Ring (diacritic)
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Template:Diacritical marks In punctuation, the term ring is usually reserved for the ring above diacritic mark ˚ (looks similar to the degree sign °). 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. However, in the languages in which it is used, 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 (where the ring is known as a kroužek), together with háček and čárka above many other letters. This vowel "ů" shows how the pronunciation of various words evolved during the centuries. For example, the word "kůň" (a horse; pronounced [[[Template:IPA]]]) used to be written "koň", which evolved, along with pronunciation, into "kuoň". Ultimately, the vowel [o] disappeared completely, and it is only kept as the ring above "u".
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 this symbol Å (U+00C5) is the proper angstrom sign, though Unicode includes an angstrom sign symbol Å for use with in converting legacy applications in old code pages in certain East Asian languages which looks similar to Å.