Palatal hook
Diacritical mark
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The palatal hook (◌̡) is a hook diacritic formerly used in the International Phonetic Alphabet to mark palatalized consonants.[1] It is a small, leftwards-facing hook joined to the bottom-right side of a letter that derives from a subscript letter j, and it is distinct from other IPA hooks that indicate retroflexion, implosion and rhotic vowels. Theoretically, it could be used on all IPA consonant letters – even on those used for palatal consonants – but it is not attested on all of the IPA letters of its era.[2] It was withdrawn by the IPA in 1989, in favor of a superscript j following the consonant (i.e., ⟨ƫ⟩ was replaced with ⟨tʲ⟩).[1]
The IPA recommended that esh ⟨ ʃ ⟩ and ezh ⟨ʒ⟩ not use the palatal hook, but instead get special curled symbols: ⟨ ʆ ⟩ and ⟨ʓ⟩. The same has been done with ⟨ɮ⟩.[3] However, versions with the hook have been used and are supported by Unicode, excluding unattested ⟨ɮ⟩.[3]
Palatal hooks are also used for Lithuanian dialectology in the Lithuanian Phonetic Transcription System (or Lithuanian Phonetic Alphabet), including the exceptional form ꞔ, which while graphically resembling a c plus palatal hook is actually a variant of the ᶃ once recommended by the IPA.[4]
Scope
The palatal hook was introduced in 1921 and officially adopted in 1928. The last published IPA chart to support it was that of 1979. The following single non-palatal consonants appear on that chart. Those attested with palatal hook are bolded and set with the hook; the hooked letters are either in Unicode or are scheduled to appear in Unicode 18 in 2026. The columns for palatal letters are omitted; they are generally redundant with the hook, though 'palatalized palatals' are described in the literature. C with hook, ꞔ, is not a palatal letter but a script variant of ᶃ.[2] W with hook, , is attested as a convenient transcription for a palatalized bilabial approximant; ɗ with a hook, , had been used for [ʄ].
ᶆ ɱ ᶇ ɳ 𝼔 ɴ ᶈ ᶀ ƫ ᶁ ʈ ɖ ᶄ ᶃ/ꞔ q̡ () ɢ̡ () ʔ ɸ̡ () β̡ () ᶂ ᶌ θ̡ () ð̡ () ᶊ ᶎ ʂ ʐ ᶋ/ʆ* 𝼘/ʓ* ᶍ ɣ̡ () χ̡ () ʁ̡ () ʍ ħ̡ () ʕ̡ () ꞕ ɦ ʋ̡ () 𝼕 ɻ ɰ w̡ () 𝼓 ɮ ()* ᶅ ɭ ᶉ ʀ̡ () 𝼖 ɽ̡ () ɓ ɗ̡ () ɠ ʘ ʇ ʗ ʖ
*ʃ, ʒ and ɮ occur with a palatal curl, which was the preferred forms for these letters in the IPA of their era.
Other non-palatal consonants listed under the 1979 chart:
- ᵵ, ɫ̡ (etc.): should be typeset with the hook letter and an overstruck tilde diacritic or vice versa
- ɼ [used for Czech, does not occur palatalized]
- ɺ
- ɧ [used for Swedish, does not occur palatalized]
- the sibilant affricates ʦ̡ () 𝼗 𝼒. (The forms with a palatal curl, and , will become available with Unicode 18.)
The affricate ʣ̡ () is implied but is not listed under the 1979 chart.
Computer encoding
Unicode includes a combining character for the palatal hook, but it is not canonically equivalent to the precomposed characters, which should be used instead.[2]
| Appearance | Code point | Name |
|---|---|---|
| ◌̡ | U+0321 | COMBINING PALATALIZED HOOK BELOW |
| ᶀ | U+1D80 | LATIN SMALL LETTER B WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| Ꞔ | U+A7C4 | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ꞔ | U+A794 | LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶁ | U+1D81 | LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| 𝼒 | U+1DF12 | LATIN SMALL LETTER DEZH DIGRAPH WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶂ | U+1D82 | LATIN SMALL LETTER F WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶃ | U+1D83 | LATIN SMALL LETTER G WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ꞕ | U+A795 | LATIN SMALL LETTER H WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶄ | U+1D84 | LATIN SMALL LETTER K WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶅ | U+1D85 | LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶪ | U+1DAA | MODIFIER LETTER L WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| 𝼓 | U+1DF13 | LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH BELT AND PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶆ | U+1D86 | LATIN SMALL LETTER M WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶇ | U+1D87 | LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| 𝼔 | U+1DF14 | LATIN SMALL LETTER ENG WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶈ | U+1D88 | LATIN SMALL LETTER P WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶉ | U+1D89 | LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| 𝼕 | U+1DF15 | LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED R WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| 𝼖 | U+1DF16 | LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH FISHHOOK AND PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶊ | U+1D8A | LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶋ | U+1D8B | LATIN SMALL LETTER ESH WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ƫ | U+01AB | LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶵ | U+1DB5 | MODIFIER LETTER T WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| 𝼗 | U+1DF17 | LATIN SMALL LETTER TESH DIGRAPH WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶌ | U+1D8C | LATIN SMALL LETTER V WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶍ | U+1D8D | LATIN SMALL LETTER X WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| Ᶎ | U+A7C6 | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| ᶎ | U+1D8E | LATIN SMALL LETTER Z WITH PALATAL HOOK |
| 𝼘 | U+1DF18 | LATIN SMALL LETTER EZH WITH PALATAL HOOK |