Latin epsilon
| Latin epsilon | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Ɛ ɛ | |||
| Usage | |||
| Writing system | Latin script | ||
| Type | Alphabetic and logographic | ||
| Sound values | |||
| In Unicode | U+0190, U+025B | ||
| History | |||
| Development |
| ||
| Other | |||
| Writing direction | Left-to-Right | ||
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] . 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; both letters are similar in shape with the Arabic ʿayn ⟨ع⟩.
Usage
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) uses various forms of the Latin epsilon:
- U+025B ɛ LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN E represents the open-mid front unrounded vowel
- U+025C ɜ LATIN SMALL LETTER REVERSED OPEN E represents the open-mid central unrounded vowel
- U+1D08 ᴈ LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED OPEN E was historically used between 1907–1979
- U+025D ɝ LATIN SMALL LETTER REVERSED OPEN E WITH HOOK represents the rhotacized open-mid central vowel
- U+025E ɞ LATIN SMALL LETTER CLOSED REVERSED OPEN E represents the open-mid central rounded vowel
- U+029A ʚ LATIN SMALL LETTER CLOSED OPEN E was used on the 1993 IPA chart
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
There are capital forms for usage in standard alphabets:
- U+0190 Ɛ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OPEN E
- U+A7AB Ɜ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER REVERSED 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, Yoruba (in Benin)
Nilo-Saharan
Dinka, Maasai, Nuer, Songhai, Zarma.
Unicode
Latin epsilon is called "Open E" in Unicode.[4]
| 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
- Open O
- Writing systems of Africa (section on Latin script)
- Open-mid front unrounded vowel
- Greek Epsilon
- Epsilon Ԑ (Cyrillic script)
References
- ^ a b Concise History of the Language Sciences. 2014. p. 154.
- ^ "Tamazight-Dzayer". Archived from the original on 2020-11-21.
- ^ Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF).
- ^ 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.