Breve: ă, ğ and combining U+0306

Uses and scope

Romanian ă and Turkish ğ belong to their respective alphabets. Vietnamese ă is a vowel letter that can take tone marks. Cyrillic й also has a canonical decomposition containing breve. Although a breve can indicate shortness in some notation, that description does not explain all these language-specific letters. [31], [33], [45], [3], [48], [49], [4]

Similar shapes, different characters

The third Pinyin tone takes a caron, not a breve. Inverted breve U+0311 curves the other way and is not canonically equivalent. A font may draw a soft caron or a pointed breve, so the scalar sequence is more reliable than the apparent curvature in a small screenshot. [1], [2], [31], [33], [45], [3], [48], [49], [4]

Typing and text forms

Copying is exact; preview circles are excluded. Compare normalization forms.

Word for Windows

Select a hex code, then Alt+X; repeat for each scalar.

Mac and mobile

Hold a letter for supported variants; use Character Viewer on Mac or a language keyboard on mobile.

HTML

Use UTF-8 text or the numeric references in Details, in order.

Full typing instructions ·HTML, CSS and JavaScript entry ·Verified Alt codes.

Sources and method

Usage statements link to the authority that supports their scope. Character names, categories, combining classes and normalization results come from the pinned Unicode data. A canonical decomposition does not establish language membership or spelling frequency.

Source access date: 2026-09-14.

• [4] Unicode combining mark names and annotations. Names, cross references and narrowly attributed usage annotations. Historical annotations are not automatically current recommendations.
• [31] Romanian Academy: DOOM 3 graphic signs. Romanian alphabet, case pairs, breve, circumflex and comma-below letters.
• [33] Turkish Language Association: sounds, letters and alphabet. Turkish alphabet and dotted/dotless I case pairs.
• [45] Northern Illinois University: Vietnamese tones. Six Vietnamese tone categories and example spellings. Detailed pitch descriptions are not generalized across dialects.
• [3] Unicode 17: Latin, Greek and combining marks. Sections 7.1, 7.2, 7.8 and 7.9: encoded distinctions, script conventions and glyph variation, not a complete orthography.
• [48] Chinese Ministry of Education: GB/T 16159, 2012. Hanyu Pinyin orthography, vowel tone marks and neutral tone; this is romanization, not added marks on Han characters.
• [49] Henan Normal University: reproduced Pinyin spelling standard. Readable university reproduction of GB/T 16159-2012; section on tone placement and unmarked neutral tone. Used alongside the official Ministry PDF.
• [1] Unicode Character Database 17.0.0.
• [2] Unicode normalization, UAX #15.
• [10] Microsoft: Unicode character entry in Word.
• [11] Apple: enter characters with accent marks.
• [12] Google: use Gboard.
• [13] Unicode: fonts and keyboards FAQ.
• [14] HTML numeric character references.

Read the editorial method and inspect the underlying datasets.