View source for Ŭ

{{short description|Latin letter U with breve}}
{{Infobox grapheme
| name = U with breve
| script = [[Latin script|Latin]]
| language = [[English language]], [[Belarusian language]], [[Esperanto language]], [[Jarai language]]
| letter = Ŭ ŭ
| image = Latin letter U with breve.svg
| imageclass = skin-invert-image
| equivalents = {{flex list
|[[Short U (Cyrillic)|Ў]]
|[[Short I|Й]]
|[[Malayalam script#Half-u|◌ു&#3405;]]
|[[Malayalam script#Half-u|&#3405;]]
|[[Kashmiri language|ॖ]]
|[[Hard sign|Ъ]]
|[[Korean Language|으]]
}}
| variations = [[Sütterlin|U]] [[Ü]] [[W]]
| phonemes = {{flex list
|<nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Close back rounded vowel|u̯]]<nowiki>]</nowiki>
|<nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Voiced labiodental fricative|v]]<nowiki>]</nowiki>
|[aŭ]
|[eŭ]
|[oŭ]
|[ua]
|[uo]
|[meu]
|{{IPAblink|i}}
|{{IPAblink|w}}
|{{IPAblink|j}}
|{{IPAblink|ʊ}}
|{{IPAblink|ʌ}}
}}
| fam1 = <hiero>G43</hiero><hiero>T3</hiero>
| fam2 = [[Image:Proto-semiticW-01.svg|class=skin-invert-image|20px|Waw]]
| fam3 = [[File:PhoenicianW-01.svg|class=skin-invert-image|20px]]
| fam4 = [[Image:Phoenician waw.svg|class=skin-invert-image|20px|Waw]]
| fam5 = [[Image:Early Aramaic character - vav.png|class=skin-invert-image|20px|Waw]]
| fam6 = {{script|Grek|[[Upsilon|Υ υ]]}}
| fam7 = [[𐌖|V v]]
| fam8 = [[U|U u]]
| type = alphabet
| typedesc = ic
}}
{{wiktionary|ŭ|4=|5=}}
'''Ŭ''' or '''ŭ''' is a letter in the [[Belarusian Latin alphabet]] used since 1840/1845, based on ''[[u]]''. It is also used in the [[Esperanto orthography|Esperanto alphabet]], publicly presented in 1887, and formerly in the [[Romanian alphabet]]. The accent mark ([[diacritic]]) is known as a [[breve]].

This letter should not be confused with [[Ǔ|u-caron]], which is used to indicate u in the third tone of [[Chinese language]] [[pinyin]]; compare {{serif|Ǔ ǔ}} (caron) with {{serif|Ŭ ŭ}} (breve).

It resembles an italic form of a [[Cyrillic alphabet|Cyrillic]] [[Short I]] (''{{serif|Й й}}'').

==Belarusian==
{{see also|Belarusian alphabet|Belarusian Latin alphabet}}
The letter ''ŭ'' is called ''[[non-syllabic]] u'' (romanized: ''u nieskładovaje'') in Belarusian because it resembles the vowel ''u'' but forms no [[syllable]]s. It is an [[allophone]] of {{IPA|/v/}} that forms the [[diphthong]]s ''aŭ, eŭ, oŭ'' and is equivalent to {{IPA|be|u̯|}}. Its Cyrillic counterpart is [[short U (Cyrillic)|ў]].<ref>S. Young (2006) "Belorussian". In the ''Encyclopedia of language and linguistics,'' 2nd ed.</ref> Sometimes (as in ''[[National Geographic (magazine)|National Geographic]]'' atlases), the Cyrillic letter ў is [[Romanization|Romanized]] as ''w''.

The letter ''ŭ'' was proposed by [[Alexander Rypinski]] in 1840. For lack of the corresponding type, his book ''Białoruś. Kilka słów o poezji prostego ludu tej naszej polskiej prowincji, o jego muzyce, śpiewie, tańcach'' was printed with ''û'' in Belarusian citations instead, but it was explained that the proper letter was ''u'' with Latin ''brevis''. The proper letter ''ŭ'' was first used in printing in 1845, in the novel ''Tajemnicze domino czyli Skutki niestałości'' by Gabriel Ossowski (in Polish with occasional Belarusian).

==Esperanto==
{{Esperanto sidebar |expanded=Language}}
'''Ŭ''' represents a [[semivowel]] in the [[Esperanto orthography|orthography of Esperanto]], which is an [[international auxiliary language]] publicly presented in 1887. As in Belarusian, Esperanto Ŭ is pronounced as a [[semivowel|non-syllabic]] {{IPAblink|u̯}}, primarily in the [[diphthong]]s ''aŭ'', ''eŭ'' and rarely ''oŭ''.

It is thought that ''ŭ'' was created by analogy with the Belarusian letter [[short U (Cyrillic)|ў]] (Cyrillic ''u'' with [[breve]]), which was proposed by P.A. Bessonov in 1870.<ref>Булыка (Bulyka). У нескладовае // Энцыклапедыя літаратуры і мастацтва Беларусі. Т.4. p.377.</ref> It may also be considered that the placement of the breve above a vowel letter to turn it into an equivalent semivowel was inspired by the use thereof on the Cyrillic letter ''й'', representing /j/ and formed by placing a breve over the letter ''и'', used most commonly to represent /i/.

