How to type a breve?

Question

Sometimes when I want to emphasize that a vowel is short, it is not enough not to write a macron, and I need to add a breve. How can I do that?

The earlier question about typing macrons does not discuss adding a breve.

Answer 1

My solution using Autohotkey works for any Unicode character (or basically any action you'd like to take on your computer), so also for brevia. I just type whatever combination or sequence of keys I have chosen to get a breve. I have set a\/ for ă, as it is easy to remember. (You can guess how I type â.) No modifier keys, no combinations that are hard to remember.

The Autohotkey code required is as follows, to be changed at your pleasure:

:*?:a\/::ă
:*?:e\/::ĕ
:*?:i\/::ĭ
:*?:o\/::ŏ
:*?:u\/::ŭ
:*?:y\/::ў

You can basically add any character you like by copy-pasting the last line and copy-pasting a Unicode character you have found on e.g. Wikipaedia instead of ў, and typing some easy-to-remember key sequence instead of y\/. That's how I usually add new characters. But there are even easier ways (ask me).

Answer 2

When I'm writing Latin I usually use the ABC Extended keyboard layout (in System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources), as @Undo suggested in the answers to the linked question. In that layout, Option-B or Alt-B (depending on your OS) adds a breve to whatever vowel you type next.

(I wish I had @Undo's facility with display so that I could make this answer show exactly how this worked, but, alas, I am merely mortal.)

Answer 3

You can use html entities, but they are less convenient than for macrons:

Ă Ă
ă ă
Ĕ Ĕ
ĕ ĕ
Ĭ Ĭ
ĭ ĭ
Ŏ Ŏ
ŏ ŏ
Ŭ Ŭ
ŭ ŭ
Ῠ Ῠ
ў ў

For macrons there is an alternative way that is easier to remember (ā is ā or ā), but for a breve the only option seems to be to use numbers.

The Y in the list above is a bit of a hack: I took the lower case y from the Cyrillic and upper case Y from the Greek alphabet. I did not find a Y with breve for the Latin alphabet in the html entities.

Another option is to simply copy from the list above.

Added note: You can add a breve to any letter with ̆ or ̆. This leaves you with only one entity code to remember and it can be easily combined with any character. (Suggested by Mr Lister in comments.)

y̆ y̆
Y̆ Y̆
ă ă
q̆ q̆