Adobe PS: grave
Unicode: 0060, 0300
Languages: Catalan, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Maltese, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Swedish, Vietnamese, Walloon, Welsh, Yoruba
Grave
History and examples of use
Grave is to be found in French and Italian prints since the 17th century. With the exception of words adopted from other languages with the original orthography, the grave is not commonly used in any East and Central European languages.
In Portuguese, the grave is used only with à and represents "a" as preposition + "a" as the feminine article. Example: Eu vou à praia – I go to the beach, where beach (praia) is a feminine noun.
In Vietnamese, the grave (or dấu huyền) is used to specify a falling tone.
In African tonal languages, like Yoruba, it is used to mark low tone on vowels.
Notes
Grave denotes one of five tones in the pinyin latinised version of Mandarin Chinese.
Design
Grave is a mirror image of acute and same rules of composition apply to both. It the width is variable, the grave should narrow in downwards direction. It may be difficult to place it horizontally. It should incline to the left slightly, but at the same time it should not “fall off” the character. In calligraphic or antiqua faces the grave does not have to be a mirror image of acute, it may be shaped differently. Because characters with grave are included in most western typefaces, there are many examples as how to draw it properly.