Hook (diacritic)

For other uses, see Hook (disambiguation).

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.

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, sometimes replacing the ascender.

If it attaches to the bottom part of the letter, it can curl to the left (and could be a palatal hook), or to the right (and could be a retroflex hook).

Latin alphabet
Letters			Name	Hook position
	ᶏ		A with retroflex hook	bottom
	ᶐ		Script a or alpha with retroflex hook	bottom
Ɓ	ɓ		B with hook	top
	ᶀ		B with palatal hook	bottom
Ƈ	ƈ		C with hook	top
	ꞔ		C with palatal hook	bottom
Ɗ	ɗ		D with hook	top
Ɖ	ɖ		African d or d with tail	bottom
	ᶑ		D with hook and tail	top and bottom
	ᶁ		D with palatal hook	bottom
	ᶒ		E with retroflex hook	bottom
	ɚ		Schwa with hook	right
	ᶕ		Schwa with retroflex hook	bottom
	ᶓ		Open e or epsilon with retroflex hook	bottom
	ɝ		Reversed open e or epsilon with hook	right
	ᶔ		Reversed open e or epsilon with retroflex hook	bottom
Ƒ	ƒ		F with hook	bottom
	ᶂ		F with palatal hook	bottom
Ɠ	ɠ		G with hook	top
	ᶃ		G with palatal hook	right
	ʛ		Small g with hook	top
Ɦ	ɦ	ʱ	H with hook	top
	ꞕ		H with palatal hook	bottom right
	ɧ		Heng with hook	top
	ᶖ		I with retroflex hook	bottom
Ƙ	ƙ		K with hook	top
	ᶄ		K with palatal hook	bottom
	ᶅ	ᶪ	L with palatal hook	bottom
	ɭ	ᶩ	L with retroflex hook	bottom
	ꞎ		L with retroflex hook and belt	bottom
Ɱ	ɱ	ᶬ	M with hook	bottom
	ᶆ		M with palatal hook	bottom
Ɲ	ɲ	ᶮ	N with left hook	bottom left
	ᶇ		N with palatal hook	bottom right
	ɳ	ᶯ	N with retroflex hook	bottom right
	ᶗ		Open o with retroflex hook	bottom
Ƥ	ƥ		P with hook	top
	ᶈ		P with palatal hook	right
	ʠ		Q with hook	top
Ɋ	ɋ		Small q with hook tail	bottom
Ɽ	ɽ		R with tail	bottom left
	ᶉ		R with palatal hook	bottom
	ⱹ		Turned r with tail	top
	ɻ	ʵ	Turned r with hook	bottom
	ᶊ		S with palatal hook	bottom right
	ʂ	ᶳ	S with retroflex hook	bottom left
	ᶋ		Esh with palatal hook	right
	ᶘ		Esh with retroflex hook	bottom
Ƭ	ƭ		T with hook	top
	ƫ	ᶵ	T with palatal hook	bottom
Ʈ	ʈ		T with retroflex hook	bottom
	ꭒ	ꭟ	U with left hook	top left
	ᶙ		U with retroflex hook	bottom
	ᶌ		V with palatal hook	bottom
	ⱱ		V with right hook	top
Ʋ	ʋ	ᶹ	Script v or v with hook	top
Ⱳ	ⱳ		W with hook	top right
	ᶍ		X with palatal hook	bottom right
Ƴ	ƴ		Y with hook	top right
Ȥ	ȥ		Z with hook	bottom
	ᶎ		Z with palatal hook	bottom
	ʐ	ᶼ	Z with retroflex hook	bottom
	ᶚ		Ezh with retroflex hook	bottom
	ƺ		Ezh with tail	bottom
Greek alphabet
ϒ			Upsilon with hook symbol	top right
Cyrillic alphabet
Ҋ	ҋ		Short i with tail	bottom right
Ӄ	ӄ		Ka with hook	bottom right
Ԓ	ԓ		El with hook	bottom right
Ӆ	ӆ		El with tail	bottom right
Ӎ	ӎ		Em with tail	bottom right
Ӈ	ӈ		En with hook	bottom right
Ԩ	ԩ		En with left hook	bottom left
Ӊ	ӊ		En with tail	bottom right
Ӽ	ӽ		Ha with hook	bottom 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

• Hook above
• Palatal hook