Macron

◌ ̄
Diacritical marks
designation	character
Acute, simple	◌́
Acute, double	◌̋
Breve, about it	◌̆
Breve, including	◌̮
Cedilla, including	◌̧
Cedilla, about it	◌̒
Gravis, simple	◌̀
Gravis, double	◌̏
hook	◌̉
Hatschek	◌̌
horn	◌̛
Comma below	◌̦
Coronis	◌̓
Kroužek, about it	◌̊
Kroužek, including	◌̥
Macron, about it	◌̄
Macron, underneath	◌̱
Ogonek	◌̨
Period about that	◌̇
Point below	◌̣
Dash	◌̶
diacritical slash	◌̷
Alcohol asper	◌̔
Spiritus lenis	◌̕
Tilde, about it	◌̃
Tilde, underneath	◌̰
Trema, about it	◌̈
Trema, including	◌̤
circumflex	◌̂

Āā Ēē Īī N̄n̄
Ōō Ūū Ǖǖ Ȳȳ

The Makron [ maːkrɔn ], also Macron , bar , macron , overline or slash called a is diacritical mark to indicate a special pronunciation or emphasis on a vowel . There is a horizontal line above the letter. The technical term is the neuter substantiated Greek adjective μακρ ‚ ν makron 'long', therefore in the plural Makra . Strokes over the consonant m or n for consonant doubling, on the other hand, are nasal strokes .

use

Human languages

The macron comes in Latvian ( garumzīme ), Lithuanian ( brūkšnelis ), Hawaiian ( Kahakō ), Māori ( Tohutō ), Marshallese and in the Latin transcription of Japanese , Chinese ( Pinyin ), Arabic , Persian and South Asian languages ( Hindi , Sanskrit , Nepali …), but can have different meanings in different languages.

In most cases - for example in Latin and ancient Greek dictionaries, in Latvian and Lithuanian, or in the Latin spelling of Japanese - it indicates a long vowel (e.g. extrā ). In this usage, the counterpart is the breve .
The ancient Greek letters Eta and Omega are usually transcribed with a macron (ē and ō) in order to avoid confusion with epsilon or omicron (see Greek alphabet ). In this case, the macron is used on the one hand to identify the length of the vowel and on the other hand to distinguish between two letters of the original script.
For the phonetic transcription of the Chinese language (Hanyu Pinyin ) the macron is used to clarify the first tone (high and constant).

Formula symbol

The overline is often used as a formula symbol and as read across . He describes

in statistics the mean value
in Boolean algebra the negation
an antiparticle in particle physics

that conjugates complexes of a number

in graph theory the complement graph

the conclusion of a set, e.g. B. as the union of the real numbers with and . ${\ displaystyle {\ overline {\ mathbb {R}}}: = \ mathbb {R} \ cup \ {\ pm \ infty \}}$ ${\ displaystyle - \ infty}$ ${\ displaystyle \ infty}$

in the APL programming language as a prefix to mark negative numbers (e.g. ¯2 ¯1 0 1 2for a vector of the numbers −2, −1, 0, 1 and 2) to distinguish between the function -(negate / minus)

The symbol of the Makrons or length of stroke is also used to determine the angle -Mass line to mark. The military in many countries uses them (6400¯ = 360 °) for compasses as well as for direction and distance measurements , because the sine of 1¯ is almost exactly 0.001.

Display and input on the computer

With the German standard keyboard layout T2 , the character is entered as Alt Gr+ t. This combination acts as a dead key , i.e. H. must be entered before the basic letter.

On the German X11 keyboard ( de legacy ) the corresponding letter can be generated by Alt Gr+ Shift+ +, followed by the underlying letter.

In HTML it can be set with the named string ¯.

Further display and input options result from the following table:

symbol	designation	code		Input on the computer			Latex
symbol	designation	HTML	Unicode	Windows	Mac	Linux	Typesetting	Formula set	output
¯	Macron	& # 175;	U + 00AF	Alt + 0175	Alt + 00AF	Ctrl + Shift + U + 00AF	\ =	\bar{}	${\ displaystyle {\ bar {}}}$
Ā	Capital A with macron	& # 256;	U + 0100	Alt + 0256	Alt + 0100	Ctrl + Shift + U + 0100	\ = A	\ bar {A}	${\ displaystyle {\ bar {A}}}$
-	Small A with macron	& # 257;	U + 0101	Alt + 0257	Alt + 0101	Ctrl + Shift + U + 0101	\ = a	\ bar {a}	${\ displaystyle {\ bar {a}}}$
Ē	Capital E with macron	& # 274;	U + 0112	Alt + 0274	Alt + 0112	Ctrl + Shift + U + 0112	\ = E	\ bar {E}	${\ displaystyle {\ bar {E}}}$
ē	Small e with macron	& # 275;	U + 0113	Alt + 0275	Alt + 0113	Ctrl + Shift + U + 0113	\ = e	\ bar {e}	${\ displaystyle {\ bar {e}}}$
Ī	Capital I with macron	& # 298;	U + 012A	Alt + 0298	Alt + 012A	Ctrl + Shift + U + 012A	\ = I	\ bar {I}	${\ displaystyle {\ bar {I}}}$
ī	Small i with macron	& # 299;	U + 012B	Alt + 0299	Alt + 012B	Ctrl + Shift + U + 012B	\ = i	\ bar {i}	${\ displaystyle {\ bar {i}}}$
O	Capital O with macron	& # 332;	U + 014C	Alt + 0332	Alt + 014C	Ctrl + Shift + U + 014C	\ = O	\ bar {O}	${\ displaystyle {\ bar {O}}}$
O	Small o with macron	& # 333;	U + 014D	Alt + 0333	Alt + 014D	Ctrl + Shift + U + 014D	\ = o	\ bar {o}	${\ displaystyle {\ bar {o}}}$
Ū	Capital U with macron	& # 362;	U + 016A	Alt + 0362	Alt + 016A	Ctrl + Shift + U + 016A	\ = U	\ bar {U}	${\ displaystyle {\ bar {U}}}$
ū	Small u with macron	& # 363;	U + 016B	Alt + 0363	Alt + 016B	Ctrl + Shift + U + 016B	\ = u	\ bar {u}	${\ displaystyle {\ bar {u}}}$

Character sets

The macron does not appear in the ASCII character set . In the character sets of the ISO-8859 family, selected characters appear with a macron.

Unicode contains other pre-composed characters with macron and can represent any characters with macron by adding a combining macron (U + 0304).

TeX and LaTeX

TeX and LaTeX can represent any characters with a macron. There are two different commands for this

in text mode for the typesetting creates \=aa ā (to suppress the period at i and j, e.g. used \=\iinstead of \=ifor ī)
in math mode for the formula set generates \bar{a}the formula ${\ displaystyle {\ bar {a}}}$

literature

Elke von Boeselager: Writing: Basic knowledge. Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2004, ISBN 3-7752-6131-1 , p. 57 ff.
Bernhard Bischoff : Palaeography of Roman antiquity and the western Middle Ages. 3. Edition. Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-503-07914-9 , p. 202 ff.

Web links

Wiktionary: Makron - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Letters with macron and their Unicode masking

Individual evidence

↑ DIN ISO 5426: 1998-04

[1] DIN ISO 5426: 1998-04