Ring (diacritic)

In punctuation, the term ring is usually reserved for the ring above diacritic mark ˚ (looks similar to °), also called Krouzek. The ring may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets.

The Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Walloon character Å (å) is typically seen as an A with a ring above, although in the languages it is used in the letter is seen as a unique symbol rather than an A with a diacritic.

Other characters with a ring diacritic are Ů and ů (a Latin U with ring above). These characters are used in the Czech language.

Many more characters can be created in Unicode using the 'combining ring above' U+030A, for example e̊ (e with ring above) or even ń̊ (n with acute and ring above). The ring symbol alone can be created using the character U+02DA.

Half rings also exist as diacritic marks, these are characters U+0351 (combining left half ring above) and U+0357 (combining left half ring below). These characters may be used with the International Phonetic Alphabet. They are here given with the lowercase a: a͑ and a͗. These may or may not display correctly in your user agent.

Other, similar signs are in use in Armenian: the 'left half ring above' U+0559 ՙ, and the Armenian comma or 'right half ring above' U+055A ՚.

The ring as a diacritic mark should not be confused with the dot above or comma above diacritic marks, or with the degree sign °. Additionally the Angstrom sign Å (looks similar to Å) is seen as a single character, and not as an a with ring above.