When do Czech adjectives end in ý and when in í?

It depends on the adjective's type, not its sound. Hard adjectives take ý in the masculine, as in velký, while soft adjectives always end in í, as in jarní or cizí. Since the two endings sound identical, you have to know which group an adjective belongs to.

Why does Alt+0253 give ý instead of ²?

The zero switches Windows to its own table, where 253 is the Czech ý. For ², drop the zero and type Alt+253, which reads the DOS table instead. Both tables contain ², just at different positions, so the same number can't serve both ways.

Why does my old spreadsheet show 50 mý instead of 50 m²?

The data came from a DOS program that wrote ² as a single byte, and Windows-1252 reads that byte as ý. As long as the sheet holds no Czech or Icelandic words, a Find and Replace (Ctrl+H in Excel) from mý to m² repairs every area value at once, including cm² and km².

ASCII 253

Lowercase y with acute accentSuperscript two

ASCII 253 is ý on Windows and ² in old DOS.

ý (Small Y with Acute) is byte 253 in Windows-1252, Unicode U+00FD. Czech and Slovak end masculine adjectives with it (nový, dobrý), and Icelandic and Faroese use it as well. In Czech it sounds exactly like í, so the spelling carries grammar rather than pronunciation, and it's a classic spot for spelling mistakes that speech would never reveal. UTF-8 stores ý as C3 BD, and BD is ½ in Windows-1252, so mangled Czech reads novÃ½, as if the word ended in a fraction. The HTML entity is ý.

² (Superscript Two) is byte 253 in code page 437, the original IBM PC character set, and maps to Unicode U+00B2. Windows-1252 has ý at 253, so areas from a DOS file read as Windows-1252 turn 50 m² into 50 mý. Code page 850 kept ² here.

Latin LetterNumber

Technical Details

Code Example

</>

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    /* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 253 is ý.
       Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */
    printf("\u00FD\n");   /* UTF-8: C3 BD */

    unsigned char b = 253;         /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */
    printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b);    /* 253 0xFD */
    return 0;
}

Code Example

</>

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    /* Byte 253 is ² only on a console using code page 437
       (chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal the
       lone byte 0xFD is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */
    putchar(253);

    /* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0xFD is -3.
       Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */
    char c = (char)253;
    unsigned char u = 253;
    printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u);   /* -3 253 */

    /* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */
    printf("\u00B2\n");          /* C2 B2 */
    return 0;
}

How to Type It

Windows: Hold Alt and type 0253 on the numeric keypad, with Num Lock on. The leading zero picks the Windows code page. No numeric keypad? In Word, type 00FD and press Alt+X.
Mac: Press Control+Command+Space to open the Character Viewer, then search for "latin small letter y with acute".
Linux: In GNOME, or any desktop running IBus, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type fd, then Space. With a Compose key set up, press Compose, apostrophe, y.
Phone: Tap the character at the top of this page to copy it.

How to Type It

Windows: Hold Alt and type 253 on the numeric keypad, with no leading zero. Windows reads it as a DOS code and inserts ².

² is also ASCII 178 on Windows, which has the full guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

It depends on the adjective's type, not its sound. Hard adjectives take ý in the masculine, as in velký, while soft adjectives always end in í, as in jarní or cizí. Since the two endings sound identical, you have to know which group an adjective belongs to.
The zero switches Windows to its own table, where 253 is the Czech ý. For ², drop the zero and type Alt+253, which reads the DOS table instead. Both tables contain ², just at different positions, so the same number can't serve both ways.
The data came from a DOS program that wrote ² as a single byte, and Windows-1252 reads that byte as ý. As long as the sheet holds no Czech or Icelandic words, a Find and Replace (Ctrl+H in Excel) from mý to m² repairs every area value at once, including cm² and km².

Frequently Asked Questions

The zero switches Windows to its own table, where 253 is the Czech ý. For ², drop the zero and type Alt+253, which reads the DOS table instead. Both tables contain ², just at different positions, so the same number can't serve both ways.
The data came from a DOS program that wrote ² as a single byte, and Windows-1252 reads that byte as ý. As long as the sheet holds no Czech or Icelandic words, a Find and Replace (Ctrl+H in Excel) from mý to m² repairs every area value at once, including cm² and km².

ASCII 253

Lowercase y with acute accentSuperscript two

ASCII 253 is ý on Windows and ² in old DOS.

Latin Letter

Number

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

/* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 253 is ý.

Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */

printf("\u00FD\n"); /* UTF-8: C3 BD */

unsigned char b = 253; /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */

printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b); /* 253 0xFD */

return 0;

}

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

/* Byte 253 is ² only on a console using code page 437

(chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal the

lone byte 0xFD is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */

putchar(253);

/* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0xFD is -3.

Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */

char c = (char)253;

unsigned char u = 253;

printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u); /* -3 253 */

/* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */

printf("\u00B2\n"); /* C2 B2 */

return 0;

}