Breve

This article is about the breve as a diacritical mark. For a breve in music, see double whole note.


HTML numeric entities for breve letters
Description Upper Case Lower Case
Letter Entity Letter Entity
Latin
A-breve Ă Ă ă ă
E-breve Ĕ Ĕ ĕ ĕ
I-breve Ĭ Ĭ ĭ ĭ
O-breve Ŏ Ŏ ŏ ŏ
U-breve Ŭ Ŭ ŭ ŭ
Azerbaijani, Tatar, Turkish
G-breve Ğ Ğ ğ ğ
Vietnamese
A-Sắc-breve Ắ ắ
A-Huyền-breve Ằ ằ
A-Hỏi-breve Ẳ ẳ
A-Ngã-breve Ẵ ẵ
A-Nặng-breve Ặ ặ
Cyrillic
Short I Й Й й й
Belarusian, Uzbek
U short Ў Ў ў ў
Chuvash
A-breve Ӑ Ӑ ӑ ӑ
Ye-breve Ӗ Ӗ ӗ ӗ


A breve (Latin Brevis "short, brief") is a diacritical mark ˘, shaped like a little round cup, designed to indicate a short vowel, as opposed to the macron ¯ which indicates long vowels. It is used this way in dictionaries and textbooks of Latin and some other languages. It looks similar to caron or háček, but the caron has a sharp tip, whilst the breve is rounded.

In the Cyrillic alphabet, a breve is used for Й (short I). In Belarusian, it is used for both the Cyrillic Ў (U short) and Latin (Łacinka) Ŭ. Ў was also used in Cyrillic Uzbek under the Soviet Union. In the Chuvash a breve is used for Cyrillic letters Ӑ (A-breve) and Ӗ (Ye-breve).

In other languages, it is used for other purposes. In Romanian it can be used above the A to form the schwa (ə) vowel and in Esperanto it can be used above the U.

Breve together with acute, grave, horn, tilde, and dot are used in the Vietnamese language.


de:Breve ro:Breve

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