Editing Caron (section)

== Usage ==
For the fricatives ''š'' {{IPA|[ʃ]}}, ''ž'' {{IPA|[ʒ]}}, and the affricate ''č'' {{IPA|[tʃ]}} only, the caron is used in most northwestern Uralic languages that use the Latin alphabet, such as [[Karelian language|Karelian]], [[Veps language|Veps]], [[Northern Sami]], and [[Inari Sámi language|Inari Sami]] (although not in [[Southern Sami]]). [[Estonian language|Estonian]] and [[Finnish language|Finnish]] use ''š'' and ''ž'' (but not ''č''), but only for transcribing foreign names and loanwords (albeit common loanwords such as {{lang|fi|šekki}} or {{lang|fi|tšekk}} 'check'); the sounds (and letters) are native and common in Karelian, Veps, and Sami.{{fact|date=August 2024}}

In [[Italian language|Italian]], ''š'', ''ž'', and ''č'' are routinely used as in Slovenian to transcribe [[Slavic languages|Slavic]] names in the [[Cyrillic script]] since in native Italian words, the sounds represented by these letters must be followed by a vowel, and Italian uses ''ch'' for {{IPA|/k/}}, not {{IPA|/tʃ/}}. Other [[Romance languages]], by contrast, tend to use their own orthographies, or in a few cases such as Spanish, borrow English ''sh'' or ''zh''.{{fact|date=August 2024}}

The caron is also used in the [[Romani alphabets|Romany alphabet]]. The [[Faggin-Nazzi]] writing system for [[Friulian language|Friulian]] makes use of the caron over the letters ''c'', ''g'', and ''s''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.friul.net/dizionario_nazzi/norme_ortografiche.php |title=Norme ortografiche della Grafia Faggin-Nazzi |publisher=Friul.net |access-date=2013-10-06 |language=it }}</ref>

The caron is also often used as a diacritical mark on consonants for [[romanization]] of text from non-Latin writing systems, particularly in the [[scientific transliteration]] of Slavic languages. Philologists and the standard Finnish orthography often prefer using it to express sounds for which English require a digraph (''sh, ch'', and ''zh'') because most Slavic languages use only one character to spell the sounds (the key exceptions are Polish ''[[sz (digraph)|sz]]'' and ''[[List of Latin digraphs|cz]]''). Its use for that purpose can even be found in the United States because certain [[atlas]]es use it in romanization of foreign [[toponymy|place name]]s. On the typographical side, Š/š and Ž/ž are likely the easiest among non-Western European diacritic characters to adopt for Westerners because the two are part of the [[Windows-1252]] character encoding.{{fact|date=August 2024}}

[[Esperanto]] uses the [[circumflex]] over ''c'', ''g'', ''h'', ''j'', and ''s'' in similar ways; the circumflex was chosen because there was no caron on most Western European [[typewriter]]s, but the circumflex existed on [[French language|French]] ones.{{fact|date=August 2024}}

It is also used as an accent mark on vowels to indicate the [[Standard Chinese phonology#Tones|tone]] of a syllable. The main example is in [[Pinyin]] for [[Chinese language|Chinese]] in which it represents a falling-rising tone. It is used in transliterations of [[Thai language|Thai]] to indicate a rising tone.{{fact|date=August 2024}}

=== Phonetics ===
The caron {{angbr IPA|ǎ}} represents a rising tone in the [[International Phonetic Alphabet#Suprasegmentals|International Phonetic Alphabet]]. It is used in the [[Uralic Phonetic Alphabet]] for indicating postalveolar consonants and in [[Americanist phonetic notation]] to indicate various types of pronunciation.{{fact|date=August 2024}}

The caron below {{angbr IPA|p̬}} represents [[voice (phonetics)|voicing]].{{fact|date=August 2024}}

=== Writing and printing carons ===
In printed Czech and Slovak text, the caron combined with certain letters (lower-case ť, ď, ľ, and upper-case Ľ) is reduced to a small stroke. That is optional in handwritten text. Latin fonts are typically set to display this way by default. In some applications, using the [[combining grapheme joiner]], U+034F, between the letter and the combining mark, as in t͏̌, d͏̌, l͏̌, may prevent the caron from looking like a small stroke of the canonical characters.

