Hook (diacritic)

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This article contains Latin text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Latin letters.

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.

Letter Z with tophook — became letter , .

Letter X with two high hooks — became letter .

Different types of hook diacritics

Letters with hook[]

Parts of this article (those related to palatal hook and retroflex hooks in Unicode U1DF00.pdf) need to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (October 2021)

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.

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
Ꞗ	ꞗ		B with flourish	left
	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
	ꬴ		E with flourish	left
	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
	ʛ		Small capital g with hook	top
	ᶃ		G with palatal hook	right
	ꬶ		Script g with crossed-tail	bottom
Ɦ	ɦ	ʱ	H with hook	top
	ꞕ		H with palatal hook	bottom right
	ɧ		Heng with hook	top
	ʮ		Turned h with fishhook	top
	ʯ		Turned h with fishhook and tail	top and bottom
	ᶖ		I with retroflex hook	bottom
Ʝ	ʝ	ᶨ	J with crossed-tail	bottom
	ʄ		Dotless j with stroke and hook	top
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
	ꬺ		M with crossed-tail	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
	ꬻ		N with crossed-tail	bottom
	ꬼ		Eng with crossed-tail	bottom
	ᶗ		Open o with retroflex hook	bottom
Ƥ	ƥ		P with hook	top
	ᶈ		P with palatal hook	right
Ꝓ	ꝓ		P with flourish	left middle
Ꝕ	ꝕ		P with squirrel tail	left top
	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
	ꭉ		R with crossed-tail	bottom
	ꭊ		Double r with crossed-tail	bottom
	ɾ		R with fishhook	bottom
	ᶊ		S with palatal hook	bottom right
	ʂ	ᶳ	S with retroflex hook	bottom left
Ȿ	ȿ		S with swash tail	bottom right
	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	υ	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
Ɀ	ɀ		Z with swash tail	bottom
	ᶚ		Ezh with retroflex hook	bottom
	ƺ		Ezh with tail	bottom
Ꜭ	ꜭ		Cuatrillo tail	bottom
Ꜯ	ꜯ		Cuatrillo hook	bottom
Cyrillic alphabet
Ӻ	ӻ		Ghe with stroke and hook	bottom
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 (HTML ̡) and U+0322  ̢  COMBINING RETROFLEX HOOK BELOW (HTML ̢) 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 (HTML ˞) is used to mark an r-colored vowel.

See also[]

• Hook above
• Palatal hook

References[]