Free Accent Marks Keyboard (Type & Copy Letters with Accents) (2024)

About this Accent Marks Keyboard

This Online Accent Marks Keyboard is an online toolthat allows anyone to create, make or put accent marks above or below anyletter or character in just three steps.

We all know that our keyboardshavea standard set ofletters, numbers, and symbols on them. To type thesecharacters, we usuallydon’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 accent marks below orabove them.

There are several ways to type these special letterson the keyboard, however, with somelevel of difficulty. And if youfrequently type these special characters, you may find it time-consuming to tryto find ways to get those symbols with your keyboard.

That’s why we created this free online Accent MarksKeyboard for people like you to use, as it enables anyone irrespective of theirtechnical knowledge to type and put accents on any letter or character.

Thus,to type letters with accent marks (below or above them), use this free onlinekeyboard tool. You can do so following the steps below:

1.Type the letter to beaccented inside the textbox.

2.Click on the accent you wantto add above or below the letter.

3.Copy your letters with accentmarks by clicking the Copy button.

Nowthat you’ve gotten the tool to type any letter with any accent mark, we willlike to use this opportunity to educate you more about accent marks.

Accent Marks (EverythingYou Need To Know About Them) + More Other Ways You Can Type Accents On Your OwnKeyboard.

Related Keyboards

Most beginner French classes introduce you toAcute (é) and Grave (à/è/ì/ò/ù) aka L'AccentAigu and L'Accent Grave. Acute andGrave are two of the three accent marks found in the French language. It's thattiny punctuation mark located at the top of the vowel.

French isn't the only language that carriesaccent marks. The English language also uses accent marks (like café). However,English uses accent marks to adapt Latin to its phonemes. More on that later.

You can find accent marks in Spanish, Polish,Norwegian, Welsh, Tibetan, Scottish Gaelic, etc. Some accent marks are commonand you mayhave come across them.

Here's everything you need to know about accentmarks plus some other methods you can use to type these accented characters onthe keyboard without using this online tool.

The Definition Of An AccentMark

The official term for accent marks is Diacritic(s). Calling them accentis aloose term, according to an articlepublished bythe University of Sussex.

Accent marks are the different little dots andsquiggles which, in many languages, are written below, above or on top ofcertain letters of the alphabet to signify something about their pronunciation.

Another definition of diacritics: Diacriticsare marks placed over, under, or through letters or combinations of lettersthat indicate differences in pronunciation and meaning between the markedletter and its unmarked counterpart.

Common Diacritics/ Accent Marks

Commondiacriticsare the umlaut(for instance, ü), the acute (for instance, ó), the grave (for instance, à),and the macron (for instance, ō).

You can also come across double diacritics.They are two diacritics modifying a single letter. Furthermore, you can findspecial characters in the diacritics realm.

Special characters occupy a place of their ownrather than modifying a letter. Common special characters include the Polish l( ł ) and the alif ( ’ ).

Here’s a list of common diacritics worldwide:

1.Acute (´ )

2.Alif ( ’ )

3.Angstrom or Circle above letter (Å)

4.Apostrophe( ’ )

5.Ayn

6.Breve (Ă )

7.Cedilla ( ¸ )

8.Thecircle below letter ( ￮ )

9.Circumflex ( ^ )

10.The dot above the letter or Superior dot ( . )

11.Dot below letter ( . )

12.Double acute ( ″ )

History Of Accent Marks/Diacritics

In 1885, the royal library of the ancient Assyriancapital, Nineveh, was excavated. In it, they found the earliest writtendocuments in Sumerian. Here’s a small example of ancient Sumerian text:

usaŋanuusaŋanu

usaŋanu kidumuŋaše

usakulu kidumuŋaše

igibadbadani ukunib

igigunanišuzuŋarbi

u eme za malilikani

za mallilil u nagule…

You can see some diacritics present in thetext. During this time, political factors affected the Sumerian people, and thelanguage was forgotten but not quite. It lived on, however, its descendantsmerged with their oppressors creating another language altogether. The languagewas similar but not quite the same.

Regardless, during this time, cultures wouldinteract either due to wars, economics, etc. The Greeks interacted with manypeople from different cultures. One of the groups they interacted with were theoppressors of the Sumerian people.

Thanks to trade, wars, economic factors, etc.different cultures interacted and brought about changes in the differentwriting systems. One such change or evolution was the introduction ofdiacritics or accent marks to the Greek writing system.

