This rule has morphonemic implications for declension (e.g. žen-ám but tráv-am ) and conjugation (e.g. nos-ím but súd-im). Several exceptions of this rule exist. It is typical of the literary Slovak language, and does not appear in Czech or in some Slovak dialects. Diacritics The acute mark (in Slovak "dĺžeň", "prolongation mark" or "lengthener") indicates length (e.g. í = ). This mark may appear on any vowel except "ä" (wide "e", široké "e" in Slovak). It may also appear above the consonants "l" and "r", indicating the long syllabic and sounds. The circumflex ("vokáň") exists only above the letter "o". It turns the o into a diphthong (see above). The umlaut ("prehláska", "dve bodky" = two dots) is only used above the letter "a". It indicates an opening diphthong , similar to German Herz 'heart' (when it is not pronounced , with a consonantal ). The háček (in Slovak "mäkčeň", "palatalization mark" or "softener") indicates a change of alveolar fricatives, affricates, and plosives into either retroflex or palatal consonants, in informal Slovak linguistics often called just "palatalization". Eight consonants can bear a háček. Not all "normal" consonants have a counterpart with háček: In printed texts, the háček is printed in two forms: (1) č, dž, š, ž, ň and (2) ľ, ď, ť (looking more like an apostrophe), but this is just a convention. In handwritten texts, it always appears in the first form. Phonetically, two forms of "palatalization" exist: ľ, ň, ď, ť are palatal, while č, dž, š, ž are retroflex (which, phonetically speaking, is not "soft" but "hard"). Computer encoding The Slovak alphabet is available within the ISO/IEC 8859-2 “Latin-2” encoding, which generally supports Eastern European languages. All vowels, but none of the specific consonants (that is, no č, ď, ľ, ĺ, ň, ŕ, š, ť, ž) are available within the “Latin-1” encoding, which generally supports only Western European languages. See also Slovak phonology Czech orthography Slovene alphabet Orthographia bohemica References Slovak language Indo-European Latin-script orthographies