Breve
History and examples of use
In Romanian and Vietnamese, the breve is used with ă. In Turkish, it is used with ğ, in Esperanto with ŭ, and in phonetic transcription of Latin: ă, ĕ, ĭ, ŏ, and ŭ. In the Native North American language Tohono ’O’odham, the breve indicates an extra short vowel: ă, ĕ, ĭ, ŏ.
Notes
While in Turkish, the shape of the character may vary from breve to caron, it is not acceptable to interchange caron with breve in Romanian.
Design
The symbol should be a delicately-shaped, rather flat half-circle. In typefaces with variable stroke strength, it should be thicker in the bottom part. The designer should not use deformed brackets etc. to make the symbol. Proportionally and position-wise the accent should harmonise with caron or circumflex.