| Ɛ | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 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.
Contents
- Use in phonetic alphabets
- List of languages that use Latin epsilon
- Niger–Congo
- Nilo-Saharan
- Unicode
- See also
- References
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⟩.
