The tie bar, or slur, may occur over or under the pair of letters, ⟨◌͡◌⟩ or ⟨◌͜◌⟩, depending on the preference of the writer, e.g. for legibility or to allow room for other diacritics.
(IPA): The segment may be an affricate like [d͡ʒ] ~ [d͜ʒ], a doubly articulated consonant like [ɡ͡b] ~ [ɡ͜b], a click like [ŋ͡ǂ] ~ [ŋ͜ǂ], or, less commonly, a diphthong like [i͡u] ~ [i͜u]. Instead of a tie bar / slur, one of the letters may be made superscript (especially with affricates and clicks: ⟨dᶾ, ᵑǂ⟩). The diacritic is most commonly placed over the letters being linked together, but there is no semantic significance to that placement, and it may appear below for legibility. It may be omitted altogether if no confusion would arise.
(lexicography)Used to mark digraphs such as the consonants ⟨c͜h, n͡g, s͜h, t͜h, z͜h⟩ for IPA /t͡ʃ, ŋ, ʃ, θ, ʒ/, ⟨ᴋ͜ʜ⟩ for Scottish /x/, or the rhotic vowels ⟨a͡r, e͡r⟩ for IPA /ɑɹ, ɜɹ/.
(papyrology)Used to mark an ambiguous string of letters as being a single word, as due to the general lack of word-spacing they might otherwise be read separately.
