Combining Left Half Ring Above

In UPA transcription, it marks a mediopalatal pronunciation. That means the middle of the tongue moves toward the middle of the roof of the mouth. The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) records speech sounds in Uralic languages, including Finnish and Hungarian. The mark gets its sound value from that system; its shape alone is not a pronunciation guide.

The system took shape because ordinary Latin or Cyrillic spelling could not distinguish every sound researchers needed to record. Setälä's consultations in 1892 led to use in published works in 1893, and he published a proposal in 1901. A Karjalainen sample dated 1948 contains this exact mark; that documents its use by then, not its invention.

The right half-ring above is a paired UPA mark with a different transcription job. In strict IPA references, a left half-ring below a letter marks less-rounded articulation; the two systems do not use these shapes as interchangeable keys.

How do I type it after a letter?

Enter a base letter, then ͑ immediately after it. Although it appears above the letter, it follows that letter in the text sequence. A space or line break leaves it without a base; a minimal test is a͑.

On Linux, press Ctrl+Shift+U, enter 0351, then press Enter. On Windows, hold Alt, press + on the numeric keypad, type 0351, and release Alt; Unicode hex input may need enabling. In source code, use the escape \u0351 after the base character when the language supports Unicode escapes.

Why does the half-ring look missing?

A font may fail to draw or place the mark. The text can be correct while the half-ring appears missing, detached, or misaligned. By itself, the mark may appear with a dotted-circle placeholder or as a floating fragment.

For phonetic text, Charis SIL and Doulos SIL are options; Praat's phonetic guidance recommends them for diacritics. Changing fonts can fix the display without changing the text sequence.