Combining Macron

Type the base letter first; insert the mark after it.

Combining marks follow their base in stored text. In Māori spelling, tohutō is the long-vowel mark; put this one after its vowel. If the mark comes first, it has no letter to modify; if another character intervenes, it attaches to that character instead. Multiple marks may stack over one base, and Unicode normalization can reorder them into canonical order.

A language keyboard may enter a complete accented letter instead. It can look like a base plus this mark while being stored differently.

What does a macron mean in different languages?

The writing system decides whether it marks length, tone, or teaching notation.

Long-vowel marks developed across writing traditions rather than in one identifiable invention. In Roman writing, an apex—an earlier sign written above a vowel—marked vowel length; its earliest dated evidence is 104 BC. Its use varied by place, period, writing context, and the writer’s training. A later account credits Aristophanes of Byzantium with signs for Greek speech rhythm and syllable length, but the source behind that credit has a doubtful history.

Māori macrons mark long vowels; Pinyin uses the bar for first tone; Latin teaching materials use it to show vowel length for pronunciation and the rhythm of classical poetry. As of 2026, New Zealand guidance records some Waikato-Tainui Māori spellings with doubled vowels instead of macrons, so a macron-less form is not automatically a mistake in that convention.