classical latin had both vowel and consonant lengthening, and long vowels had a macron, or a straight horizontal line, written above them. in classical latin, "ānus ("/ˈaː.nus/), "annus ("/ˈan.nus/), and "anus" (/ˈa.nus/) were all different words. "ānus" means "buttocks", "annus" means year, and "anus" means old woman. today, none of the romance languages, the languages that are daughter languages of latin, can distinguish words by vowel length, though italian can distinguish words by consonant length: /anno/ "year", /ano/ "anus". italian also has vowel lengthening in accented syllables ending in a vowel, but vowel length cannot make the difference between two words as it could in latin.