dấu ngã

Vietnamese

Etymology

dấu (“mark”) +‎ ngã (“to trip; to fall”) (from the fact that the word ngã has the tone written with a tilde).

The dấu ngã diacritic itself derives from the Greek περισπωμένη (perispoméni, “circumflex”), which is a doublet of dấu mũ (“circumflex”).

Pronunciation

(Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [zəw˧˦ ŋaː˦ˀ˥]
(Huế) IPA^(key): [jəw˨˩˦ ŋaː˧˨]
(Saigon) IPA^(key): [jəw˦˥ ŋaː˨˩˦]

Noun

dấu ngã

(typography) tilde (tone mark in Vietnamese)
(colloquial) creaky rising tone

Usage notes

This diacritic is a homoglyph of dấu mềm or dấu sóng, which refer to diacritical marks that resemble the tilde but do not carry the same meaning. The Portuguese til (“tilde”) was adopted by the original Vietnamese alphabet as dấu sóng, which has fallen out of use.

Synonyms

(creaky rising tone): thanh ngã

Coordinate terms

(tilde): dấu hỏi, dấu huyền, dấu nặng, dấu sắc