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Name

In English, the name of the letter is the "long E" sound, pronounced /ˈiː/. In most other languages, its name matches the letter's pronunciation in open syllables.

History

The Latin letter 'E' differs little from its source, the Greek letter epsilon, 'Ε'. This in turn comes from the Semitic letter hê, which has been suggested to have started as a praying or calling human figure (hillul, 'jubilation'), and was most likely based on a similar Egyptian hieroglyph that indicated a different pronunciation.

In Semitic, the letter represented /h/ (and /e/ in foreign words); in Greek, hê became the letter epsilon, used to represent /e/. The various forms of the Old Italic script and the Latin alphabet followed this usage.

Use in writing systems

English

Although Middle English spelling used ⟨e⟩ to represent long and short /e/, the Great Vowel Shift changed long /eː/ (as in me or bee) to /iː/ while short /ɛ/ (as in met or bed) remained a mid vowel. In unstressed syllables, this letter is usually pronounced either as /ɪ/ or /ə/. In other cases, the letter is silent, generally at the end of words like queue.

Other languages

In the orthography of many languages, it represents either [e], [e̞], [ɛ], or some variation (such as a nasalized version) of these sounds, often with diacritics (as: ⟨e ê é è ë ē ĕ ě ẽ ė ẹ ę ẻ⟩) to indicate contrasts. Less commonly, as in French, German, or Saanich, ⟨e⟩ represents a mid-central vowel /ə/. Digraphs with ⟨e⟩ are common to indicate either diphthongs or monophthongs, such as ⟨ea⟩ or ⟨ee⟩ for /iː/ or /eɪ/ in English, ⟨ei⟩ for /aɪ/ in German, and ⟨eu⟩ for /ø/ in French or /ɔɪ/ in German.

Other systems

The International Phonetic Alphabet uses ⟨e⟩ for the close-mid front unrounded vowel or the mid front unrounded vowel.

Frequency

E is the most common (or highest-frequency) letter in the English language alphabet and several other European languages,⁷ which has implications in both cryptography and data compression. This makes it a harder letter to use when writing lipograms.

Other uses

Main article: E (disambiguation)

• In the hexadecimal (base 16) numbering system, "E" corresponds to the number 14 in decimal (base 10) counting.
• "e" is also commonly used to denote Euler's number.

Related characters

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

• E with diacritics: Ĕ ĕ Ḝ ḝ Ȇ ȇ Ê ê Ê̄ ê̄ Ê̌ ê̌ Ề ề Ế ế Ể ể Ễ ễ Ệ ệ Ẻ ẻ Ḙ ḙ Ě ě Ɇ ɇ Ė ė Ė́ ė́ Ė̃ ė̃ Ẹ ẹ Ë ë È è È̩ è̩ Ȅ ȅ É é É̩ Ē ē Ḕ ḕ Ḗ ḗ Ẽ ẽ Ḛ ḛ Ę ę Ę́ ę́ Ę̃ ę̃ Ȩ ȩ E̩ e̩ ᶒ⁸
• ⱸ: E with notch is used in the Swedish Dialect Alphabet⁹
• Æ æ: Latin AE ligature
• Œ œ: Latin OE ligature
• The umlaut diacritic ¨ used above a vowel letter in German and other languages to indicate a fronted or front vowel (this sign originated as a superscript e)
• Phonetic alphabet symbols related to E (the International Phonetic Alphabet only uses lowercase, but uppercase forms are used in some other writing systems):
  • Ɛ ɛ: Latin letter epsilon / open e, which represents an open-mid front unrounded vowel in the IPA
  • ᶓ: Epsilon / open e with retroflex hook¹⁰
  • Ɜ ɜ: Latin letter reversed epsilon / open e, which represents an open-mid central unrounded vowel in the IPA
  • ɝ: Latin small letter reversed epsilon / open e with hook, which represents a rhotacized open-mid central vowel in the IPA
  • ᶔ: Reversed epsilon / open e with retroflex hook¹¹
  • ᶟ: Modifier letter small reversed epsilon / open e¹²
  • ɞ: Latin small letter closed reversed open e, which represents an open-mid central rounded vowel in IPA (shown as ʚ on the 1993 IPA chart)
  • 𐞏: Modifier letter small closed reversed open e, which is a superscript IPA letter¹³
  • Ə ə: Latin letter schwa, which represents a mid central vowel in the IPA
  • Ǝ ǝ: Latin letter turned e, which is used in the writing systems of some African languages
  • ɘ: Latin letter reversed e, which represents a close-mid central unrounded vowel in the IPA
  • 𐞎: Modifier letter small reversed e, which is a superscript IPA letter¹⁴
• The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet uses various forms of e and epsilon / open e:¹⁵
  • U+1D07 ᴇ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL E
  • U+1D08 ᴈ LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED OPEN E
  • U+1D31 ᴱ MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL E
  • U+1D32 ᴲ MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL REVERSED E
  • U+1D49 ᵉ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL E
  • U+1D4B ᵋ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL OPEN E
  • U+1D4C ᵌ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL TURNED OPEN E
  • U+2C7B ⱻ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL TURNED E¹⁶
• e: Subscript small e is used in Indo-European studies¹⁷
• Teuthonista phonetic transcription system symbols related to E:¹⁸
  • U+AB32 ꬲ LATIN SMALL LETTER BLACKLETTER E
  • U+AB33 ꬳ LATIN SMALL LETTER BARRED E
  • U+AB34 ꬴ LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH FLOURISH

