Macron below

Macron below is a combining diacritical mark that is used in various orthographies.^[1]

◌̱
Macron below
U+0331 ◌̱ COMBINING MACRON BELOW

A̱a̱ḆḇC̱c̱

A non-combining form is U+02CD ˍ MODIFIER LETTER LOW MACRON. It is not to be confused with U+0320 ◌̠ COMBINING MINUS SIGN BELOW, U+0332 ◌̲ COMBINING LOW LINE and U+005F _ LOW LINE. The difference between "macron below" and "low line" is that the latter results in an unbroken underline when it is run together: compare a̱ḇc̱ and a̲b̲c̲ (only the latter should look like abc).^[2]

Unicode

Macron below character

Unicode defines several characters for the macron below:

macron below
combining			spacing
character	Unicode	HTML	character	Unicode	HTML
◌̱ single	U+0331	̱	ˍ letter	U+02CD	ˍ
◌͟◌ double	U+035F	͟

There are many similar marks covered elsewhere:

• Spacing underscores, including
  • U+005F _ LOW LINE (_, _)
  • U+2017 ‗ DOUBLE LOW LINE
• Combining underlines, including
  • U+0332 ◌̲ COMBINING LOW LINE
  • U+0333 ◌̳ COMBINING DOUBLE LOW LINE
  • U+0347 ◌͇ COMBINING EQUALS SIGN BELOW;
  • U+FE2B ◌︫ COMBINING MACRON LEFT HALF BELOW
  • U+FE2C ◌︬ COMBINING MACRON RIGHT HALF BELOW
  • U+FE2D ◌︭ COMBINING CONJOINING MACRON BELOW
• International Phonetic Alphabet mark for retracted or backed articulation:^[1]
  • U+0320 ◌̠ COMBINING MINUS SIGN BELOW
  • U+02D7 ˗ MODIFIER LETTER MINUS SIGN

Precomposed characters

Various precomposed letters with a macron below are defined in Unicode:

upper case			lower case			notes
letter	Unicode	HTML	letter	Unicode	HTML
Ḇ	U+1E06	Ḇ	ḇ	U+1E07	ḇ	Used in the transliteration of Biblical Hebrew into the Roman alphabet to show the fricative value of the letter beth (ב) representing [v], or perhaps [β].
Ḏ	U+1E0E	Ḏ	ḏ	U+1E0F	ḏ	Used in the transliteration of Biblical Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic into the Roman alphabet to show the fricative value of the letter dalet (ד), [ð], and in the romanization of Pashto, it is used sometimes to represent retroflex D. In Dravidian languages' transcription it represents an alveolar /d/.
			ẖ	U+1E96	ẖ	Sometimes used for Arabic خ ẖāʼ, Hebrew Heth (letter), Egyptian 𓄡. There is no precomposed upper case equivalent of ẖ so it uses a combining macron below instead: H̱.
Ḵ	U+1E34	Ḵ	ḵ	U+1E35	ḵ	Used in the transliteration of Biblical Hebrew into the Roman alphabet to show the fricative value of the letter kaph (כ) representing [x]. Used in Tlingit and Haida (among other Pacific Northwest languages) for the voiceless uvular stop [q]. Close to Korean ㄲ kk; closest English "shocking" Used optionally in the K-dialect of Māori in the South Island of New Zealand, where an original ng has merged with k. The ḵ indicates that it corresponds to ng in other dialects. There is no difference in pronunciation between ḵ and k.
Ḻ	U+1E3A	Ḻ	ḻ	U+1E3B	ḻ	One possible transliteration of the Dravidian retroflex approximant /ɻ/ as in Tamil letter ழ. Ḻ is used in the Seri language to represent [l], like English l, while unmodified "l" represents [ɬ], like Welsh ll. It is also used in the proposed Unified Alphabet for Mapudungun.
Ṉ	U+1E48	Ṉ	ṉ	U+1E49	ṉ	Used in Pitjantjatjara to represent [ɳ], and in Saanich to represent both plain and glottalized [ɴ]. In the romanization of Pashto, it is used sometimes to represent retroflex N. In Dravidian languages' transcription it represents an alveolar /n/.
Ṟ	U+1E5E	Ṟ	ṟ	U+1E5F	ṟ	Used in Pitjantjatjara to represent [ɻ], and sometimes in the romanization of Pashto to represent the retroflex R. In Dravidian languages' transcription it represents an alveolar trill /r/.
Ṯ	U+1E6E	Ṯ	ṯ	U+1E6F	ṯ	Used in the proposed Unified Alphabet for Mapudungun language representing [t̪]. In the romanization of Pashto, it is used sometimes to represent retroflex T. In Dravidian languages' transcription it represents an alveolar /t/. In the romanization of Arabic this letter is used to transcribe the letter Ṯāʾ.
Ẕ	U+1E94	Ẕ	ẕ	U+1E95	ẕ	Used in the 1953 Hebrew Academy Romanization of Hebrew to represent tsade (צ).
₫	U+20AB	₫				Vietnamese đồng.

Note that the Unicode character names of precomposed characters whose decompositions contain U+0331 ◌̱ COMBINING MACRON BELOW use "WITH LINE BELOW" rather than "WITH MACRON BELOW". Thus, U+1E07 ḇ LATIN SMALL LETTER B WITH LINE BELOW decomposes to U+0062 b LATIN SMALL LETTER B and U+0331 ◌̱ COMBINING MACRON BELOW.^[3]

The Vietnamese đồng currency sign resembles a lower case d with a stroke and macron below: U+20AB ₫ DONG SIGN but is neither a letter nor decomposable.^[4]

See also

• Underscore
• Macron

References

1. "Combining Diacritical Marks Code Chart, Range: 0300–036F" (PDF). The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
2. "6.2 General Punctuation" (PDF). The Unicode Standard. Version 11.0.0. Mountain View, CA: The Unicode Consortium. 2018. p. 273. ISBN 978-1-936213-19-1. Retrieved 2018-12-12. Spacing Overscores and Underscores. U+203E OVERLINE is the above-the-line counterpart to U+005F low line. It is a spacing character, not to be confused with U+0305 COMBINING OVERLINE. As with all overscores and underscores, a sequence of these characters should connect in an unbroken line. The overscoring characters also must be distinguished from U+0304 COMBINING MACRON, which does not connect horizontally in this way.
3. "Latin Extended Additional Code Chart, Range: 1E00–1EFF" (PDF). The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
4. "Unicode character database". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2016-11-21.