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In written Latin, the apex (plural "apices") is a mark roughly with the shape of an acute accent ( ´ ) which is placed over vowels to indicate that they are long. The shape and length of the apex can vary, sometimes within a single inscription. While virtually all apices consist of a line sloping up to the right, the line can be more or less curved, and varies in length from less than half the height of a letter to more than the height of a letter. Sometimes, it is adorned at the top with a distinct hook, protruding to the left. Rather than being centered over the vowel it modifies, the apex is often considerably displaced to the right.〔''(Apex and Sicilicus )'', Revilo P. Oliver, The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 87, No. 2. (Apr., 1966), p. 149.〕 The apex later developed into the acute accent, which is still used to mark vowel length in some languages, namely, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Irish, and historically Icelandic. == Details == Although hardly known by most modern Latinists, the use of the sign was actually quite widespread during classical and postclassical times. The reason why it so often passes unnoticed lies probably in its smallish size and usually thinner nature in comparison with the lines that compose the letter on which it stands. Yet the more careful observer will soon start to notice apices in the exhibits of any museum, not only in many of the more formal epigraphic inscriptions, but also in handwritten palaeographic documents. However, otherwise punctilious transcriptions of the material customarily overlook this diacritic. An apex is not used with the letter ''i''; rather, the letter is written taller, as in ' (lūciī a fīliī) at left. Other expedients, like a reduplication of the vowels, are attested in archaic epigraphy; but the apex is the standard vowel-length indication that was used in classical times and throughout the most flourishing period of the Roman education system. Its use is recommended by the best grammarians, like Quintilian, who says that writing the apex is necessary when a difference of quantity in a vowel can produce a different meaning in a word, as in ''malus'' and ''málus'' or ''liber'' and ''líber'' or ''rosa'' and ''rosá''.〔Inst. 1,7,2s: ''adponere apicem ... interim necessarium, cum eadem littera alium atque alium intellectum, prout correpta vel producta est, facit: ut 'malus' arborem significet an hominem non bonum apice distinguitur, 'palus' aliud priore syllaba longa, aliud sequenti significat, et cum eadem littera nominativo casu brevis, ablativo longa est, utrum sequamur plerumque hac nota monendi sumus''.〕 In modern Latin orthography, long vowels are sometimes marked by a macron, a sign that had always been used, and still is, to mark metrically long ''syllables'' (more recently called ''heavy'' syllables). To confuse matters further, the acute accent is sometimes used in Latin to mark stressed syllables, as in Spanish, when the macron is not used. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Apex (diacritic)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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