A breve (, less often ,

neuter Neuter is a Latin adjective meaning "neither", and can refer to: * Neuter gender, a grammatical gender, a linguistic class of nouns triggering specific types of inflections in associated words *Neuter pronoun *Neutering, the sterilization of an ...

form of the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

"short, brief") is the

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

mark ˘, shaped like the bottom half of a circle. As used in

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

, it is also called , . It resembles the

caron A caron (), háček or haček (, or ; plural ''háčeks'' or ''háčky'') also known as a hachek, wedge, check, kvačica, strešica, mäkčeň, varnelė, inverted circumflex, inverted hat, flying bird, inverted chevron, is a diacritic mark (� ...

(the wedge or in Czech, in Slovak) but is rounded, in contrast to the angular tip of the caron. In many forms of

, ˘ 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)

Length

The breve sign indicates a short vowel, as opposed to the

macron Macron may refer to: People * Emmanuel Macron (born 1977), president of France since 2017 ** Brigitte Macron (born 1953), French teacher, wife of Emmanuel Macron * Jean-Michel Macron (born 1950), French professor of neurology, father of Emmanu ...

¯, which indicates long vowels, in academic transcription. It is often used that way in dictionaries and textbooks of

Tuareg The Tuareg people (; also spelled Twareg or Touareg; endonym: ''Imuhaɣ/Imušaɣ/Imašeɣăn/Imajeɣăn'') are a large Berber ethnic group that principally inhabit the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Alg ...

and other languages. However, there is a frequent convention of indicating only the long vowels. It is then understood that a vowel with no

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). PT Serif cyrillic and latin letters difference

PT Serif cyrillic and latin letters difference

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking cou ...

, a breve is used for '' Й''. In

Belarusian Belarusian may refer to: * Something of, or related to Belarus * Belarusians, people from Belarus, or of Belarusian descent * A citizen of Belarus, see Demographics of Belarus * Belarusian language * Belarusian culture * Belarusian cuisine * Byelor ...

, it is used for both the Cyrillic '' Ў'' (semivowel U) and in the Latin (

Łacinka The Belarusian Latin alphabet or Łacinka (from be, лацінка or łacinka, BGN/PCGN: ''Latsinka'', ) for the Latin script in general is the common name for writing Belarusian using Latin script. It is similar to the Sorbian alphabet an ...

) ''Ŭ''. ''Ў'' was also used in Cyrillic Uzbek under the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. The

Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet The Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet is a Cyrillic alphabet designed for the Romanian language spoken in the Soviet Union ( Moldovan) and was in official use from 1924 to 1932 and 1938 to 1989 (and still in use today in the breakaway Moldovan regio ...

uses a breve on '' Ӂ'' to represent a

voiced postalveolar affricate The voiced palato-alveolar sibilant affricate, voiced post-alveolar affricate or voiced domed postalveolar sibilant affricate, is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic ...

(corresponding to 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 The Itelmens ( Itelmen: Итәнмән, russian: Ительмены) are an indigenous ethnic group of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The Itelmen language is distantly related to Chukchi and Koryak, forming the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languag ...

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, but the Unicode encoding is the same. Contrastive use of kratka and breve

In Emilian, ''ĕ ŏ'' are used to represent in dialects where also long occur. In

Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...

, ''u'' with breve (ŭ) represents a

non-syllabic In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the ...

''u'' in

diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...

s , analogous to Belarusian '' ў''. In the transcription of Sinhala, the breve over an ''m'' or an ''n'' indicates a

prenasalized consonant Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant such as ) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather ...

; for example, ''n̆da'' is used to represent . In the International Phonetic Alphabet, a breve over a phonetic symbol is used to indicate extra-shortness.

Other uses

In other languages, it is used for other purposes. * In

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language *** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...

, ''A'' with breve represents / ə/, as in ''măr'' (apple). * G-breve appears in the

Azerbaijani Azerbaijani may refer to: * Something of, or related to Azerbaijan * Azerbaijanis * Azerbaijani language See also * Azerbaijan (disambiguation) * Azeri (disambiguation) * Azerbaijani cuisine * Culture of Azerbaijan The culture of Azerbaijan ...

Kazakh Kazakh, Qazaq or Kazakhstani may refer to: * Someone or something related to Kazakhstan *Kazakhs, an ethnic group *Kazakh language *The Kazakh Khanate * Kazakh cuisine * Qazakh Rayon, Azerbaijan *Qazax, Azerbaijan *Kazakh Uyezd, administrative dis ...

, Crimean Tatar,

Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

, and

Turkish Turkish may refer to: *a Turkic language spoken by the Turks * of or about Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities and mi ...

alphabets. In Turkish, ''ğ'' lengthens the preceding vowel. It is thus placed between two vowels and is silent in standard Turkish but may be pronounced in some regional dialects or varieties closer to

Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish ( ota, لِسانِ عُثمانى, Lisân-ı Osmânî, ; tr, Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed exten ...