In [[Laz language|Lazuri]] orthography, the lower-case ''k'' with caron sometimes has its caron reduced to a stroke while the lower-case ''t'' with caron preserves its caron shape.<ref>[http://www.lazuri.com/fonts/index.php Lazuri Font / Lazca Font, Lazca yazı karakterleri], Lazuri.com</ref>

Although the stroke looks similar to an [[apostrophe]], the [[kerning]] is significantly different. Using an apostrophe in place of a caron can be perceived as very unprofessional, but it is still often found on imported goods meant for sale in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (compare t’ to ť, L’ahko to Ľahko). (Apostrophes appearing as palatalization marks in some [[Finnic languages]], such as [[Võro language|Võro]] and [[Karelian language|Karelian]], are not forms of caron either.) Foreigners also sometimes mistake the caron for the [[acute accent]] (compare Ĺ to Ľ, ĺ to ľ).{{fact|date=August 2024}}

=== In Balto-Slavic languages ===
The following are the [[Czech language|Czech]] and [[Slovak language|Slovak]] letters and [[digraph (orthography)|digraph]]s with the caron (Czech: {{lang|cs|háček}}, Slovak: {{lang|sk|mäkčeň}}):
* [[Č|Č/č]] (pronounced {{IPA|cs|t͡ʃ|}}, similar to 'ch' in ''cheap'': {{lang|cs|Česká republika}}, which means [[Czech Republic]])
* [[Š|Š/š]] (pronounced {{IPA|cs|ʃ|}}, similar to 'sh' in ''she'': in {{lang|cs|[[Škoda (disambiguation)|Škoda]]}} {{Audio|Cs-Skoda.ogg|listen}})
* [[Ž|Ž/ž]] (pronounced {{IPA|cs|ʒ|}}, similar to 's' in ''treasure'': {{lang|cs|žal}} 'sorrow')
* [[Ř|Ř/ř]] (only in Czech: a special voiced or unvoiced fricative trill {{IPA|[r̝]}} or {{IPA|[r̝̊]}}, the former transcribed as {{IPA|[ɼ]}} in pre-1989 IPA: [[Antonín Dvořák]] {{Audio|Cs-Antonin_Dvorak.ogg|listen}})
* [[Ď|Ď/ď]], [[Ť|Ť/ť]], [[Ň|Ň/ň]] (palatals, pronounced {{IPA|cs|ɟ|}}, {{IPA|[c]}}, {{IPA|[ɲ]}}, slightly different from palatalized consonants as found in Russian): {{lang|cs|Ďábel a sťatý kůň}}, 'The Devil and a beheaded horse')
* [[Ľ|Ľ/ľ]] (only in Slovak, pronounced as palatal {{IPA|[ʎ]}}: {{lang|sk|podnikateľ}}, 'businessman')
* [[Dž|DŽ/Dž/dž]] (considered a single letter in Slovak, Macedonian, and [[Serbo-Croatian]], two letters in Czech, pronounced {{IPA|cs|d͡ʒ|}} {{lang|sk|džungľa}} "jungle" - identical to the ''j'' sound in ''jungle'' and the ''g'' in ''genius'', found mostly in borrowings.)
* [[Ě|Ě/ě]] (only in Czech) indicates mostly palatalization of preceding consonant: 
** {{lang|cs|dě}}, {{lang|cs|tě}}, {{lang|cs|ně}} are {{IPA|cs|ɟɛ|}}, {{IPA|[cɛ]}}, {{IPA|[ɲɛ]}}; 
** but {{lang|cs|mě}} is {{IPA|[mɲɛ]}} or {{IPA|[mjɛ]}}, and {{lang|cs|bě}}, {{lang|cs|pě}}, {{lang|cs|vě}}, {{lang|cs|fě}} are {{IPA|[bjɛ, pjɛ, vjɛ, fjɛ]}}.
* Furthermore, until the 19th century, [[Ǧ|Ǧ/ǧ]] was used to represent {{IPA|cs|g|}} while [[G|G/g]] was used to represent {{IPA|cs|j|}}.

In [[Lower Sorbian language|Lower Sorbian]] and [[Upper Sorbian language|Upper Sorbian]], the following letters and digraphs have the caron:
* Č/č (pronounced {{IPAblink|t͡ʃ}} like 'ch' in ''cheap'')
* Š/š (pronounced {{IPAblink|ʃ}} like 'sh' in ''she'')
* Ž/ž (pronounced {{IPAblink|ʒ}} like 's' in ''treasure'')
* Ř/ř (only in Upper Sorbian: pronounced {{IPAblink|ʃ}} like 'sh' in ''she'')
* Tř/tř (digraph, only in Upper Sorbian, soft (palatalized) {{IPAblink|t͡s}} sound)
* Ě/ě (pronounced {{IPAblink|e}} like 'e' in ''bed'')

Balto-Slavic [[Serbo-Croatian language|Serbo-Croatian]], [[Slovene language|Slovenian]], [[Latvian language|Latvian]] and [[Lithuanian language|Lithuanian]] use č, š and ž. The digraph dž is also used in these languages but is considered a separate letter only in Serbo-Croatian. The [[Belarusian language|Belarusian]] [[Belarusian Latin alphabet|Lacinka alphabet]] also contains the digraph dž (as a separate letter), and Latin transcriptions of [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]] and [[Macedonian language|Macedonian]] may use them at times, for transcription of the letter-combination ДЖ (Bulgarian) and the letter Џ (Macedonian).