The term diacritic comes from Ancient Greek.According to ancient forms of writing, diacritics truly came into fruition withthe Greeks. Even today, our languages still carry the impact of the Greek writing system.We still use the Greekalphabet in mathematical equations.

Moving on from that, Diacritics were part ofthe advancement of early forms of their writing system. After the death ofAlexander the Great, scholars introduced diacritics and breathinginto thewriting system.

These are part of the earliest known proofs ofdiacritics in writing systems. During that time, there were several types ofwriting systems. We can assume that the Greeks included diacritics/ accentmark s and breathing during the 2nd or 3rd century BCE.

Aristophanes ofByzantium

Greek scholar, Aristophanes of Byzantium, iscredited with theinvention of the accent marks system used in Greek to designate pronunciation,as the tonal, pitched system. The accents were designed to assist in thepronunciation of Greek in older literary works.

Over time, the Romans conquered the Greeks,however, Greek literature remained at the forefront of Roman literature,culture, etc. So you’ll find old inscriptions from 1 century AD containingaccent marks.

Here’s a Roman inscriptionfrom 205AD:

Antonino Pio FeliciAug(usto) et

P(ublio) Septimio Getae no-

⟦ḅịḷị[ssimo]⟧ ⟦[ Caesari]⟧ ⟦[d(ominis)]⟧

How To Use AccentMarks/Diacritics

Most linguistic characters have their ownrules. Its like a period. You can only place it at the end of a sentence.Accent marks have their own rules and these rules differ throughout theirrespective languages. We’ll take a look at some of the accent mark rules inEnglish, French, and Spanish to give you an understanding of the differentrules for different accent marks and how the language impacts them.

Rules Of Accent Marks

English

Diacritics or accent marks aren’t an English staple. However,there are three main situations in which they occur.

1.Foreign Words Integrated IntoEnglish

English includes many foreign words. For instance, the word schadenfreude was an 18thcenturyderivation from the German language. The word has no direct translation.

Most derived wordstend not to have a direct translation from English. It might not be all ofthem, however, some of these derived words have accent marks that really makethem stand out in the dictionary.

Here’s examples of derived words in the Eglish dictionarywith accent marks: café, naive, (originally the i has two dots at the top), cortège.With time, these words lost the accent marks, but some dictionaries keep theoriginal with the accent marks.

2.The Diaeresis (¨)

If you check the list of common accent marks/diacritics,you’ll come across the diaeresis. They are two dots at the top of a vowel.Occasionally in the English dictionary, you’ll find it in some words. Diaeresisin words is commonly old fashioned, for example, did you know that the wordcooperate used to be written as coöperate. Notice the diaeresis at the top ofthe second o?

You can also find diaeresis in names such as Zoë and Brontë. Most linguists will recommendthat you do not use diaeresis. But rather the evolved form of the word such ascooperate. Another word with diaeresis is aërate which evolved to aerate.

Please note that people with diaeresis in their names mightchoose to keep them and their pronunciation. It would be polite to take thatinto account when writing or pronouncing their names.

3.The Grave Accent Mark (`)

The grave accent mark is one of the most common accent marksin French and English. French-derived words tend to keep the accent marks. Onecommon word that uses the grave accent mark is café. You will notice that theFrench rule for using the grave accent mark is similar to the English rule.

You can only use the grave accent mark on the ‘e’ vowel atthe end of a word to show that the vowel is a separate syllable. Without thegrave accent mark, you can read the ‘e’ in cafe as a single syllable. However,the ‘e’ café is a separate syllable.

French

As shared earlier, accent marks have rules. Differentlanguages have different rules for accent marks. You will also notice that somelanguages share rules for accent marks as seen in the case of the grave accentmark and the acute accent mark. Let’s take a look at two French accent marksand their rules.

1.L’accentAigu Or The Acute Accent Mark

The acute accent is the most common and used French accentmark. You’ll find it in words like aimé (to love), regardé (to watch), éléphant(elephant), etc. The main rule for this accent mark is that you can only use itthe vowel ‘e’. The acute accent mark turns the ‘é’ into a separate syllable,similar to the grave accent.

2.L’accent grave Or The Grave Accent Mark

Next up is the grave accent mark. The French use it with ‘a’,‘e’, or ‘u’, however, you’ll find most words with the grave accent with e.Regardless, there are some words that have the ‘a’ or ‘u’ with the graveaccent. Here are some words that use the grave accent: frère (father) , après (after),etc.