. * The breve, together with the

circumflex The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from la, circumflexus "bent around"a ...

and horn, are used in the

Vietnamese language Vietnamese ( vi, tiếng Việt, links=no) is an Austroasiatic language originating from Vietnam where it is the national and official language An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other j ...

to represent additional vowels. * The McCune-Reischauer romanization system of the

Korean alphabet The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's Revised Romanization of Korean, standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system f ...

's script uses breves over ''o'' and ''u'' to represent the vowels ㅓ (ŏ) and ㅡ (ŭ).For example, that word 한글 han-geul is romanized in McCune-Reischauer as ''han'gŭl''. The spelling ''han-geul'' is based on

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

Revised Romanization of Korean Revised Romanization of Korean () is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. It was developed by the National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and was released to the public on 7 July 2000 by South Korea's Mini ...

adopted in 2000 in part for ease in computer use, not on McCune-Reischauer. It is common, for convenience, to omit writing all diacritical marks in McCune-Reishchauer including breves, in which case the word is spelled ''hangul'' not ''han'gŭl''.

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and ...

uses a variant of McCune-Reischauer that also utilizes breves for those two vowels. * H-breve below Ḫ ḫ is used to transliterate the

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

character Ḫāʾ () in

DIN 31635 DIN 31635 is a Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) standard for the transliteration of the Arabic alphabet adopted in 1982. It is based on the rules of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG) as modified by the International Orientalist ...

. It is also used to transliterate

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform, early writing system * Akkadian myt ...

Hittite cuneiform Hittite cuneiform is the implementation of cuneiform script used in writing the Hittite language. The surviving corpus of Hittite texts is preserved in cuneiform on clay tablets dating to the 2nd millennium BC (roughly spanning the 17th to 12t ...

, and

Egyptian hieroglyphs Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1, ...

. *On

German language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is als ...

maps, a double breve is often used in abbreviated placenames that end in ''-b͝g.,'' short for ''-burg,'' a common suffix originally meaning “castle”. This prevents misinterpretation as ''-berg,'' another common suffix in placenames (meaning “mountain”). Thus, for example, ''Freib͝g.'' stands for ''

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

,'' not ''

Freiberg Freiberg is a university and former mining town in Saxony, Germany. It is a so-called ''Große Kreisstadt'' (large county town) and the administrative centre of Mittelsachsen district. Its historic town centre has been placed under heritage ...

.'' *Certain transcription systems for certain

varieties of Chinese Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of ...

employ the breve to represent one of the tones, including

Foochow Romanized Foochow Romanized, also known as Bàng-uâ-cê (BUC for short; ) or Hók-ciŭ-uâ Lò̤-mā-cê (), is a Latin alphabet for the Fuzhou dialect of Eastern Min adopted in the middle of the 19th century by Western missionaries. It had varied at di ...

for the

Fuzhou dialect Fuzhou (; , Fuzhounese: Hokchew, ''Hók-ciŭ''), alternately romanized as Foochow, is the capital and one of the largest cities in Fujian province, China. Along with the many counties of Ningde, those of Fuzhou are considered to constitut ...

Eastern Min Eastern Min or Min Dong (, Foochow Romanized: Mìng-dĕ̤ng-ngṳ̄), is a branch of the Min group of Sinitic languages of China. The prestige form and most-cited representative form is the Fuzhou dialect, the speech of the capital of Fujian. ...

, and Kienning Colloquial Romanized for the Jian'ou dialect of

Northern Min Northern Min () is a group of mutually intelligible Min varieties spoken in Nanping prefecture of northwestern Fujian. Classification and distribution Early classifications of varieties of Chinese, such as those of Li Fang-Kuei in 1937 and ...

(which also uses the

). * I-breve (Ĭ, ĭ) is used in the

dialects The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...

Crimean Tatar language Crimean Tatar () also called Crimean (), is a Kipchak Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria, as well as small communities in the United States and Canada. It sh ...

spoken in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, a ...

. It pronounce � sound like in ''Tatar tĭlĭ'' (Tatar language). *In Khmer, ă, ĕ, ĭ, ŏ, œ̆, and ŭ are used in Khmer romanization, e.g. ''siĕm reăp'' (Siem Reap). * In the Syriac languages, ''ĕ'' is used to denote an "eh" or /ˈɛ/ sound. * The ISO 259 Romanization of Hebrew uses ''ă'', ''ḝ'', and ''ŏ'' for reduced vowels.

Letters with breve

Encoding

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

and

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

code (decimal

numeric character reference A numeric character reference (NCR) is a common markup construct used in SGML and SGML-derived markup languages such as HTML and XML. It consists of a short sequence of characters that, in turn, represents a single character. Since WebSgml, XML ...

) for breve characters. In LaTeX the controls \u and \breve put a breve over the letter o.

Notes

External links

Diacritics Project — All you need to design a font with correct accents
{{Latin script, , breve Greek-script diacritics Poetic rhythm Latin-script diacritics Cyrillic-script diacritics