===In Uralic languages===
In the [[Finnic languages]], [[Estonian language|Estonian]] (and transcriptions to [[Finnish language|Finnish]]) uses Š/š and Ž/ž, and [[Karelian language|Karelian]] uses Č/č, Š/š and Ž/ž. Dž is not a separate letter. Č is present because it may be phonemically [[gemination|geminate]]: in Karelian, the phoneme 'čč' is found, and is distinct from 'č', which is not the case in Finnish or Estonian, for which only one length is recognized for 'tš'. (Incidentally, in transcriptions, Finnish orthography has to employ complicated notations like {{lang|fi|mettšä}} or even the {{lang|fi|mettshä}} to express Karelian {{lang|krl|meččä}}.) On some Finnish keyboards, it is possible to write those letters by typing ''s'' or ''z'' while holding right [[Alt key]] or [[AltGr key]], though that is not supported by the Microsoft Windows keyboard device driver KBDFI.DLL for the Finnish language. The Finnish multilingual keyboard layout allows typing the letters [[Š|Š/š]] and [[Ž|Ž/ž]] by pressing AltGr+'+S for [[š]] and AltGr+'+Z for [[ž]].

In Estonian, Finnish and Karelian these are ''not'' [[Palatalization (sound change)|palatalized]] but postalveolar consonants. For example, Estonian {{lang|et|Nissi}} (palatalized) is distinct from {{lang|et|nišši}} (postalveolar). [[Palatalization (sound change)|Palatalization]] is typically ignored in spelling, but some Karelian and Võro orthographies use an [[apostrophe]] (') or an acute accent (´). In Finnish and Estonian, ''š'' and ''ž'' (and in Estonian, very rarely ''č'') appear in loanwords and foreign [[Noun|proper names]] only and when not available, they can be substituted with 'h': 'sh' for 'š', in print.

In the orthographies of the [[Sami languages]], the letters Č/č, Š/š and Ž/ž appear in [[Northern Sami]], [[Inari Sámi language|Inari Sami]] and [[Skolt Sami language|Skolt Sami]]. Skolt Sami also uses three other consonants with the caron: Ǯ/ǯ ([[ezh]]-caron) to mark the voiced postalveolar affricate {{IPA|[dʒ]}} (plain Ʒ/ʒ marks the alveolar affricate {{IPA|[dz]}}), Ǧ/ǧ to mark the voiced palatal affricate {{IPA|[ɟʝ]}} and Ǩ/ǩ the corresponding voiceless palatal affricate {{IPA|[cç]}}. More often than not, they are geminated: ''vuäǯǯad'' "to get". The orthographies of the more southern Sami languages of Sweden and Norway such as [[Lule Sami]] do not use caron, and prefer instead the [[digraph (orthography)|digraphs]] ''tj'' and ''sj''.

==== Finno-Ugric transcription ====
Most other Uralic languages (including [[Kildin Sami]]) are normally written with [[Cyrillic]] instead of the Latin script. In their scientific [[Phonetic transcription|transcription]], the [[Finno-Ugric Transcription]] / [[Uralic Phonetic Alphabet]] however employs the letters ''š'', ''ž'' and occasionally ''č'', ''ǯ'' (alternately ''tš'', ''dž'') for the postalveolar consonants. These serve as basic letters, and with further diacritics are used to transcribe also other fricative and affricate sounds. [[Retroflex consonant]]s are marked by a caron and an [[underdot]] (''ṣ̌'', ''ẓ̌'' = IPA {{IPA|[ʂ]}}, {{IPA|[ʐ]}}), [[alveolo-palatal]] (palatalized postalveolar) consonants by a caron and an [[acute accent|acute]] (''š́'', ''ž́'' = IPA {{IPA|[ɕ]}}, {{IPA|[ʑ]}}). Thus, for example, the postalveolar consonants of the [[Udmurt language|Udmurt]] language, normally written as Ж/ж, Ӝ/ӝ, Ӵ/ӵ, Ш/ш are in Uralic studies normally transcribed as ''ž'', ''ǯ'', ''č'', ''š'' respectively, and the alveolo-palatal consonants normally written as Зь/зь, Ӟ/ӟ, Сь/сь, Ч/ч are normally transcribed as ''ž́'', ''ǯ́'', ''š́'', ''č́'' respectively.<ref>{{cite book|first=Karoly|last=Rédei|chapter=A votják nyelvjárások fonematikus átírása|pages=88–91|title=FU-transcription yksinkertaistaminen|editor1-first=Lauri|editor1-last=Posti|year=1973|location=Helsinki}}</ref>