Spanish

Lastly, we have Spanish. Spanish has two common accent marks,the tilde (ñ) and umlaut (ü) which is similar to the diaeresis but in Spanish,you refer to it as an umlaut. What are the rules?

1.Tilde (ñ)

The purpose of the tilde is to distinguish ‘n’ from ‘ñ. The‘ñ’ has a different pronunciation from the n. Here are some words with the ñ:año (year), mañana (tomorrow), etc.

2.Umlaut (ü)

An umlaut is the Spanish verision of a diaeresis. An umlautis placed on a ‘u’ after the letter ‘g’. Here are some words that use theumlaut: pingüino (penguin), güe (wow), etc.

Different accent marks or diacritics have different rules.Some accent marks in different languages share rules because of derivations. Toproperly understand how to use accent marks, it is imperative that you studyits specific languages.

English uses very few words with accent marks, and some wordsevolved to remove the need for accent marks, because they held no tonal orpronunciation relevance unlike in their original language.

As shared earlier, Arabic includes accent marks. Arabicdiacritics are known as i‘jām. The Arabic writing system does not consider themas accent marks but as part of the letter. Regardless, to get a betterunderstanding of Arabic diacritics, you will have to study the language.

How To Add AccentMarks/Diacritics On Keyboard

Understanding accent marks and their rules is one thing, buthow do you apply them on modern tools like a laptop or PC? There are two waysto accomplish this feat.

Windows

1.Keyboard Shortcuts

Microsoft does an amazing job of educating its users on howthey can apply accent marks to text. Please note, that this method only appliesto MS Word. We tried it in Google Chrome, it did not work. That means you cannotuse keyboard shortcuts on Google Docs. However, there is a way for you to addthese accent marks to Google Docs. More on that later.

If you want to add the grave accent to text, here’s thekeyboard shortcut:

CTRL + (THE GRAVE ACCENT) +THE LETTER

Where’s the grave accent key on the keyboard?The grave accent is right below the ESCbutton on your top left. The same key( the grave accent key) can also give youthe Spanishtilde accent mark. Here’s how you do it:

CTRL + SHIFT +TILDE + THE LETTER

What about the acute accent? You canfind the grave accent on the keyboard but you can’t find the acute accent.Here’s the keyboard shortcut:

CTRL + APOSTROPHE + THELETTER

Here’s how you can add the umlaut or the diaeresisto your MS Word document:

CTRL + SHIFT + COLON + THE LETTER

Disclaimer: Remember not toput the plus sign when you’re using these keyboard shortcuts.The plus sign inthe shortcuts is just a means to show the process of using the keyboardshortcuts.

Microsoft offers a few of these keyboard shortcuts to useaccent marks. They do not offer shortcuts to the majority of common accentmarks.

Here’s a keyboard shortcut to theAngstromor Circle above letter:

CTRL + SHIFT + @ + a or A

Microsoft offer around ten of the common accentmarks/diacritics. There is another method to access the accent marks if thekeyboard shortcuts are too much for you:

2.The Touch Keyboard

The next solution is to use the touch keyboard. Here’s howyou can access the touch keyboard on your laptop.

I.Right Click on yourTaskBar

II.Scroll to the ShowTouch Keyboard Button option

III.On your bottom right you’ll see a keyboard icon.

IV.Click the keyboard icon and the touch keyboard will pop up onyour screen.

The touch keyboard works similar to a phone smart keyboard.When you long press the letters, you should see the letters with the accentmarks. This method is long and tedious, but it is the simplest and fastest wayto get your writing across.

This method also applies in Google Chrome, Mozilla FireFox,and Microsoft Edge. You can use it to search up words that come with the accentmarks.

You can also ‘turn off’ the touch keyboard with the samemethod you used to ‘turn it on’. However, it shouldn’t pose a problem. You canstill use your regular keyboard or an external keyboard.

3.Adding A Keyboard

Windows offers the option of adding a keyboard to your listof keyboards. So you can have your English keyboard and keyboards in otherlanguages. You can switch among these keyboards to get the desired accent mark.This method is long, but you will have a wider variety of accent marks.

According to Microsoft, here’s how you can add a keyboard:

I.Go to the Start button

II.Select Settings