Ogonek

The ogonek (Polish: [ɔˈɡɔnɛk], "little tail", the diminutive of ogon; Lithuanian: nosinė, "nasal") is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet used in several European languages, and directly under a vowel in several Native American languages.

An ogonek can also be attached to the top of a vowel in Old Norse-Icelandic to show length or vowel affection.^[1] For example, o᷎ represents i-mutated ø.

Ogonek

Use

• Polish (letters ą, ę)
• Kashubian (ą)
• scholarly transcriptions of Old Church Slavonic and Proto-Slavic (ę, ǫ)
• scholarly transcriptions of Vulgar Latin and Proto-Romance (ę, ǫ)
• Lithuanian (ą, ę, į, ų)
• Cayuga (letters ę, ǫ)
• Creek (ą, ąą, ę, ęę, į, įį, ǫ, ǫǫ)
• Navajo and Western Apache language (ą, ąą, ę, ęę, į, įį, ǫ, ǫǫ, ą́ ,ę́, į́, ǫ́)
• Mescalero-Chiricahua (ą, ąą, ę, ęę, į, įį, ų, ųų),
• Tutchone (ą, ę, į, ų, y̨)
• Gwich’in (ą, ąą, ę, ęę, į, įį, ǫ, ǫǫ, ų, ųų)^[2]
• Dogrib (ą, ąą, ę, ęę, į, įį, ǫ, ǫǫ)
• Ho-Chunk (ą, ąą, į, įį, ų, ųų)^[3]
• Elfdalian (ą, ę, į, ų, y̨ and ą̊)
• Rheinische Dokumenta (ą̈, ǫ, ǫ̈, ą̈ą̈, ǫǫ, ǫ̈ǫ̈)
• Old Norse (ǫ, ǫ́, o᷎, ǫ᷎)^[4]

Example in Polish:

Wół go pyta: „Panie chrząszczu,

Po co pan tak brzęczy w gąszczu?“

— Jan Brzechwa, Chrząszcz

Example in Cayuga:

Ęyǫgwędę́hte — we will become poor

Example in Dogrib:

dǫ sǫǫ̀łįį — native people

Example in Lithuanian:

Lydėdami gęstančią žarą vėlai

Pakilo į dangų margi sakalai

— Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas, Margi sakalai

Example in Elfdalian:

"Ja, eð war įe plåg að gęslkallum, dar eð war slaik uondlostjyner i gęslun."

— Vikar Margit Andersdotter, I fäbodlivet i gamla tider.

Example in Western Apache: lęk'e' created

Values

Nasalization

The use of the ogonek to indicate nasality is common in the transcription of the indigenous languages of the Americas. This usage originated in the orthographies created by Christian missionaries to transcribe these languages. Later, the practice was continued by Americanist anthropologists and linguists who still follow this convention in phonetic transcription to the present day (see Americanist phonetic notation).

The ogonek is also used in academic transliteration of Old Church Slavonic. In Polish, Old Church Slavonic, Navajo, Western Apache, Chiricahua, Tłįch Yatiì, Slavey, Dëne Sųłiné and Elfdalian it indicates that the vowel is nasalized. Even if ę is nasalized e in Polish, ą is nasalized o, not a because of a vowel shift in which "ą", originally a long nasal "a", turned into a short nasal "o" when the vowel quantity distinction disappeared.

Length

In Lithuanian, the nosinė (literally, "nasal") mark originally indicated vowel nasalization but around the end of the 17th century, nasal vowels gradually evolved into corresponding long non-nasal vowels in most dialects. Thus, the mark is now de facto an indicator of vowel length (the length of etymologically non-nasal vowels is marked differently in writing). The mark also is useful for distinguishing different grammatical forms that would otherwise have the same written form even if they are pronounced differently.

Openness

In Rheinische Dokumenta, it marks vowels that are more open than those denoted by their base letters Ää, Oo, Öö. In two cases, it can be combined with umlaut marks.

Similar diacritics

E caudata and o caudata

The E caudata (ę), a symbol similar to an e with ogonek, evolved from a ligature of a and e in medieval scripts, in Latin and Irish palaeography. The O caudata of Old Norse^[5] (letter ǫ, with ǫ́)^[6][7] is used to write the open-mid back rounded vowel, /ɔ/. Medieval Nordic manuscripts show this "hook" in both directions, in combination with several vowels.^[8] Despite this distinction, the term "ogonek" is sometimes used in discussions of typesetting and encoding Norse texts, as o caudata is typographically identical to o with ogonek.

Cedilla and comma

The ogonek is functionally equivalent to the cedilla and comma diacritics. If two of these three are used within the same orthography their respective use is restricted to certain classes of letters, i.e. usually the ogonek is used with vowels whereas the cedilla is applied to consonants. In handwritten text the marks may even look the same.

Typographical notes

Difference between the correct placement of the ogonek in European languages (left) and Native American languages (right)

The ogonek should be almost the same size as a descender (in larger type sizes may be relatively quite shorter) and should not be confused with the cedilla or comma diacritic marks used in other languages.

When used for Native American languages, the ogonek should be placed directly under the letter rather than to the side as is the norm for European languages. European-style placement is acceptable when no other alternatives are available.

Encoding

LaTeX2e

In LaTeX2e, macro \k will typeset a letter with ogonek, if it is supported by the font encoding, e.g. \k{a} will typeset ą. (The default LaTeX OT1 encoding does not support it, but the newer T1 one does. It may be enabled by saying \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} in the preamble.)

However, \k{e} rather places the diacritic "right-aligned" with the carrying e (ę), suitably for Polish, while \textogonekcentered horizontally centers the diacritic with respect to the carrier, suitably for Native American Languages as well as for e caudata and o caudata. So \textogonekcentered{e} better fits the latter purposes. Actually, \k{o} (for ǫ) is defined to result in \textogonekcentered{o}, and \k{O} is defined to result in \textogonekcentered{O}.^[9]

The package TIPA, activated by using the command "\usepackage{tipa}", offers a different way: "\textpolhook{a}" will produce ą.

References

External links

Look up ogonek in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Diacritics Project — All you need to design a font with correct accents
• Polish Diacritics — How To?
• Förslag till en enhetlig stavning för älvdalska (March, 2005)