Do other languages using the Latin alphabet borrow diacritics from one another?

Question

I've always found the convention of borrowing diacritics on foreign names and occasionally words (although the latter is less standard) from other languages with Latin alphabets in written English to be very strange. Especially given that English essentially has none since the diaeresis and co. are nearly extinct. It makes sense in some contexts, for example writing for an audience familiar with the language diacritics are borrowed from, or research papers, where English is nearly universal and should at least be a courteous host. But it's useless to most people who use English as a first language, since spellings could just be changed to closest English approximations, typically we don't know how to read diacritics and the same diacritic may be used for different purposes in different Latin languages. I was wondering if there is at least a reciprocity in this useless practice. Is English the only language using the Latin alphabet that borrows diacritics that it does not use from other languages using said alphabet? If not, do we know the practice's origin in English? Is it English speaking cultures being needlessly hospitable to foreign words or others writing with diacritics in English. The latter feels like showing up to a baker and asking for a cut of lamb.

-- Someone whose ancestors transliterated their surname from a Cyrillic script and made it pronounceable to English-speakers, but didn't make the spelling and writing match.

Answer 1

Yes.

In German, the noun Café (cafe, directly borrowed from French café) is written almost exclusively with an accent on the e. It contrats with the word Kaffee, meaning coffee in written language, although they are often pronounced identically. Other words borrowed from French (e.g. Crème fraîche or Creme fraiche) are sometimes written with the appropriate accents. Sometimes, this is also applied to words from other languages – most often for food items such as Ćevapčići – although spelling rules permit leaving out the diacritics and only vowel-based accents as they often occur in French are easily reachable on a standard German keyboard.

Some personal names also have such an accent. For example, the surname André exists; the family probably dates back to migrants from France at some point during the religious wars in Europe but aside from keeping the accent they are completely German. Also, sometimes given names are styled with an accent as appropriate in the language of origin (often French), such as calling a German boy René.

Finnish sometimes goes a step further. Phonologically, the language does not have a /ʃ/ sound of any kind. Certain loanwords that have this phoneme in their language of origin (such as sekki, meaning and derived from cheque) are sometimes written with š (e.g. šekki) to alert the reader of the word's pronunciation – although the letter is Slavic and not used in French whence the word derives. Instead of š, the combination sh is also used; cf the Finnish Wikipedia article sekki.

When it comes to proper nouns originating from a foreign language, the general rule in German is often to be as faithful as possible, unless a native name exists for a place (native names are used rarely if at all for people). So for example, the city in Spain is commonly written Córdoba – but German Genf is used instead of local Genève. However, as most German keyboards lack an easy way to input diacritics other than acute, grave and circumflex on vowels, other diacritics are left out more frequently.