The grave accent (`) is a diacritical mark used in various languages to indicate a specific pronunciation of a vowel. It typically appears above vowels, such as in the words à in French or è in Italian. The grave accent can signal a change in pitch or stress, helping to differentiate words that would otherwise be spelled the same. In addition to its phonetic function, the grave accent is also used in programming and markup languages, such as Markdown and LaTeX, to denote code snippets or special formatting. Understanding its usage can enhance both language comprehension and technical writing skills.