In English, use of the ligature varies between different places and contexts, but it is fairly rare. In modern typography, if technological limitations make the use of æ difficult (such as in use of typewriters, telegraphs, or ASCII), the digraphae is often used instead.
In Old English, æ represented a sound between a and e (/æ/), very much like the short a of cat in many dialects of Modern English. If long vowels are distinguished from short vowels, the long version /æː/ is marked with a macron (ǣ) or, less commonly, an acute (ǽ).
In the United States, the issue of the ligature is sidestepped in many cases by use of a simplified spelling with "e", as happened with œ as well; thus medieval is more commonly used than mediaeval in American English.[2] Usage of the ae diphthong, however, may vary. For example medieval is now more common than mediaeval (and the now old-fashioned mediæval), even in the United Kingdom.[3]
French
In the modern French alphabet, æ (called e-dans-l'a, 'e in the a') is used to spell Latin and Greek borrowings like curriculum vitæ, et cætera, ex æquo, tænia, and the first name Lætitia.[4] It is mentioned in the name of Serge Gainsbourg's song Elaeudanla Téïtéïa, a reading of the French spelling of the name Lætitia: "L, A, E dans l'A, T, I, T, I, A."[5]
Latin
In Classical Latin, the combination AE denotes the diphthong[aj], which had a value similar to the long i in fine as pronounced in most dialects of Modern English.[6] Both classical and present practice is to write the letters separately, but the ligature was used in medieval and early modern writings, in part because æ was reduced to the simple vowel [ɛ] during the Roman Empire. In some medieval scripts, the ligature was simplified to ę, an e with ogonek, called the e caudata (Latin for "tailed e"). That was further simplified into a plain e, which may have influenced or been influenced by the pronunciation change. However the ligature is still relatively common in liturgical books and musical scores.
Other Germanic languages
Old Norse
In Old Norse, æ represents the long vowel /ɛː/. The short version of the same vowel, /ɛ/, if it is distinguished from /e/, is written as ę.
In most varieties of Faroese, æ is pronounced as follows:
[ɛa] when simultaneously stressed and occurring either word-finally, before a vowel letter, before a single consonant letter, or before the consonant-letter groups kl, kr, pl, pr, tr, kj, tj, sj, and those consisting of ð and one other consonant letter, except for ðr when pronounced like gr (except as below)
a rather open [eː] when directly followed by the sound [a], as in ræðast (silent ð) and frægari (silent g)
One of its etymological origins is Old Norse é (the other is Old Norse æ), which is particularly evident in the dialects of Suðuroy, where Æ is [eː] or [ɛ]:
ætt (family, direction): Southern [ɛtː], Northern Faroese [atː]
German and Swedish
The equivalent letter in German and Swedish is ä. In German this letter is after 'z' and in Swedish it is the second-to-last letter (between å and ö).
In the normalized spelling of Middle High German, æ represents a long vowel [ɛː]. The actual spelling in the manuscripts varies, however.
Danish and Norwegian
West of the red line through Jutland, classic Danish dialects use æ as the definite article. Additionally the northernmost and southernmost of that area use Æ as the first person singular pronoun I. The two words are different vowels.
In Danish and Norwegian, æ is a separate letter of the alphabet and represents a monophthong. It follows z and precedes ø and å. In Norwegian there are four ways of pronouncing the letter:
/æː/ as in æ (the name of the letter), bær, Solskjær, læring, æra, Ænes, ærlig, tærne, Kværner, Dæhlie, særs, ærfugl, lært, trær ("trees")
/æ/ as in færre, æsj, nærmere, Færder, Skjærvø, ærverdig, vært, lærd, Bræin (where æi is pronounced as a diphthong /æi/)
/eː/ as in Sæther, Næser, Sæbø, gælisk, spælsau, bevæpne, sæd, æser, Cæsar, væte, trær ("thread(s)" [verb])
In many northern, western and southwestern Norwegian dialects such as Trøndersk and in the western Danish dialects of Thy and Southern Jutland, the word "I" (Standard Danish: jeg, Bokmål Norwegian: jeg, Nynorsk Norwegian: eg) is pronounced /æː/.[7] Thus, when this word is written as it is pronounced in these dialects (rather than the standard), it is often spelled with the letter "æ".
In western and southern Jutish dialects of Danish, æ is also the procliticdefinite article: æ hus (the house), as opposed to Standard Danish and all other Nordic varieties which have enclitic definite articles (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian: huset; Icelandic, Faroese: húsið [the house]).
Ossetian
Ossetian Latin script; part of a page from a book published in 1935
Ossetian – which previously and later used a Cyrillic alphabet with an identical-looking letter (Ӕ and ӕ) – was written using the Latin script from 1923 to 1938, and included this character. It is pronounced as a near-open central vowel⟨ɐ⟩.
South American languages
The letter Æ is used in the official orthography of the Kawésqar language, spoken in Chile and also in that of the Fuegian language Yaghan.
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