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Esh ( majuscule: Ʃ
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
U+01A9,
minuscule Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
: ʃ Unicode U+0283) is a character used in conjunction with the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...
, which represents the
voiceless postalveolar fricative A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describes the voiceless ...
(English ''sh'').


Form, usage, and history

Its lowercase form ʃ is similar to a
long s The long s , also known as the medial s or initial s, is an archaism, archaic form of the lowercase letter . It replaced the single ''s'', or one or both of the letters ''s'' in a 'double ''s sequence (e.g., "ſinfulneſs" for "sinfulness" ...
ſ or an
integral sign The integral symbol: : (Unicode), \displaystyle \int (LaTeX) is used to denote integrals and antiderivatives in mathematics, especially in calculus. History The notation was introduced by the German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1 ...
∫; in 1928 the
Africa Alphabet The Africa Alphabet (also International African Alphabet or IAI alphabet) was developed by the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures in 1928, with the help of some Africans led by Diedrich Hermann Westermann, who served as d ...
borrowed the
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
letter sigma for the uppercase form Ʃ, but more recently the
African reference alphabet An African reference alphabet was first proposed in 1978 by a UNESCO-organized conference held in Niamey, Niger, and the proposed alphabet was revised in 1982. The conference recommended the use of single letters for a sound (that is, a phoneme) ...
discontinued it, using the lowercase esh only. The lowercase form was introduced by
Isaac Pitman Sir Isaac Pitman (4 January 1813 – 22 January 1897) was a teacher of the :English language who developed the most widely used system of shorthand, known now as Pitman shorthand. He first proposed this in ''Stenographic Soundhand'' in 183 ...
in his 1847 Phonotypic Alphabet to represent the voiceless postalveolar fricative (English ''sh''). It is today used in the alphabets of some
African languages The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families: * Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages (includes Bantu and non-Bantu, and possibly Mande and others) are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and Souther ...
, as well as in the
International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) uses to represent a
voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describes the voiceless ...
. Related obsolete IPA characters include , , and . is used in the Teuthonista phonetic transcription system. Variations of esh are used for other phonetic transcription: ʃ. and are used as
click letter Various letters have been used to write the click consonants of southern Africa. The precursors of the current IPA letters, , were created by Karl Richard Lepsius and used by Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd, who added . Also influential were Daniel ...
s.


See also

*
Long s The long s , also known as the medial s or initial s, is an archaism, archaic form of the lowercase letter . It replaced the single ''s'', or one or both of the letters ''s'' in a 'double ''s sequence (e.g., "ſinfulneſs" for "sinfulness" ...
(the character ſ) * Sigma (the Greek character σ) *
Sz (digraph) Sz is a digraph of the Latin script, used in Polish, Kashubian, Hungarian and German, and in the Wade–Giles system of Romanization of Chinese, as well as the Hong Kong official romanization of Cantonese. Polish In Polish orthography, sz rep ...
*
Sh (digraph) Sh is a digraph of the Latin alphabet, a combination of S and H. European languages Albanian In Albanian, sh represents . It is considered a distinct letter, named shë, and placed between S and T in the Albanian alphabet. Breton In Breton ...
*
Sch (trigraph) A number of trigraphs are found in the Latin script. A is used in Dutch and various Cantonese romanisations to write the sound . is used in Irish to write the sound , or in Donegal, , between broad consonants. is used in Irish to write the s ...
*
Sci (trigraph) A number of trigraphs are found in the Latin script. A is used in Dutch and various Cantonese romanisations to write the sound . is used in Irish to write the sound , or in Donegal, , between broad consonants. is used in Irish to write the s ...
*
Sc (digraph) This is a list of digraphs used in various Latin alphabets. Capitalisation involves only the first letter (''ch'' becomes ''Ch'') unless otherwise stated (''ij'' becomes ''IJ''). Letters with diacritics are arranged in alphabetic order accordin ...
*
Ch (digraph) Ch is a digraph in the Latin script. It is treated as a letter of its own in Chamorro, Old Spanish, Czech, Slovak, Igbo, Uzbek, Quechua, Guarani, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Ukrainian Łatynka and Belarusian Łacinka alphabets. Formerly ...
* Š * Ş * Sha (the
Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...
letter) * (Praslesham)


References

Latin-script letters Phonetic transcription symbols {{phonetics-stub