A macron () is a
diacritical mark: it is a straight bar placed above a letter, usually a
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
. Its name derives from
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 ...
(''makrón'') "long", since it was originally used to mark
long or heavy syllables in
Greco-Roman metrics. It now more often marks a
long
Long may refer to:
Measurement
* Long, characteristic of something of great duration
* Long, characteristic of something of great length
* Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate
* Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
. In the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
, the macron is used to indicate a
mid-tone; the sign for a long vowel is instead a modified triangular
colon .
The opposite is the
breve
A breve (, less often , neuter form of the Latin "short, brief") is the diacritic mark ˘, shaped like the bottom half of a circle. As used in Ancient Greek, it is also called , . It resembles the caron (the wedge or in Czech, in S ...
, which marks a short or light syllable or a short vowel.
Uses
Syllable weight
In
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
long (heavy) syllable. Even relatively recent classical Greek and Latin dictionaries are still concerned with indicating only the length (weight) of syllables; that is why most still do not indicate the length of vowels in syllables that are otherwise metrically determined. Many textbooks about Ancient Rome and Greece use the macron, even if it was not actually used at that time (an
apex
The apex is the highest point of something. The word may also refer to:
Arts and media Fictional entities
* Apex (comics), a teenaged super villainess in the Marvel Universe
* Ape-X, a super-intelligent ape in the Squadron Supreme universe
*Apex, ...
was used if vowel length was marked in Latin).
Vowel length
The following languages or transliteration systems use the macron to mark
long vowels
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
:
*
Slavicist
Slavic (American English) or Slavonic (British English) studies, also known as Slavistics is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic areas, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or Slavicist was prim ...
s use the macron to indicate a non-tonic long vowel, or a non-tonic syllabic liquid, such as on ''l'', ''lj'', ''m'', ''n'', ''nj'', and ''r''. Languages with this feature include standard and dialect varieties of
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...
,
Slovene, and
Bulgarian
Bulgarian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria
* Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group
* Bulgarian language, a Slavic language
* Bulgarian alphabet
* A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria
* Bul ...
.
* Transcriptions of
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; Walter ...
typically use macrons to indicate long vowels – (
alif when pronounced ), (
waw
Waw or WAW may refer to:
* Waw (letter), a letter in many Semitic abjads
* Waw, the velomobile
* Another spelling for the town Wau, South Sudan
* Waw Township, Burma
*Warsaw Chopin Airport, an international airport serving Warsaw, Poland (IATA ai ...
, when pronounced or ), and (
ya', when pronounced or ). Thus the Arabic word (three) is transliterated ''thalāthah''.
*Transcriptions of
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
typically use a macron over ā, ī, ū, ṝ, and ḹ in order to mark a long vowel (e and o are always long and consequently do not need any macron).
* In
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 of the ...
, many of the more recent dictionaries and learning materials use the macron as the modern equivalent of the ancient Roman
apex
The apex is the highest point of something. The word may also refer to:
Arts and media Fictional entities
* Apex (comics), a teenaged super villainess in the Marvel Universe
* Ape-X, a super-intelligent ape in the Squadron Supreme universe
*Apex, ...
to mark long vowels. Any of the six vowel letters ''(ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, ȳ)'' can bear it. It is sometimes used in conjunction with the
breve
A breve (, less often , neuter form of the Latin "short, brief") is the diacritic mark ˘, shaped like the bottom half of a circle. As used in Ancient Greek, it is also called , . It resembles the caron (the wedge or in Czech, in S ...
, especially to distinguish the short vowels and from their semi-vowel counterparts and , originally, and often to this day, spelt with the same letters. However, the older of these editions are not always explicit on whether they mark long vowels or heavy syllables – a confusion that is even found in some modern learning materials. In addition, most of the newest academic publications use both the macron and the breve sparingly, mainly when vowel length is relevant to the discussion.
*In
romanization
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...
of
classical 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 peri ...
, the letters
η (''eta'') and
ω (''omega'') are transliterated, respectively, as ''ē'' and ''ō'', representing the long vowels of classical Greek, whereas the short vowels
ε (''epsilon'') and
ο (''omicron'') are always transliterated as plain ''e'' and ''o.'' The other long vowel phonemes don't have dedicated letters in the
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as w ...