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

• 𐤄: Semitic letter He (letter), from which the following symbols originally derive:
  • Ε ε: Greek letter Epsilon, from which the following symbols originally derive:
    • Е е: Cyrillic letter Ye
    • Є є: Ukrainian Ye
    • Э э: Cyrillic letter E
    • Ⲉ ⲉ: Coptic letter Ei
    • 𐌄: Old Italic E, which is the ancestor of modern Latin E
      • ᛖ: Runic letter Ehwaz, which is possibly a descendant of Old Italic E
    • 𐌴: Gothic letter eyz

Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations

• €: Euro sign.
• ℮: estimated sign (used on prepackaged goods for sale within the European Union).
• e: the symbol for the elementary charge (the electric charge carried by a single proton).
• ∃: existential quantifier in predicate logic. It is read "there exists ... such that".
• ∈: the symbol for set membership in set theory.
• 𝑒: the base of the natural logarithm.

Other representations

Computing

Other

In British Sign Language (BSL), the letter 'e' is signed by extending the index finger of the right hand touching the tip of index on the left hand, with all fingers of left hand open.

See also

• E notation: used by scientific calculators to indicate a power of ten multiplier
• E-number – Codes for food additivesPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets

Notes

External links

• Media related to E at Wikimedia Commons
• The dictionary definition of E at Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of e at Wiktionary

References

1. "E". Oxford Dictionary of English (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. 2010. ISBN 9780199571123. noun (plural Es or E's) 9780199571123 ↩

2. Kelk, Brian. "Letter frequencies". Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved February 2, 2022. https://www.bckelk.org.uk/words/etaoin.html ↩

3. Lewand, Robert. "Relative Frequencies of Letters in General English Plain text". Cryptographical Mathematics. Central College. Archived from the original on July 8, 2008. Retrieved June 25, 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20080708193159/http://pages.central.edu/emp/LintonT/classes/spring01/cryptography/letterfreq.html ↩

4. "Frequency of Occurrence of Letters in Spanish". Santa Cruz Public Libraries. Archived from the original on May 11, 2008. Retrieved June 25, 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20080511220207/http://www.santacruzpl.org/readyref/files/g-l/ltfrqsp.shtml ↩

5. "Frequency of Occurrence of Letters in French". Santa Cruz Public Libraries. Archived from the original on March 12, 2008. Retrieved June 25, 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20080312222737/http://www.santacruzpl.org/readyref/files/g-l/ltfrqfr.shtml ↩

6. "Frequency of Occurrence of Letters in German". Santa Cruz Public Libraries. Archived from the original on June 28, 2012. Retrieved June 25, 2008. https://archive.today/20120628214132/http://scplweb.santacruzpl.org/readyref/files/g-l/ltfrqger.shtml ↩

7. Grigas, Gintautas; Juškevičienė, Anita (March 26, 2018). "Letter Frequency Analysis of Languages Using Latin Alphabet". International Linguistics Research. 1 (1): 18. doi:10.30560/ilr.v1n1p18. ISSN 2576-2982. https://doi.org/10.30560%2Filr.v1n1p18 ↩

8. Constable, Peter (April 19, 2004). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04132-n2740-phonetic.pdf ↩

9. Lemonen, Therese; Ruppel, Klaas; Kolehmainen, Erkki I.; Sandström, Caroline (January 26, 2006). "L2/06-036: Proposal to encode characters for Ordbok över Finlands svenska folkmål in the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on July 6, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2006/06036-lma-proposal.pdf ↩

10. Constable, Peter (April 19, 2004). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04132-n2740-phonetic.pdf ↩

11. Constable, Peter (April 19, 2004). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04132-n2740-phonetic.pdf ↩

12. Constable, Peter (April 19, 2004). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04132-n2740-phonetic.pdf ↩

13. Miller, Kirk; Ashby, Michael (November 8, 2020). "L2/20-252R: Unicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), pulmonic" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on July 30, 2021. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20252r-mod-ipa-a.pdf ↩

14. Miller, Kirk; Ashby, Michael (November 8, 2020). "L2/20-252R: Unicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), pulmonic" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on July 30, 2021. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20252r-mod-ipa-a.pdf ↩

15. Everson, Michael; et al. (March 20, 2002). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on February 19, 2018. Retrieved March 24, 2018. /wiki/Michael_Everson ↩

16. Ruppel, Klaas; Rueter, Jack; Kolehmainen, Erkki I. (April 7, 2006). "L2/06-215: Proposal for Encoding 3 Additional Characters of the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on July 6, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2006/06215-n3070.pdf ↩

17. Anderson, Deborah; Everson, Michael (June 7, 2004). "L2/04-191: Proposal to encode six Indo-Europeanist phonetic characters in the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04191-n2788-laryngeals.pdf ↩

18. Everson, Michael; Dicklberger, Alois; Pentzlin, Karl; Wandl-Vogt, Eveline (June 2, 2011). "L2/11-202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2011/11202-n4081-teuthonista.pdf ↩

19. Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings. ↩