''Ŭ'' may also be used for [w] in foreign names, such as ''Ŭaŝingtono'' for "Washington", although it usually is written with ''v (Vaŝingtono)''. It is also used for [w] in [[onomatopoeia]]s, as in ''ŭa!'' "waa!", and uniquely in one native lexical word, ''ŭo,'' which is the Esperanto name of the letter ''ŭ'' itself.

==Romanian==

'''Ŭ''' was previously part of the Romanian alphabet. U with breve was used only in the ending of a word. It was essentially a Latin equivalent of the Slavonic [[Hard sign|back yer]] found in languages like Russian. Unpronounced in most cases, it served to indicate that the previous consonant was not palatalized, or that the preceding i was the vowel [i] and not a mere marker of palatalization. When ŭ was pronounced, it would follow a stressed vowel and stand in for semivowel u, as in words eŭ, aŭ, and meŭ, all spelled today without the breve. Once frequent, it survives today in author [[Mateiu Caragiale]]'s name – originally spelled Mateiŭ (it is not specified whether the pronunciation should adopt a version that he himself probably never used, while in many editions he is still credited as Matei). In other names, only the breve was dropped, while preserving the pronunciation of a semivowel u, as is the case of [[Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu|B.P. Hasdeŭ]].
However, ŭ served additional orthographic functions. It was used to distinguish homographs such as the verb a voi ("to will") in the first person singular, written voiŭ (though pronounced voi), from the pronoun voi ("you," plural), which retained its simple form. Similarly, it helped differentiate singular and plural forms of certain nouns; for example, ochiŭ ("eye") versus ochi ("eyes"). In both cases, the pronunciation remained ochi, but the presence of ŭ in the singular form clarified grammatical number in writing.

==Romanization of Indic scripts==

When transcribing [[Malayalam script#Half-u|Malayalam]] texts into [[ISO 15919]], usually the final glottal-stop is transcribed as 'ŭ', an [[epenthesis|epenthetic vowel]] (a rule called as {{Transliteration|ml|ISO|saṁvr̥tōkāram}}). In [[Tamil script|Tamil]], any wordfinal-'u' is always a short-vowel, hence transcribing it as 'ŭ' (a rule called as {{Transliteration|ta|ISO|kuṟṟiyal ukaram}}). The [[Kashmiri language|Kashmiri]] vowel {{lang|ks|{{uninastaliq|–ٕ}}}}/{{lang|ks-Deva|ॖ}} is also sometimes transcribed as 'ŭ'.

==Other uses==
In some philological transcriptions of [[Latin]], "ŭ" denotes a [[vowel length|short]] U — for example, "fŭgō" ({{IPA|[ˈfʊɡoː]}}, ''to chase away''), vs "fūmō" ({{IPA|[ˈfuːmoː]}}, ''to smoke'').

The letter is also commonly used among Slavists to denote the short back closed vowel of [[Proto-Slavic#Vowel notation|Proto-Slavic]].

The [[McCune–Reischauer]] Romanization of [[Korean language|Korean]] uses "ŭ" to signify the [[close back unrounded vowel]] in 으.

Several schemes for [[Pronunciation respelling for English|pronunciation of English words]] have used "ŭ".  For example, [[The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language]] has used "ŭ" for {{IPAc-en|ʌ}}, the vowel in the English word "cut".

[[File:Sütterlin-U.png|class=skin-invert-image|thumb|80px|Sütterlin "u"|left]]In [[Kurrent]]schrift, an outdated script used in German handwriting, the lower-case letter "u" is adorned with a breve to distinguish it from the otherwise identical letter "n". The script was used for teaching writing in schools; the last variant, known as [[Sütterlinschrift]], as late as 1941. The ingrained habit of writing "ŭ" for "u" persisted for a long time even as people switched to cursive scripts with easily distinguishable shapes for "u" and "n", occasionally leading to confusion between "ŭ" (meaning "u") and "ü" among later generations not brought up with this tick.

== Computing codes ==
{{charmap
| 016C | name1 = Latin Capital Letter U with Breve
| 016D | name2 = Latin Small Letter U with Breve
| map2 = [[ISO 8859-3]] | map2char1 = DD | map2char2 = FD
}}

==See also==
* [[Esperanto orthography]]
* [[Short U (Cyrillic)|Short U (Ў)]] used in Belarusian and Uzbek Cyrillic alphabet
* [[Breve]]
* [[Short I|Short I (Й)]]
* [[Ĉ]]
* [[Ĝ]]
* [[Ĥ]]
* [[Ĵ]]
* [[Ŝ]]

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

{{Latin script}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:U}}
[[Category:Belarusian language]]
[[Category:Esperanto letters with diacritics]]
[[Category:Romanian language]]
[[Category:Latin letters with diacritics]]
[[Category:Phonetic transcription symbols|U breve]]