, being indicated by digraphs (transliterated likewise as digraphs) or by the letters
α,
ι ,
υ – represented as ''ā, ī, ū''. The same three letters are transliterated as plain ''a, i, u'' when representing short vowels.
* The
Hepburn romanization system of
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
, for example, ''kōtsū'' (, ) "traffic" as opposed to ''kotsu'' (, ) "bone" or "knack".
* The
Syriac language uses macrons to indicate long vowels in its romanized transliteration: ''ā'' for , ''ē'' for , ''ū'' for and ''ō'' for .
*
Baltic languages and
Baltic-Finnic languages
The Finnic (''Fennic'') or more precisely Balto-Finnic (Balto-Fennic, Baltic Finnic, Baltic Fennic) languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 mi ...
:
**
Latvian. ''ā'', ''ē'', ''ī'', ''ū'' are separate letters but are given the same position in
collation
Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office filin ...
as ''a'', ''e'', ''i'', ''u'' respectively. ''Ō'' was also used in Latvian, but it was discarded as of 1946. Some usage remains in
Latgalian.
**
Lithuanian. ''ū'' is a separate letter but is given the same position in
collation
Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office filin ...
as the unaccented ''u''. It marks a long vowel; other long vowels are indicated with an
ogonek (which used to indicate nasalization, but it no longer does): ''ą'', ''ę'', ''į'', ''ų'' and ''o'' being always long in Lithuanian except for some recent loanwords. For the long counterpart of ''i'', ''y'' is used.
**
Livonian. ''ā'', ''ǟ'', ''ē'', ''ī'', ''ō'', ''ȱ'', ''ȭ'' and ''ū'' are separate letters that sort in alphabetical order immediately after ''a'', ''ä'', ''e'', ''i'', ''o'', ''ȯ'', ''õ'', and ''u'', respectively.
**
Samogitian. ''ā'', ''ē'', ''ė̄'', ''ī'', ''ū'' and ''ō'' are separate letters that sort in alphabetical order immediately after ''a'', ''e'', ''ė'', ''i'', ''u'' and ''o'' respectively.
* Transcriptions of
Nahuatl, the
Aztecs' language, spoken in
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived, they wrote the language in their own alphabet without distinguishing long vowels. Over a century later, in 1645,
Horacio Carochi
Horacio Carochi (1586–1666) was a Jesuit priest and grammarian who was born in Florence and died in New Spain. He is known for his grammar of the Classical Nahuatl language.
Life
Carochi was born in Florence. He went to Rome where he entered ...
defined macrons to mark long vowels ''ā'', ''ē'', ''ī'' and ''ō'', and short vowels with grave (`) accents. This is rare nowadays since many people write Nahuatl without any orthographic sign and with the letters ''k'', ''s'' and ''w'', not present in the original alphabet.
* Modern transcriptions of
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
, for long vowels.
* Latin transliteration of
Pali
Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Buddh ...
and
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
, and in the
IAST and
ISO 15919 transcriptions of
Indo-Aryan and
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...
.
*
Polynesian languages
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austro ...
:
**
Cook Islands Māori
Cook Islands Māori is an Eastern Polynesian language that is the official language of the Cook Islands. Cook Islands Māori is closely related to New Zealand Māori, but is a distinct language in its own right. Cook Islands Māori is simply c ...
. In Cook Islands Māori, the macron or ''mākarōna'' is not commonly used in writing, but is used in references and teaching materials for those learning the language.
**
Hawaiian. The macron is called ''kahakō'', and it indicates vowel length, which changes meaning and the placement of
stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
.
**
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
. In modern written Māori, the macron is used to designate long vowels, with the
trema mark sometimes used if the macron is unavailable (e.g. "Mäori"). The Māori word for macron is ''tohutō.'' The term ''pōtae'' ("hat") is also used. In the past, writing in Māori either did not distinguish vowel length, or doubled long vowels (e.g. "Maaori"), as some
iwi
Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, ...
dialects still do.
**
Niuean. In Niuean, "popular spelling" does not worry too much about vowel quantity (length), so the macron is primarily used in scholarly study of the language.
**
Tahitian. The use of the macron is comparatively recent in Tahitian. The ''Fare Vānaa'' or ''Académie Tahitienne'' (Tahitian Academy) recommends using the macron, called the ''tārava,'' to represent long vowels in written text, especially for scientific or teaching texts and it has widespread acceptance. (In the past, written Tahitian either did not distinguish vowel length, or used multiple other ways).
