Circumflex: â, ê, ô and combining U+0302

Uses and scope

French and Portuguese use circumflexes in their spelling systems. Romanian â and î are alphabet letters. In Vietnamese, â, ê and ô identify vowel shapes and can carry an additional tone mark. Turkish retains circumflexes in specified words; it is misleading to say that the mark has simply disappeared from Turkish. [16], [23], [31], [45], [34], [3]

Similar shapes, different characters

The caron points down and has a different encoding. A caret entered after a vowel remains a spacing character. In Vietnamese ấ, both circumflex and acute belong to the same base. Greek perispomeni may resemble a curved circumflex or tilde, but U+0342 is a separate Greek combining sign. [1], [2], [16], [23], [31], [45], [34], [3]

Typing and text forms

Copying is exact; preview circles are excluded. Compare normalization forms.

Word for Windows

Select a hex code, then Alt+X; repeat for each scalar.

Mac and mobile

Hold a letter for supported variants; use Character Viewer on Mac or a language keyboard on mobile.

HTML

Use UTF-8 text or the numeric references in Details, in order.

Full typing instructions ·HTML, CSS and JavaScript entry ·Verified Alt codes.

Sources and method

Usage statements link to the authority that supports their scope. Character names, categories, combining classes and normalization results come from the pinned Unicode data. A canonical decomposition does not establish language membership or spelling frequency.

Source access date: 2026-09-14.

• [4] Unicode combining mark names and annotations. Names, cross references and narrowly attributed usage annotations. Historical annotations are not automatically current recommendations.
• [16] OQLF: accents, diaereses and cedillas on capitals. French uppercase diacritics and orthographic categories.
• [23] Portuguese Orthographic Agreement. Bases on accentuation, tilde, cedilla and removal of ordinary Portuguese diaeresis, with proper-name exceptions.
• [31] Romanian Academy: DOOM 3 graphic signs. Romanian alphabet, case pairs, breve, circumflex and comma-below letters.
• [45] Northern Illinois University: Vietnamese tones. Six Vietnamese tone categories and example spellings. Detailed pitch descriptions are not generalized across dialects.
• [34] Turkish Language Association: circumflex. Circumflex remains in specified Turkish words; it is not a generic extra alphabet letter.
• [3] Unicode 17: Latin, Greek and combining marks. Sections 7.1, 7.2, 7.8 and 7.9: encoded distinctions, script conventions and glyph variation, not a complete orthography.
• [1] Unicode Character Database 17.0.0.
• [2] Unicode normalization, UAX #15.
• [10] Microsoft: Unicode character entry in Word.
• [11] Apple: enter characters with accent marks.
• [12] Google: use Gboard.
• [13] Unicode: fonts and keyboards FAQ.
• [14] HTML numeric character references.

Read the editorial method and inspect the underlying datasets.