U+0304 "̄" Combining Macron Unicode Character

U+0304 "̄" Combining Macron is a diacritical mark that appears as a horizontal line placed above a base letter, used in various writing systems to modify pronunciation or indicate vowel length, such as in Latin transliterations of ancient Greek or in phonetic alphabets like the International Phonetic Alphabet. Unlike a non-combining macron encoded as a standalone character, this combining version is designed to attach directly to the preceding character, allowing for flexible positioning within digital text. Its inclusion in Unicode ensures consistent representation across platforms, supporting linguistic notation for languages like Māori, Latvian, and Hawaiian where the macron distinguishes meaning or grammatical function.