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Diacritical mark, ◌̆ From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A breve (/ˈbriːv/ BREEV, less often /ˈbrɛv/ BREV, neuter form of the Latin brevis "short, brief") is the diacritic mark ◌̆, shaped like the bottom half of a circle. As used in Ancient Greek, it is also called brachy, βραχύ. It resembles the caron (◌̌, the wedge or háček in Czech, mäkčeň in Slovak) but is rounded, in contrast to the angular tip of the caron. In many forms of Latin, ◌̆ is used for a shorter, softer variant of a vowel, such as "Ĭ", where the sound is nearly identical to the English /i/. (See: Latin IPA)
| Breve | Ă ă Ĕ ĕ Ğ ğ Ĭ ĭ Ŏ ŏ Ŭ ŭ Y̆ y̆ |
|---|---|
| Caron | Ǎ ǎ Ě ě Ǧ ǧ Ǐ ǐ Ǒ ǒ Ǔ ǔ Y̌ y̌ |
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2014) |
| ◌̆ | |
|---|---|
Breve |
The breve sign indicates a short vowel, as opposed to the macron (◌̄), which indicates long vowels, in academic transcription. It is often used that way in dictionaries and textbooks of Latin, Ancient Greek, Tuareg and other languages. However, there is a frequent convention of indicating only the long vowels. It is then understood that a vowel with no macron is short. If the vowel length is unknown, a breve as well as a macron are used in historical linguistics (Ā̆ ā̆ Ē̆ ē̆ Ī̆ ī̆ Ō̆ ō̆ Ū̆ ū̆ Ȳ̆ ȳ̆). In Cyrillic script, a breve is used for Й. In Belarusian, it is used for both the Cyrillic Ў (semivowel U) and in the Latin (Łacinka) Ŭ. Ў was also used in Cyrillic Uzbek under the Soviet Union. The Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet uses a breve on Ӂ to represent a voiced postalveolar affricate /d͡ʒ/ (corresponding to ⟨g⟩ before a front vowel in the Latin script for Moldovan). In Chuvash, a breve is used for Cyrillic letters Ӑ (A-breve) and Ӗ (E-breve). In Itelmen orthography, it is used for Ӑ, О̆ and Ў. The traditional Cyrillic breve differs in shape and is thicker on the edges of the curve and thinner in the middle, as opposed to the Latin one,[1] but the Unicode encoding is the same.
In Emilian, ĕ ŏ are used to represent [ɛ, ɔ] in dialects where also long [ɛː, ɔː] occur.
In Esperanto, u with breve (ŭ) represents a non-syllabic u in diphthongs /u̯/, analogous to Belarusian ў.
In the transcription of Sinhala, the breve over an m or an n indicates a prenasalized consonant; for example, n̆da is used to represent [ⁿda].
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, a breve over a phonetic symbol is used to indicate extra-shortness.
In other languages, it is used for other purposes.
The breve below is diacritic with the same appearance as the conventional breve, except that it is placed under the letter (or space) to be marked. There are just two precomposed character code-points: U+1E2A Ḫ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H WITH BREVE BELOW and U+1E2B ḫ LATIN SMALL LETTER H WITH BREVE BELOW. For other uses, it is rendered as a combining character, U+032E ◌̮ COMBINING BREVE BELOW.
Traditional editions of Spanish vocal sheet music use the 'breve below' to indicate elision. Modern editions tend to use a (freestanding) underscore.
