Editing Breve (section)

== Length ==
The breve sign indicates a short vowel, as opposed to the [[Macron (diacritic)|macron]] (<span style="font-family: serif">{{char|◌̄}}</span>), which indicates long vowels, in academic transcription. It is often used that way in dictionaries and textbooks of [[Latin]], [[Ancient Greek]], [[Tuareg languages|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 (diacritic)|macron]] is short. If the vowel length is unknown, a breve as well as a macron are used in historical linguistics (Ā̆ ā̆ Ē̆ ē̆  Ī̆ ī̆ Ō̆ ō̆ Ū̆ ū̆ Ȳ̆ ȳ̆).
In [[Cyrillic script]], a breve is used for ''[[Й]]''. In [[Belarusian language|Belarusian]], it is used for both the Cyrillic ''[[Ў]]'' (semivowel U) and in the Latin ([[Lacinka|Łacinka]]) ''Ŭ''. ''Ў'' was also used in Cyrillic [[Uzbek language|Uzbek]] under the [[Soviet Union]]. The [[Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet]] uses a breve on ''[[Ӂ]]'' to represent a [[voiced postalveolar affricate]] {{IPA|/d͡ʒ/}} (corresponding to {{angbr|g}} before a front vowel in the Latin script for [[Moldovan language|Moldovan]]). In [[Chuvash language|Chuvash]], a breve is used for Cyrillic letters Ӑ (''A''-breve) and Ӗ (''E''-breve). In [[Itelmen language|Itelmen]] orthography, it is used for Ӑ, [[O with breve (Cyrillic)|О̆]] and Ў. The traditional Cyrillic breve differs in shape and is thicker on the edges of the curve and thinner in the middle, as opposed to the Latin one,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://fonts.ru/help/term/terms.asp?code=591|script-title=ru:Бреве кириллическое, "кратка"|publisher=ParaType|language=ru|trans-title=Cyrillic breve ("kratka")}}</ref> but the Unicode encoding is the same.

[[File:Contrastive use of kratka and breve.JPG|thumb|250px|Contrastive use of Cyrillic kratka (for consonant [j]) and Latin breve (for short vowel [ĭ]) above '''и''' in [[Russian language|Russian]]-[[Tundra Nenets language|Nenets]] dictionary]]
In [[Emilian dialect|Emilian]], ''ĕ ŏ'' are used to represent {{IPA|[ɛ, ɔ]}} in dialects where also long {{IPA|[ɛː, ɔː]}} occur.

In [[Esperanto]], ''u'' with breve (ŭ) represents a [[semivowel|non-syllabic]] ''u'' in [[diphthong]]s {{IPAslink|u̯}}, analogous to Belarusian ''[[ў]]''.

In the transcription of [[Sinhala language|Sinhala]], the breve over an ''m'' or an ''n'' indicates a [[prenasalized consonant]]; for example, ''n̆da'' is used to represent {{IPA|[ⁿda]}}.

In the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]], a breve over a phonetic symbol is used to indicate [[extra-shortness]].