**
Tongan and
Samoan. The macron is called the ''toloi/fakamamafa'' or ''fa'amamafa'', respectively. Its usage is similar to that in Māori, including its substitution by a trema. Its usage is not universal in Samoan, but recent academic publications and advanced study textbooks promote its use.
* The macron is used in
Fijian language dictionaries, in instructional materials for non-Fijian speakers, and in books and papers on Fijian linguistics. It is not typically used in Fijian publications intended for fluent speakers, where context is usually sufficient for a reader to distinguish between
heteronyms.
* Both
Cyrillic and Latin transcriptions of
Udege.
* The Latin and Cyrillic alphabet transcriptions of the Tsebari dialect of
Tsez.
* In western
Cree,
Sauk, and
Saulteaux
The Saulteaux (pronounced , or in imitation of the French pronunciation , also written Salteaux, Saulteau and other variants), otherwise known as the Plains Ojibwe, are a First Nations band government in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, A ...
, the Algonquianist Standard Roman Orthography (SRO) indicates long vowels either with a
circumflex ⟨''â ê î ô''⟩ or with a macron ⟨''ā ē ī ō''⟩.
Tone
The following languages or alphabets use the macron to mark
tones:
* In the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
, a macron over a vowel indicates a mid-level tone.
* In
Yoruba
The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...
an optional macron can be used to indicate mid-level tone if it would otherwise be ambiguous.
* In
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...
, the official
Romanization of Mandarin Chinese
Romanization of Chinese () is the use of the Latin alphabet to transliterate Varieties of Chinese, Chinese. Chinese uses a logogram, logographic script and its Chinese characters, characters do not represent phonemes directly. There have been ma ...
, macrons over a, e, i, o, u, ü (ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, ǖ) indicate the high level
tone of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
. The alternative to the macron is the number 1 after the syllable (for example, tā = ta1).
* Similarly in the
Yale romanization of Cantonese
The Yale romanization of Cantonese was developed by Gerard P. Kok for his and Parker Po-fei Huang's textbook ''Speak Cantonese'' initially circulated in looseleaf form in 1952 but later published in 1958. Unlike the Yale romanization of Mandar ...
, macrons over a, e, i, o, u, m, n (ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, m̄, n̄) indicate the high level
tone of
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
. Like Mandarin, the alternative to the macron is the number 1 after the syllable (for example, tā = ta1).
* In
Pe̍h-ōe-jī
(; ; ), also sometimes known as the Church Romanization, is an orthography used to write variants of Southern Min Chinese, particularly Taiwanese Hokkien, Taiwanese and Amoy dialect, Amoy Hokkien.
Developed by Western missionary, missionaries ...
romanization of
Hokkien
The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages ...
, macrons over a, e, i, m, n, o, o͘, u, (ā, ē, ī, m̄, n̄, ō, ō͘, ū) indicate the mid level
tone ("light departing" or 7th tone) of Hokkien.
Omission
Sometimes the macron marks an omitted ''n'' or ''m'', like the
tilde
The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) i ...
:
* In Old English texts a macron above a letter indicates the omission of an m or n that would normally follow that letter.
* In older handwriting such as the German
Kurrentschrift, the macron over an a-e-i-o-u or ä-ö-ü stood for an ''n'', or over an ''m'' or an ''n'' meant that the letter was doubled. This continued into print in English in the sixteenth century, and to some extent in German. Over a ''u'' at the end of a word, the macron indicated ''um'' as a form of
scribal abbreviation
Scribal abbreviations or sigla (singular: siglum) are abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in various languages, including Latin, Greek, Old English and Old Norse. In modern manuscript editing (substantive and mechanica ...
.
Letter extension
In
romanizations of Hebrew, the
macron below
Macron below is a combining diacritical mark that is used in various orthographies.
A non-combining form is . It is not to be confused with , and . The difference between "macron below" and "low line" is that the latter results in an unbroken ...
is typically used to mark the
begadkefat
Begadkefat (also begedkefet) is the name given to a phenomenon of lenition affecting the non- emphatic stop consonants of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic when they are preceded by a vowel and not geminated. The name is also given to similar cases o ...
consonant
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
. However, for typographical reasons a regular macron is used on ''p'' and ''g'' instead: ''p̄, ḡ''.
The macron is used in the orthography of a number of vernacular languages of the
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...
and
Vanuatu
Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...
