Latin epsilon

Not to be confused with the Greek letter ε or the Cyrillic letter Ԑ.

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] (see § Use in phonetic alphabets, below). 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.

Ɛ
Ɛ ɛ
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	Alphabetic and Logographic
Sound values	[ɛ] [e̙] [ʕ]
In Unicode	U+0190, U+025B
History
Development	Ε ε ϵ Ɛ ɛ
Other
Writing direction	Left-to-Right
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Fante translation of the Book of Mormon; note the use of the Latin epsilon in the word N'AHYƐMU.

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⟩.

Use in phonetic alphabets

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+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 (shown as U+029A ʚ LATIN SMALL LETTER CLOSED OPEN E 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

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.

Nilo-Saharan

Dinka, Maasai, Nuer, Songhai, Zarma.

Unicode

Latin epsilon is called "Open E" in Unicode.^[4]

It looks similar to the lowercase epsilon.

Character information

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
• Reversed Ze Ԑ (Cyrillic script)

References

1. Concise History of the Language Sciences. 2014. p. 154.
2. "Tamazight-Dzayer". Archived from the original on 2020-11-21.
3. Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF).
4. 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.