HalbeegThe open encyclopediaAf-Soomaali
ArticleTalkReadView history

E (letter)

From Halbeeg, the open encyclopedia · Af-Soomaali

164 languages
E ace
E af
E als
E am
E an
E ang
E ar
E arc
E ast
E az
E azb
E ban
E bat-smg
E bcl
E bew
E bg
E bn
E bol
E bs
E ca
E cdo
E ckb
E co
E crh
E cs
E csb
E cv
E cy
E da
E de
E din
E diq
E ee
E el
E eml
E en
E eo
E es
E et
E eu
E fa
E fi
E fj
E fo
E frp
E fur
E fy
E ga
E gan
E gd
E gl
E gn
E gor
E gv
E ha
E hak
E he
E hi
E hr
E hsb
E hu
E id
E ig
E ilo
E io
E is
E it
E ja
E jv
E ka
E kge
E knc
E ko
E ks
E kv
E kw
E la
E lb
E lg
E lij
E lmo
E lt
E lv
E mg
E ml
E mni
E mr
E ms
E mzn
E nah
E nap
E nds
E nn
E no
E nrm
E oc
E om
E pag
E pl
É! pms
E pt
E qu
E ro
E sco
E se
E sh
E simple
E sk
E sl
E smn
E sn
E srn
E stq
E su
E sv
E sw
E ta
E tdd
E te
E th
E tk
E tl
E tn
E tr
E tt
E tyv
E ur
E vec
E vep
E vi
E vo
E wa
E war
E wuu
E xmf
E yi
E yo
E zh
E zh-min-nan
E zh-yue
E zu
E (xaraf)
San-serif shown in Neue Helvetica 48 pt.. Serifs shown in Bodoni 48 pt..Eirik1231 · Public domain · Commons

E is the fifth letter of the Latin alphabet and one of the basic vowels. It is written in two forms: the capital 'E' and the lowercase 'e'. It is among the most frequently used letters in many European languages, particularly English and French.

In Somali, which has been written in the Latin alphabet since the adoption of the official orthography in 1972, the letter E functions as a vowel. Like the other vowels in Somali, it can be written double (ee) to indicate vowel length, as in the words 'keen' and 'been'.

History of the letter's form

The origin of the letter can be traced to Phoenician script, where a symbol called he represented a glottal fricative consonant. When the Greeks adopted that alphabet, they repurposed this symbol as a vowel and named it epsilon. The Romans took the form from Greek, passing through earlier Italian alphabets such as Etruscan.

The sounds it represents

The sound represented by E varies across languages. In some languages it represents a vowel produced with the tongue positioned forward in the mouth, whereas in others, such as English, it can stand for various vowels depending on the position of the letter in the word. English also has cases where E at the end of a word is silent but affects the pronunciation of the vowel before it.

Diacritical marks

Many languages add diacritical marks to E to distinguish different sounds or meanings. Common examples are é, è, ê, and ë, which are used regularly in French and other European languages. Standard Somali orthography does not use these marks.

NoteNote: The term 'vowel' refers to a sound produced with air flowing freely from the mouth; its counterpart is 'consonant'.
Categories:285 words · 0 sources