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A macron () is a diacritical mark: it is a straight bar placed above a letter, usually a vowel. Its name derives from Ancient Greek (''makrón'') "long", since it was originally used to mark syllable weight#Classical poetry, long or heavy syllables in meter (poetry)#Greek and Latin, Greco-Roman metrics. It now more often marks a vowel length, long vowel. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the macron is used to indicate a tone (linguistics), mid-tone; the sign for a long vowel is instead a modified triangular Colon (punctuation)#Diacritical usage, colon . The opposite is the breve , which marks a short or light syllable or a short vowel. Uses Syllable weight In meter (poetry)#Greek and Latin, Greco-Roman metrics and in the description of the metrics of other literatures, the macron was introduced and is still widely used in dictionaries and educational materials to mark a syllable weight#Classical poetry, long (heavy) syllable. Even relatively recent classical Greek and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diacritical Mark
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 ''diacritic'' is a noun, though it is sometimes used in an attributive sense, whereas ''diacritical'' is only an adjective. Some diacritics, such as the acute ( ◌́ ) and grave ( ◌̀ ), are often called ''accents''. Diacritics may appear above or below a letter or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters. The main use of diacritics in Latin script is to change the sound-values of the letters to which they are added. Historically, English has used the diaeresis diacritic to indicate the correct pronunciation of ambiguous words, such as "coöperate", without which the letter sequence could be misinterpreted to be pronounced . Other examples are the acute and grave accents, which can indic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
