, finishing the ascender if present. It may then be referred to as a crook, in some languages like French[1] more commonly than in English that is less successful in mitigating the semantic overload of the hook term.

If the hook attaches to the bottom part of the letter, it is often called a palatal hook if it curls to the left, or a retroflex hook if it curls to the right.

The letter ⟨ɿ⟩ with right hook does not necessarily mean retroflex (this is not true for ⟨ʅ⟩).

Latin alphabet
LettersNameHook position
A with retroflex hookbottom
Script a or alpha with retroflex hookbottom
Ɓɓ𐞅B with hook[2]top
B with flourishleft
B with palatal hookbottom
Ƈƈ C with hooktop
C with palatal hookbottom
𝼝C with retroflex hook[3]bottom
Ɗɗ𐞌D with hook[2]top
Ɖɖ𐞋African d or d with tail[4]bottom
𐞍D with hook and tail[2]top and bottom
D with palatal hookbottom
E with flourishleft
E with retroflex hookbottom
ɚSchwa with hookright
Schwa with retroflex hookbottom
Open e or epsilon with retroflex hookbottom
ɝReversed open e or epsilon with hookright
Reversed open e or epsilon with retroflex hookbottom
ƑƒF with hookbottom
F with palatal hookbottom
Ɠɠ𐞓G with hook[2]top
ʛ𐞔Small capital g with hook[2]top
G with palatal hookright
Script g with crossed-tailbottom
ɦʱH with hooktop
H with palatal hookbottom right
ɧ𐞗Heng with hook[4]top
ʮTurned h with fishhooktop
ʯTurned h with fishhook and tailtop and bottom
I with retroflex hookbottom
ʝJ with crossed-tailbottom
ʄ𐞘Dotless j with stroke and hook[2]top
ƘƙK with hooktop
K with palatal hookbottom
𝼑L with fishhook[5]right
L with palatal hookbottom
ɭL with retroflex hookbottom
𐞝L with retroflex hook and belt[6][7]bottom
ɱM with hookbottom
M with palatal hookbottom
M with crossed-tailbottom
ƝɲN with left hookbottom left
N with palatal hookbottom right
ɳN with retroflex hookbottom right
N with crossed-tailbottom
Eng with crossed-tailbottom
𝼔Eng with palatal hook[5]bottom
𝼛O with retroflex hook[5]bottom
Open o with retroflex hookbottom
ƤƥP with hooktop
P with palatal hookright
P with flourishleft middle
P with squirrel tailleft top
ʠQ with hooktop
ɊɋSmall q with hook tailbottom
ɽ𐞨R with tail[4]bottom left
R with palatal hookbottom
ɻʵTurned r with hookbottom
𝼕Turned r with palatal hook[5]bottom
Turned r with tailtop
R with crossed-tailbottom
Double r with crossed-tailbottom
ɾR with fishhookbottom
R with fishhook and middle tildebottom
ɿReversed R with fishhookbottom
S with palatal hookbottom right
ʂS with retroflex hookbottom left
ȿS with swash tailbottom right
Esh with palatal hookright
Esh with retroflex hookbottom
ƬƭT with hooktop
ƫƫT with palatal hookbottom
Ʈʈ𐞯T with retroflex hook[4]bottom
U with left hooktop left
U with retroflex hookbottom
V with palatal hookbottom
𐞰V with right hook[8][4]top
ƲʋScript v or v with hooktop
W with hooktop right
X with palatal hookbottom right
ƳƴY with hooktop right
ȤȥZ with hookbottom
Z with palatal hookbottom
ʐZ with retroflex hookbottom
Z with top hooktop right or top left
ⱿɀZ with swash tailbottom
𝼘Ezh with palatal hook[5]right
Ezh with retroflex hookbottom
ƺEzh with tailbottom
𝼅𐞟Lezh with retroflex hook[7]bottom
𝼊𐞹Retroflex click with retroflex hook[9][2]bottom
Cuatrillo tailbottom
Cuatrillo hookbottom
Cyrillic alphabet
ӺӻGhe with stroke and hookbottom
ҊҋShort i with tailbottom right
ӃӄKa with hookbottom right
ԒԓEl with hookbottom right
ӅӆEl with tailbottom right
ӍӎEm with tailbottom right
ӇӈEn with hookbottom right
ԨԩEn with left hookbottom left
ӉӊEn with tailbottom right
ӼӽHa with hookbottom right

Unicode

Unicode has the combining diacritics U+0321  ̡  COMBINING PALATALIZED HOOK BELOW and U+0322  ̢  COMBINING RETROFLEX HOOK BELOW but these are not recommended to be used with letters, and should be used to illustrate the hooks themselves. Instead Unicode recommends the use of characters that already include the hook.

The U+02DE ˞ MODIFIER LETTER RHOTIC HOOK is used to mark an r-colored vowel.

See also

References

  1. As in the non-standard French translation of the UCS ListeNoms.
  2. Miller, Kirk; Ashby, Michael (2020-11-08). "L2/20-253R: Unicode request for IPA modifier letters (b), non-pulmonic" (PDF).
  3. Miller, Kirk (2021-01-11). "L2/21-041: Unicode request for additional para-IPA letters" (PDF).
  4. Miller, Kirk; Ashby, Michael (2020-11-08). "L2/20-252R: Unicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), pulmonic" (PDF).
  5. Miller, Kirk (2020-07-11). "L2/20-125R: Unicode request for expected IPA retroflex letters and similar letters with hooks" (PDF).
  6. Priest, Lorna (2008-07-28). "L2/08-182: Proposal to Encode Additional Latin and Cyrillic Characters" (PDF).
  7. Miller, Kirk; Ball, Martin (2020-07-11). "L2/20-116R: Expansion of the extIPA and VoQS" (PDF).
  8. Priest, Lorna; Constable, Peter (2005-08-09), N2945: Proposal to Encode Additional Latin Phonetic and Orthographic Characters (PDF)
  9. Miller, Kirk; Sands, Bonny (2020-07-10). "L2/20-115R: Unicode request for additional phonetic click letters" (PDF).
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