Why is there so much confusion around the Cyrillic breve (and other diacritics)?

Nick Shinn

Yes, I was aware of the German umlaut—but there’s not much variation possible in the size of its dots!

Christian Thalmann

Even English has words like Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Piñata and Erdős number.

Erik

Erik said:

café in English

Christian Thalmann said:

Even English has words like Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Piñata and Erdős number.

Indeed, your comment gives me a sense of déjà vu!

That said, I expect the hypothesis in @Thomas Phinneyʼs comment is well founded if not absolutely, precisely accurate in its wording:  Although diacritics often find their way into English, they tend to act, to use his phrase, “as appendages/​extras” rather than part and parcel of the fundamental system; commonly, they are omitted outright.

Thomas Phinney

In English, diacritics frequently omitted by people who do not know how to type/enter them. Occasionally they could contribute to disambiguation (e.g. résumé and pâté.) But English is also just chock full of heteronyms: words that are spelled the same, but pronounced differently, with different meanings. These are super common (lead, tear, close, desert, alternate, object, convict, moped, invalid, etc.). I am not suggesting that adult native speakers/readers find any of this confusing. But I expect it is one of the things that contributes to English being so hard to learn.

In languages such as German, French, Spanish and Italian, it seems there are many words that would be spelled identically if not for the diacritics.

Apparently only a little of this in Cyrillic with the breve, from what I can find easily? It is more that with a breve it is a completely different letter, from a native speaker POV? Clarification welcome. 

Dsche

I would say that failing to distinguish between *и* and *й* is a sign of gross illiteracy (though lately I have noticed some confusion between the words *войны* [wars] and *воины* [warriors] among, shall we say, young internet users).

However, the situation with the letter *ё* is truly chaotic; it is often omitted—even in children's books—where it is actually necessary. Over time (literally within a single generation), the pronunciation of certain place names changes because they are initially written without the *ё* under the assumption that everyone knows how to read them (which is not the case!), and soon the correct pronunciation vanishes completely; there are many such instances.

SCarewe

Even my Russian teacher two years ago told us not to pay too much attention to the ё, because people are using it less and less. It was very confusing.

Dsche

SCarewe said:

Even my Russian teacher two years ago told us not to pay too much attention to the ё, because people are using it less and less. It was very confusing.

There was a (historically brief) period when the keyboards of portable typewriters—and later, early computers—simply lacked a key for the letter *ё*. Technical limitations offered an excuse for such carelessness, and that is understandable. That era has passed, yet the laxity remains; by now, the issue has become almost a matter of religious conviction.

Personally, I am a staunch advocate of the letter *ё* and try to include it in all the typesetting work I am commissioned to do—though clients often object, and I have to yield.

Incidentally, in one of the children's books I mentioned, the very first sentence of the first chapter contains a word that requires the letter *ё* (yet omits it): *Почему ты плачешь, когда поешь?* "Why do you cry when you eat?" (It should be *Почему ты плачешь, когда поёшь?* "Why do you cry when you sing?").

The difference is significant, and I have no clear explanation for why this carelessness continues to spread.

John Hudson

It is more that with a breve it is a completely different letter, from a native speaker POV? Clarification welcome.

Yes, и is a vowel, and й is a consonant. In Russian and Belarusian, й is a soft letter that only occurs after a vowel in native words. In Ukrainian, й can occur at the beginning of syllables, including the beginning of words, — mostly followed by о, since the Ukrainian alphabet does not include the Russian ё /jo/ —, where it takes a harder pronunciation like the English y in yoghurt or the Serbian ј in један.

When talking about Cyrillic letters and diacritics, it is important to note that they do not have consistent pronunciations across different languages. So, for example е is a compound /je/ in Russian, but a simple vowel /e/ in Ukrainian, which in turn has distinctive compound letters є /je/ and ї /ji/) that do not occur in the modern Russian alphabet.

Since we’re talking more generally about diacritics now, it is worth noting that liturgical books will often use an acute accent to indicate syllabic stress, which can occur on any vowel and, hence, on any compound letter. In Ukrainian, this results in e.g. твої́м.

Erik

Dsche said:
*Почему ты плачешь, когда поешь?* "Why do you cry when you eat?"

Because someone keeps taking the diereses away.

Dsche

There is a truly puzzling story surrounding the Russian letter *ё*: a 1945 reference work lists the words *еще* (meaning "still" or "yet") and *ещё* (meaning "more" or "additional") as distinct, independent words.

I have never observed such a distinction in actual speech—not even among older speakers. Nor is it possible to verify this distinction through books, precisely because the use of the letter is optional.

Thus, it remains entirely unclear whether we are dealing with a figment of the compiler's imagination or an example of a word’s sudden demise caused by the neglect of diacritics.

John Savard

Christian Thalmann said:

Even English has words like Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Piñata and Erdős number.

It would be more strictly accurate to say, in cases like those of which you have given examples, that English texts may contain accented letters, due to the fact that foreign words can be incorporated into an English text, and when it is done, an attempt may be made to reproduce those words accurately in their original form within the language to which they are native.

That would avoid giving the misleading impression that accented letters are in any way intrinsic to the English language and its script.

Erik

John Savard said:

Christian Thalmann said:

Even English has words like Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Piñata and Erdős number.

It would be more strictly accurate to say, in cases like those of which you have given examples, that English texts may contain accented letters, due to the fact that foreign words can be incorporated into an English text, and when it is done, an attempt may be made to reproduce those words accurately in their original form within the language to which they are native.

That would avoid giving the misleading impression that accented letters are in any way intrinsic to the English language and its script.

I have trouble thinking of the Brontë sisters as not intrinsically English.

Christianʼs examples of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Erdős are flawed, as foreign proper names; but château and piñata, like café and déjà vu, are well established as English words, perhaps even common (or common‑ish) English words, not so recherché as, well, recherché.  But, yes, their diacritics are essentially optional, as I have pointed out.

However, diacritics in loanwords do not always preserve their use in the source language.  The acute accent in maté is not only absent in its Spanish source; itʼs contrary to Spanish spelling‐pronunciation rules and seems to be there only to prevent confusion with the otherwise homographous mate and encourage disyllabic pronunciation.  Prevention of mispronunciation and of homography seems to also be the motivation for the acute in saké; note that its Japanese source doesnʼt use an accent mark or even letters (but to be fair: itʼs possible the English spelling comes from a French spelling).  It wasnʼt all that long ago that the spelling aëroplane was common; that word came from (obsolete) French aéroplane — different diacritic altogether!

But English actually has broad rules, however increasingly disused, that encourage diacritics in some contexts beyond loanwords.  The dieresis is traditional in many words where the same vowel appears on either side of a morpheme boundary, as in microörganism and reëngage.  And in poetry and lyrics, the grave accent indicates that an E is not silent, as in blessèd.

Even so…these latter usages are optional and nowadays rare.  But theyʼre not extrinsic interlopers.  It would be more strictly accurate to say that in English, the use of certain diacritics is on a secondary tier.  And their relative rarity and disposability would seem to contribute to Thomasʼ observation and hypothesis about Anglophone designers tending to view diacritics as “appendages/​extras” which they make accordingly too small.