Latin epsilon

Not to be confused with the Greek letter ε or the Cyrillic letter Ԑ.
Ɛ
Ɛ ɛ
Upper and lower case Latin Epsilon
Usage
Writing systemLatin script
TypeAlphabetic and Logographic
Sound values
In UnicodeU+0190, U+025B
History
Development
A28
Other
Writing directionLeft-to-Right
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
Fante translation of the Book of Mormon; note the use of the Latin epsilon in the word N'AHYƐMU.

Latin epsilon or open E (majuscule: Ɛ, minuscule: ɛ) is a letter of the extended Latin alphabet, based on the lowercase of the Greek letter epsilon (ε). It was introduced in the 16th century by Gian Giorgio Trissino[1] to represent the pronunciation of the "open e" (the letter e pronounced as the open-mid front unrounded vowel) in the Italian language; this use of the letter has since become the standard in IPA notation[1] (see § Use in phonetic alphabets, below). Since the 20th century, the letter also occurs in the orthographies of many Niger–Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages, such as Ewe, Akan, Lingala, Dinka and Maasai, for the vowel [ɛ] or [e̙], and is included in the African reference alphabet.

In the Berber Latin alphabet used in Algerian Berber school books,[2] and before that proposed by the French institute INALCO, it represents a voiced pharyngeal fricative [ʕ]. Some authors use ƹayin ⟨ƹ⟩ instead;[citation needed] both letters are similar in shape with the Arabic ʿayn ⟨ع⟩.

Use in phonetic alphabets

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) uses various forms of the Latin epsilon:

The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet uses various forms of the Latin epsilon:[3]

  • U+1D08 ᴈ LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED OPEN E
  • U+1D4B ᵋ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL OPEN E
  • U+1D4C ᵌ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL TURNED OPEN E

List of languages that use Latin epsilon

Niger-Congo

Akan, Bambara, Baule, Dagbani, Dogon, Douala. Ewe, Fante, Frafra, Fon, Ga, Jula, Kabiye, Kpelle, Kuya, Lingala, Loma, Mende, Moore, Soninke, Twi, Vai.

Nilo-Saharan

Dinka, Maasai, Nuer, Songhai, Zarma.

Unicode

Latin epsilon is called "Open E" in Unicode.[4]

It looks similar to the lowercase epsilon.
Character information
Preview Ɛ ɛ
Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OPEN E LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN E
Encodings decimal hex dec hex
Unicode 400 U+0190 603 U+025B
UTF-8 198 144 C6 90 201 155 C9 9B
Numeric character reference Ɛ Ɛ ɛ ɛ

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Concise History of the Language Sciences. 2014. p. 154.
  2. ^ "Tamazight-Dzayer". Archived from the original on 2020-11-21.
  3. ^ Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF).
  4. ^ Asmus Freytag; Rick McGowan; Ken Whistler (2006-05-08). "Unicode Technical Note #27: Known Anomalies in Unicode Character Names". The Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 2009-02-24. This is actually a Latin epsilon and should have been so called.