A-breve
This article is about the breve as a diacritical mark. For a breve in music, see double whole note.
| Description | Upper Case | Lower Case
|
|---|
| Letter | HTML | Letter | HTML
|
|---|
| 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
|
|---|
|
| G-breve | Ğ | Ğ | ğ | ğ
|
|---|
|
|
| A-Sắc-breve | Ắ | Ắ | ắ | ắ
|
|---|
| A-Huyền-breve | Ằ | Ằ | ằ | ằ
|
|---|
| A-Hỏi-breve | Ẳ | Ẳ | ẳ | ẳ
|
|---|
| A-Ngã-breve | Ẵ | Ẵ | ẵ | ẵ
|
|---|
| A-Nặng-breve | Ặ | Ặ | ặ | ặ
|
|---|
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 as such 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 Cyrillic alphabet, breve is used for "short I": "Й". Also, in Belarusian language, "short U": "Ў" exists, pronounced like the "u" part in diphthongs in "now", "low". Ў also was used in Cyrillic Uzbek. Letters looking like Ă and Ĕ are used in Chuvash alphabet.
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 possible above the u.
The HTML/Unicode numbers for breve letters are shown in the table to the right.
The last rows are the letter A/a with breve and acute, grave, hook, tilde, and dot, respectively. These are mainly used in the Vietnamese language.
