Accent mark

De Tomísimo

The accent mark, also known as a diacritical or diacritical mark, (tilde or acento in Spanish), is a small marking above letters to differentiate them from other letters or to denote some piece of information about the word, such as tone, stress or emphasis.

Spanish accent marks

Seven diacritical marks are used in Spanish:

á é í ó ú ñ ü

Á É Í Ó Ú Ñ Ü

They are used to

1. differentiate between two otherwise identical spellings- IE: tu and tú
2. denote that a word's spoken emphasis goes against the normal rules of which syllable receives the emphasis

History

Historically, it was permissible to leave the accents off of capital letters. Currently most stylists agree that accents should always be present whether a letter is capitalized or not.^{[citation needed]}