, particularly those first transcribed by
Anglican missionaries
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...
. The macron has no unique value, and is simply used to distinguish between two different phonemes.
Thus, in several languages of the
Banks Islands
The Banks Islands (in Bislama ''Bankis'') are a group of islands in northern Vanuatu. Together with the Torres Islands to their northwest, they make up the northernmost province of Torba. The island group lies about north of Maewo, and inclu ...
, including
Mwotlap
Mwotlap (pronounced ; formerly known as ''Motlav'') is an Oceanic language spoken by about 2,100 people in Vanuatu. The majority of speakers are found on the island of Motalava in the Banks Islands, with smaller communities in the islands of Ra ...
, the simple ''m'' stands for , but an ''m'' with a macron (m̄) is a
rounded labial-velar nasal ; while the simple ''n'' stands for the common
alveolar nasal
The voiced alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar nasals is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ...
, an ''n'' with macron (n̄) represents the
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
; the vowel ē stands for a (short) higher by contrast with plain ''e'' ; likewise ō contrasts with plain ''o'' .
In
Hiw orthography, the consonant ''r̄'' stands for the prestopped
velar lateral approximant
The voiced velar lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used as a distinct consonant in a very small number of spoken languages in the world. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is (since 19 ...
.
In
Araki
Araki may refer to:
People
* Araki (surname) (荒木)
* Hirohiko Araki (荒木 飛呂彦), a Japanese manga artist, fashion designer and illustrator
* Nobuyoshi Araki (荒木 経惟), a Japanese photographer and contemporary artist also known by t ...
, the same symbol ''r̄'' encodes the
alveolar trill
The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ...
– by contrast with ''r'', which encodes the
alveolar flap
The voiced alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents a dental, alveolar, or postalveolar tap or flap is .
The terms ''tap'' and ''flap' ...
.
In
Bislama
Bislama (; ; also known by its earlier French name, ) is an English-based creole language and one of the official languages of Vanuatu. It is the first language of many of the "Urban ni-Vanuatu" (citizens who live in Port Vila and Luganville) ...
(orthography before 1995),
Lamenu and
Lewo, a macron is used on two letters '. ''m̄'' represents , and ''p̄'' represents . The orthography after 1995 (which has no diacritics) has these written as ''mw'' and ''pw''.
In
Kokota, ''ḡ'' is used for the
velar stop
In phonetics and phonology, a velar stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the back of the tongue in contact with the soft palate (also known as the velum, hence velar), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence a stop consonan ...
, but ''g'' without macron is the
voiced velar fricative
The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in various spoken languages. It is not found in Modern English but existed in Old English. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , ...
.
In
Marshallese, a macron is used on four letters – ' – whose pronunciations differ from the unmarked '. Marshallese uses a
vertical vowel system
A vertical vowel system is the system of vowels in a language that requires only vowel height to phonemically distinguish vowels. Theoretically, rounding, frontness and backness could also be used in one-dimensional vowel systems; however, ''v ...
with three to four vowel phonemes, but traditionally their allophones have been written out, so vowel letters with macron are used for some of these allophones. Though the standard diacritic involved is a macron, there are no other diacritics used ''above'' letters, so in practice other diacritics can and have been used in less polished writing or print, yielding nonstandard letters like ', depending on displayability of letters in
computer font
A computer font is implemented as a digital data file containing a set of graphically related glyphs. A computer font is designed and created using a font editor. A computer font specifically designed for the computer screen, and not for print ...
s.
* The letter ' is pronounced , the
palatalized allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
of the phoneme .
* The letter ' represents the
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
phoneme and the
labialized velar nasal phoneme , depending on context. The standard letter does not exist as a
precombined glyph in
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, wh ...
, so the nonstandard variant ' is often used in its place.
* The letter ' is pronounced or , which are the
unrounded
In phonetics, vowel roundedness is the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. It is labialization of a vowel. When a ''rounded'' vowel is pronounced, the lips form a circular opening, and ''unrounded'' vowels are pro ...
velarized
Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four d ...
allophones of the phonemes and respectively.
* The letter ' is pronounced , the unrounded velarized allophone of the phoneme .
In
Obolo, the simple n stands for the common
alveolar nasal
The voiced alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar nasals is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ...
, while an ''n'' with macron (n̄) represents the
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
.
