Length
The breve sign indicates a short vowel, as opposed to the macron ¯ which indicates long vowels, in academic transcription. It is often used this 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.)
In Cyrillic script, a breve is used for Й (a semivowel I). 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 for Ӂ (the equivalent of G before E or I in the Latin script). In Chuvash, a breve is used for Cyrillic letters Ӑ (A-breve) and Ӗ (E-breve). Note that traditional Cyrillic breve differs in shape, being thicker on the edges of the curve and thinner in the middle, from the Latin one. In Latin types, the shape becomes “ears”-like.
In Esperanto, it is used above the u to form a non-syllabic u, similar to the sound of an English w.
In the transcription of Sinhala, the breve over an m or an n indicates a prenasalized consonant; for example, n̆da is used to represent .
Read more about this topic: Breve
Famous quotes containing the word length:
“Oft have I mused, but now at length I find,
Why those that die, men say they do depart.”
—Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)
“those far-fet helps be such
As do bewray a want of inward touch,
and sure at length stolen goods do come to light.
But if, both for your love and skill, your name
You seek to nurse at fullest breasts of Fame,
Stella behold, and then begin to indite.”
—Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)
“When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men will at length establish their lives on that basis.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)