===In other languages===

In the [[Berber Latin alphabet]] of the [[Berber language]] (North Africa) the following letters and digraphs are used with the caron:

* Č/č (pronounced {{IPAblink|t͡ʃ}} like the English "ch" in China)
* Ǧ/ǧ (pronounced {{IPAblink|d͡ʒ}} like the English "j" in the words "joke" and "James")
* Ř/ř (only in [[Riffian Berber]]: pronounced {{IPA|[r]}}) (no English equivalent).

[[Finnish Kalo language|Finnish Kalo]] uses Ȟ/ȟ.

[[Lakota language|Lakota]] uses Č/č, Š/š, Ž/ž, Ǧ/ǧ (voiced post-velar fricative) and Ȟ/ȟ (plain post-velar fricative).

[[Indonesian language|Indonesian]] uses ě (e with caron) informally to mark the [[schwa]] ({{langx|id|pepet}}).

Many alphabets of African languages use the caron to mark the rising tone, as in the [[African reference alphabet]].

Outside of the Latin alphabet, the caron is also used for [[Cypriot Greek]] letters that have a different sound from [[Standard Modern Greek]]: σ̌ κ̌ π̌ τ̌ ζ̌ in words like {{lang|el-CY|τζ̌αι}} ('and'), {{lang|el-CY|κάτ̌τ̌ος}} ('cat').

=== Other transcription and transliteration systems ===

The [[DIN 31635]] standard for transliteration of Arabic uses Ǧ/ǧ to represent the letter {{lang|ar|[[ج]]}}. ''[[Gimel|{{transliteration|ar|DIN|ǧīm}}]]'', on account of the inconsistent pronunciation of [[J]] in European languages, the variable pronunciation of the letter in [[Modern Standard Arabic|educated Arabic]] {{IPA|[{{IPAplink|d͡ʒ}}~{{IPAplink|ʒ}}~{{IPAplink|ɟ}}~{{IPAplink|ɡ}}]}}, and the desire of the DIN committee to have a one-to-one correspondence of Arabic to Latin letters in its system.

Romanization of [[Pashto language|Pashto]] uses Č/č, Š/š, Ž/ž, X̌/x̌, to represent the letters &lrm;چ&lrm;, &lrm;ش&lrm;, &lrm;ژ&lrm;, &lrm;ښ&lrm;, respectively. Additionally, Ṣ̌/ṣ̌ and Ẓ̌/ẓ̌ are used by the southern Pashto dialect only (replaced by X̌/x̌ and Ǵ/ǵ in the north). {{citation needed|date=June 2015}}

The latter Š/š is also used to transcribe the {{IPAslink|ʃ}} phoneme in [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] and [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] cuneiform, and the {{IPAslink|ʃ}} phoneme in [[Semitic languages]] represented by the letter [[Shin (letter)|shin]] (Phoenician [[File:Phoenician sin.svg|16px]] and its descendants).

The caron is also used in [[Standard Chinese|Mandarin Chinese]] [[pinyin]] romanization and orthographies of several other [[tonal language]]s to indicate the "falling-rising" [[tone (linguistics)|tone]] (similar to the pitch made when asking "Huh?"). The caron can be placed over the vowels: ǎ, ě, ǐ, ǒ, ǔ, ǚ. The alternative to a caron is a number 3 after the syllable: {{lang|zh-Latn|hǎo}} = {{lang|zh-Latn|hao3}}, as the "falling-rising" tone is the third tone in [[Mandarin Chinese|Mandarin]].

The caron is used in the [[D'ni language#New Transliteration System (NTS)|New Transliteration System]] of [[Myst (series)|D'ni]] in the symbol š to represent the sound {{IPAblink|ʃ}} (English "sh").

A-caron (ǎ) is also used to transliterate the [[Cyrillic script|Cyrillic]] letter [[Ъ]] ({{lang|bg-Latn|er golyam}}) in [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]]—it represents the [[mid back unrounded vowel]] {{IPAblink|ɤ̞}}.

Caron marks a falling and rising tone (bǔ, bǐ) in [[Fon language|Fon]] languages.