A caron ( ? ) or ha?ek (pronounced [?h??t???k] or [??a?t???k]), also known as a wedge, inverted circumflex, inverted hat, is a diacritic placed over certain letters to indicate present or historical palatalization, iotation, or postalveolar pronunciation in the orthography of some Baltic, Slavic, Finno-Lappic, and other languages.
It looks similar to a breve, but has a sharp tip, like an inverted circumflex (^), while a breve is rounded. Compare the caron: ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? to the breve: ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?.
The left (downward) stroke is usually thicker than the right (upward) stroke in serif typefaces.
The caron is also used as a symbol or modifier in mathematics.
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