Other uses
* In older
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
and in the German
Kurrent handwriting, as well as older
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
, a macron is used on some consonants, especially n and m, as a short form for a double consonant (for example, ''n̄'' instead of ''nn'').
* In
Russian cursive
Russian cursive is a variant of the Russian alphabet used for writing by hand. It is typically referred to as ''(rússky) rukopísny shrift'', "(Russian) handwritten font". It is the handwritten form of the modern Russian Cyrillic script, us ...
, as well as in some others based on the
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 co ...
(for example,
Bulgarian
Bulgarian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria
* Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group
* Bulgarian language, a Slavic language
* Bulgarian alphabet
* A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria
* Bul ...
), a lowercase ''
Т'' looks like a lowercase ''m'', and a macron is often used to distinguish it from ''
Ш'', which looks like a lowercase ''w'' (see ''
Т''). Some writers also underline the letter ''ш'' to reduce ambiguity further.
Also, in some instances, a diacritic will be written like a macron, although it represents another diacritic whose standard form is different:
* In some
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
,
Estonian and
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
comic books that are hand-lettered, or in handwriting, a macron-style umlaut is used for ''
ä'' or ''
ö'' (also ''
õ'' and ''
ü'' in Estonian), sometimes known colloquially as a "lazy man's umlaut". This can also be seen in some modern handwritten
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
.
* In
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
''ū'', ''ā'', ''ī'', ''ē'' and ''ō'' can be used for decorative purposes both in handwritten and computed
Bokmål
Bokmål () (, ; ) is an official written standard for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is the preferred written standard of Norwegian for 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. Unlike, for instance, the Italian language, there ...
and
Nynorsk
Nynorsk () () is one of the two written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language ( no, Landsmål) parallel to the Dano-N ...
or to denote vowel length such as in ''dū'' (you), ''lā'' (infinitive form of to let), lēser (present form of "to read") and ''lūft'' (air). The diacritic is entirely optional, carries no IPA value and is seldom used in modern Norwegian outside of handwriting.
* In informal
Hungarian handwriting, a macron is often a substitute for either a
double acute accent
The double acute accent ( ˝ ) is a diacritic mark of the Latin and Cyrillic scripts. It is used primarily in Hungarian or Chuvash, and consequently it is sometimes referred to by typographers as hungarumlaut. The signs formed with a regular um ...
or an
umlaut (e.g., ''
ö'' or ''
ő''). Because of this ambiguity, using it is often regarded as bad practice.
* In informal handwriting, the
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
''ñ'' is sometimes written with a macron-shaped tilde: (''n̄'').
Medicine
Continuing previous
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 of the ...
scribal abbreviation
Scribal abbreviations or sigla (singular: siglum) are abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in various languages, including Latin, Greek, Old English and Old Norse. In modern manuscript editing (substantive and mechanica ...
s, letters with combining macron can be used in various European languages to represent the
overline
An overline, overscore, or overbar, is a typographical feature of a horizontal line drawn immediately above the text. In old mathematical notation, an overline was called a '' vinculum'', a notation for grouping symbols which is expressed in m ...
s indicating various
medical abbreviation
Abbreviations are used very frequently in medicine. They boost efficiency as long as they are used intelligently. The advantages of brevity should be weighed against the possibilities of obfuscation (making the communication harder for others ...
s, particularly including:
* ā for ("before")
* c̄ for ("with")
* p̄ for ("after")
* q̄ for and its inflections ("every", "each")
* s̄ for ("without")
* x̄ for and its inflections ("except")
Note, however, that abbreviations involving the letter h take their macron halfway up the ascending line rather than at the normal height for unicode macrons and overlines:
ħ. This is separately encoded in
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, wh ...
with the symbols using
bar diacritic
A bar or stroke is a modification consisting of a line drawn through a grapheme. It may be used as a diacritic to derive new letters from old ones, or simply as an addition to make a grapheme more distinct from others. It can take the form of a v ...
s and appears shorter than other macrons in many fonts.
Mathematics and science
The
overline
An overline, overscore, or overbar, is a typographical feature of a horizontal line drawn immediately above the text. In old mathematical notation, an overline was called a '' vinculum'', a notation for grouping symbols which is expressed in m ...
is a typographical symbol similar to the macron, used in a number of ways in mathematics and science. For example, it is used to represent
complex conjugation:
and to represent a
line segment in geometry (e.g.,
),
sample means
In mathematics and statistics, the arithmetic mean ( ) or arithmetic average, or just the ''mean'' or the ''average'' (when the context is clear), is the sum of a collection of numbers divided by the count of numbers in the collection. The colle ...
in statistics (e.g.,
) and
negations in
logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...
