Combining Circumflex Below

Type the letter first, then ̭ immediately after it. This is a separate, nonspacing character, so in h̭ it attaches to h. Keep both characters together.

As of 2026, the BBAW AAEW-US_Int-QWERTY Egyptological layout maps [@]-[h] to h̭. Other keyboards differ; placing the mark after its base is the reliable rule.

In 2020, a Unicode report noted that h̭ can shift sideways in italics. Fonts position the mark differently; a font with suitable combining-mark anchors may center it better. Alone, it may appear on a dotted-circle placeholder, ◌̭.

What does ̭ mean in phonetic writing?

Its reading depends on the transcription system. Americanist phonetic notation uses it for fronted articulation, with the tongue placed farther forward. A 1916 American Anthropological Association report on transcribing Indigenous languages uses the related inverted-breve form ◌̯ for this reading; Unicode lists ◌̯ as a variant of ◌̭.

Other conventions assign other jobs: Tshivenda uses it to distinguish consonants made at the teeth (dental) from those made at the ridge just behind them (alveolar); Uralic transcription uses it under a vowel for a raised variant; and Demotic Egyptian transliteration uses h̭ as a specialist letter form. The shared shape does not make the readings interchangeable.