Unicode and HTML code (decimal numeric character reference) for breve characters.
| Name | Letter | Unicode | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Breve (spacing) | ˘ | U+02D8 ˘ BREVE | |
| Combining breve | ◌̆ | U+0306 ◌̆ COMBINING BREVE | |
| Combining breve below | ◌̮ | U+032E ◌̮ COMBINING BREVE BELOW | |
| Combining double breve | ◌͝◌ | U+035D ◌͝ COMBINING DOUBLE BREVE | |
| Combining double breve below | ◌͜◌ | U+035C ◌͜ COMBINING DOUBLE BREVE BELOW | |
| Breve with inverted breve (spacing) | ꭛ | U+AB5B ꭛ MODIFIER BREVE WITH INVERTED BREVE | |
| Latin | |||
| A-breve | Ă ă | U+0102 Ă LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH BREVE U+0103 ă LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH BREVE | |
| E-breve | Ĕ ĕ | U+0114 Ĕ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH BREVE U+0115 ĕ LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH BREVE | |
| I-breve | Ĭ ĭ |
U+012C Ĭ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH BREVE U+012D ĭ LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH BREVE | |
| O-breve | Ŏ ŏ | U+014E Ŏ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH BREVE U+014F ŏ LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH BREVE | |
| U-breve | Ŭ ŭ | U+016C Ŭ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH BREVE U+016D ŭ LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH BREVE | |
| Azerbaijani, Tatar, Turkish | |||
| G-breve | Ğ ğ | U+011E Ğ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G WITH BREVE U+011F ğ LATIN SMALL LETTER G WITH BREVE | |
| Vietnamese | |||
| A-sắc-breve | Ắ ắ |
U+1EAE Ắ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH BREVE AND ACUTE U+1EAF ắ LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH BREVE AND ACUTE | |
| A-huyền-breve | Ằ ằ |
U+1EB0 Ằ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH BREVE AND GRAVE U+1EB1 ằ LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH BREVE AND GRAVE | |
| A-hỏi-breve | Ẳ ẳ | U+1EB2 Ẳ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH BREVE AND HOOK ABOVE U+1EB3 ẳ LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH BREVE AND HOOK ABOVE | |
| A-ngã-breve | Ẵ ẵ | U+1EB4 Ẵ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH BREVE AND TILDE U+1EB5 ẵ LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH BREVE AND TILDE | |
| A-nặng-breve | Ặ ặ | U+1EB6 Ặ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH BREVE AND DOT BELOW U+1EB7 ặ LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH BREVE AND DOT BELOW | |
| Cyrillic | |||
| A-breve | Ӑ ӑ | U+04D0 Ӑ CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER A WITH BREVE U+04D1 ӑ CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER A WITH BREVE | |
| Ye-breve | Ӗ ӗ | U+04D6 Ӗ CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER IE WITH BREVE U+04D7 ӗ CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER IE WITH BREVE | |
| Zhe-breve | Ӂ ӂ | U+04C1 Ӂ CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER ZHE WITH BREVE U+04C2 ӂ CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER ZHE WITH BREVE | |
| Short I | Й й | U+0419 Й CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER SHORT I U+0439 й CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER SHORT I | |
| O-breve | О̆ о̆ | U+041E О CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER O U+0306 ̆ COMBINING BREVE U+043E о CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER O U+0306 ̆ COMBINING BREVE | |
| Short U | Ў ў | U+040E Ў CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER SHORT U U+045E ў CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER SHORT U | |
| Greek | |||
| Alpha with brachy | Ᾰ ᾰ | U+1FB8 Ᾰ GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH VRACHY U+1FB0 ᾰ GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VRACHY | |
| Iota with brachy | Ῐ ῐ | U+1FD8 Ῐ GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA WITH VRACHY U+1FD0 ῐ GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VRACHY | |
| Upsilon with brachy | Ῠ ῠ | U+1FE8 Ῠ GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON WITH VRACHY U+1FE0 ῠ GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH VRACHY | |
| Arabic, Hittite, Akkadian, Egyptian transliteration[3] | |||
| H-breve below | Ḫ ḫ | U+1E2A Ḫ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H WITH BREVE BELOW U+1E2B ḫ LATIN SMALL LETTER H WITH BREVE BELOW | |
| Hebrew transliteration[3] | |||
| E-cedilla-breve | Ḝ ḝ | U+1E1C Ḝ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH CEDILLA AND BREVE U+1E1D ḝ LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH CEDILLA AND BREVE | |
In LaTeX the controls \u{o} and \breve{o} put a breve over the letter o.
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