U+02DC "˜" Small Tilde Unicode Character

U+02DC "˜" Small Tilde is a diacritical mark used in phonetic transcription, particularly within the International Phonetic Alphabet, to indicate a specific nasalized or modified pronunciation of a vowel or consonant. It is encoded as a spacing or combining modifier letter, meaning it can appear independently or be placed above other characters to alter their sound, such as in the representation of nasal vowels in languages like Portuguese or French. Unlike the standard tilde that functions as a punctuation mark or abbreviation, the Small Tilde is primarily a typographical and linguistic tool, ensuring precise phonetic notation in text processing and scholarly writing.