. It is also used in
Hermann–Mauguin notation
In geometry, Hermann–Mauguin notation is used to represent the symmetry elements in point groups, plane groups and space groups. It is named after the German crystallographer Carl Hermann (who introduced it in 1928) and the French mineralogis ...
.
Music
In music, the
tenuto
In musical notation, ''tenuto'' ( Italian, past participle of ''tenere'', "to hold"), denoted as a horizontal bar adjacent to a note, is a direction for the performer to hold or sustain a note for its full length.
Its precise interpretation can ...
marking resembles the macron.
The macron is also used in German
lute tablature
Tablature (or tabulature, or tab for short) is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches.
Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the guitar, lute or vihuela, as well as many fr ...
to distinguish repeating alphabetic characters.
Letters with macron
Technical notes
The
Unicode Standard
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, whic ...
encodes
combining and
precomposed macron characters:
Macron-related Unicode characters not included in the table above:
* CJK
fullwidth
In CJK (Chinese, Japanese and Korean) computing, graphic characters are traditionally classed into fullwidth (in Taiwan and Hong Kong: 全形; in CJK: 全角) and halfwidth (in Taiwan and Hong Kong: 半形; in CJK: 半角) characters. Unlik ...
variety:
**
*
Kazakhstani tenge
The tenge ( or ; kk, теңге, teñge, ; sign: ₸ ; code: KZT) is the currency of Kazakhstan. It is divided into 100 tiyn ( kk, тиын, tıyın also transliterated as ''tiyin'').
History
After the breakup of the Soviet Union in December ...
**
*
Overline
An overline, overscore, or overbar, is a typographical feature of a horizontal line drawn immediately above the text. In old mathematical notation, an overline was called a '' vinculum'', a notation for grouping symbols which is expressed in m ...
s
* Characters using a
macron below
Macron below is a combining diacritical mark that is used in various orthographies.
A non-combining form is . It is not to be confused with , and . The difference between "macron below" and "low line" is that the latter results in an unbroken ...
instead of above
*
Tone contour
A tone contour, or contour tone, is a tone in a tonal language which shifts from one pitch to another over the course of the syllable or word. Tone contours are especially common in East, Southeast Asia, West Africa, Nilo-Saharan languages, Kh ...
transcription characters incorporating a macron:
**
**
**
**
* Two intonation marks historically used by
Antanas Baranauskas
Antanas Baranauskas ( la, Antonius Baranovski, pl, Antoni Baranowski; 17 January 1835 – 26 November 1902) was a Lithuanian poet, mathematician and Catholic bishop of Sejny. Baranauskas is best known as the author of the Lithuanian poem '' An ...
for Lithuanian dialectology:
**
**
In
LaTeX
Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well.
In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...
a macron is created with the command "\=", for example: M\=aori for Māori.
In
OpenOffice OpenOffice or open office may refer to:
Computing Software
* OpenOffice.org (OOo), a discontinued open-source office software suite, originally based on StarOffice
* Apache OpenOffice (AOO), a derivative of OOo by the Apache Software Foundation, w ...
, if the extension Compose Special Characters is installed,
a macron may be added by following the letter with a hyphen and pressing the user's predefined shortcut key for composing special characters. A macron may also be added by following the letter with the character's four-digit hex-code, and pressing the user's predefined shortcut key for adding unicode characters.
See also
*
Macron below
Macron below is a combining diacritical mark that is used in various orthographies.
A non-combining form is . It is not to be confused with , and . The difference between "macron below" and "low line" is that the latter results in an unbroken ...
*
Vinculum (symbol)
\overline
= 0.
Y = \overline
\sqrt /math>
a-\overline = a − (b + c)
Vinculum usage
A vinculum () is a horizontal line used in mathematical notation for various purposes. It may be placed as an overline (or underline) over (or under) a ...
References
External links
Diacritics Project – All you need to design a font with correct accentsKupu o te RāHow to set up the keyboard to type macrons in various operating systems.
{{Latin alphabet, show diacritic =macron
Latin-script diacritics
Greek-script diacritics
Cyrillic-script diacritics
Poetic rhythm