æ Tensing

Æ (lowercase: æ) is a character formed from the letters '' a'' and '' e'', originally a ligature representing the Latin diphthong ''ae''. It has been promoted to the full status of a letter in some languages, including Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese. It was also used in Old Swedish before being changed to ä. Today, the International Phonetic Alphabet uses it to represent the "a" sound as in the English word ''cat''. Diacritic variants include Ǣ, ǣ, Ǽ, ǽ, Æ̀, æ̀, Æ̂, æ̂, Æ̃, and æ̃.More information may be found at their entries on Wiktionary ( ǣ, ᴂ, etc.), and on the appendix page there entitled Variations of ''ae''.

As a letter of the Old English Latin alphabet, it was called , "ash tree," after the Anglo-Saxon futhorc rune ᚫ which it transliterated; its traditional name in English is still ash, or æsh if the ligature is included.

Latin

In Classical Latin, the combination ''AE'' denotes the diphthong , which had a value similar to the long ''i'' in ''fine'' as pronounced in most dialects of Modern English. 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 during the Roman Empire. In some medieval scripts, the ligature was simplified to ''ę'', an ''e'' with ogonek, called the ''e caudata''. 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.

French

In the modern French alphabet, ''æ'' (called "''a e-dans-l’a''") is used to spell Latin and Greek borrowings like ''curriculum vitæ'', '' et cætera'', '' ex æquo'', '' tænia'', and the first name Lætitia. 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."

English

In English, usage 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 digraph '' ae'' is often used instead.

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. Usage, however, may vary; for example, ''medieval'' is now more common than ''mediaeval'' (and the now old-fashioned ''mediæval'') even in the United Kingdom, but ''archaeology'' is preferred over ''archeology'', even in the US.

Given their long history, ligatures are sometimes used to show archaism or in literal quotations of historic sources; for instance, in those contexts, words such as ''dæmon'' and ''æther'' are often so spelled.

The ligature is seen on gravestones of the 19th century, short for ''ætate'' ("at the age (of)"): "Æ ''xx''Ys, ''yy''Ms, ''zz''Ds." It is also common in formal typography (invitations, resolutions, announcements, and some government documents); for example, the Court Circular has continued to use the spelling ''orthopædic'' well into the 21st century.

In numismatics, "Æ" is used as an abbreviation for "bronze,"David Sear. ''Greek Imperial Coins and Their Values.'' Spink Books, 1982. p. xxxv. derived from the Latin ''aes'' (''aere'' in the ablative, "from bronze").

In Old English, ''æ'' represented a sound between ''a'' and ''e'' (), 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 is marked with a macron (''ǣ'') or, less commonly, an acute (''ǽ'').

Other Germanic languages

In Old Norse, ''æ'' represents the long vowel . The short version of the same vowel, , if it is distinguished from , is written as ''ę''.

In most varieties of Faroese, ''æ'' is pronounced as follows:
* 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 when directly followed by the sound , as in (silent ''ð'') and (silent ''g'')
* in all other cases

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 or :
* ( eider): Southern , Northern Faroese
* (family, direction): Southern , Northern Faroese

In Icelandic, ''æ'' represents the diphthong , which can be long or short.

In Danish and Norwegian, ''æ'' is a separate letter of the alphabet that represents a monophthong. It follows '' z'' and precedes '' ø'' and '' å''. In Norwegian, there are four ways of pronouncing the letter:
* as in (the name of the letter), , , , , , , , , , , , , ("trees")
* as in , , , , , , , , (where is pronounced as a diphthong )
* as in , , , , , , , , , , ("thread(s)" erb
* as in , , , , , ,

In many northern, western, and southwestern Norwegian dialects and in the western Danish dialects of and Southern Jutland, has a significant meaning: the first person singular pronoun I. It is thus a normal spoken word and is usually written when such dialects are rendered in writing. It is pronounced , contrary to the definite article which is pronounced .

In western and southern Jutish dialects of Danish, is also the proclitic definite article: (the house), as opposed to Standard Danish and all other Nordic varieties which have enclitic definite articles (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian: ; Icelandic, Faroese: he house.

The equivalent letter in German, Swedish, and Finnish is , but it is not located at the same place within the alphabet. In German, it is not a separate letter from "A" but in Swedish, it is the second-to-last letter (between å and ö).

In the normalized spelling of Middle High German, represents a long vowel . The actual spelling in the manuscripts varies, however.

Ossetic

Ossetic used the letter ''æ'' when it was written using the Latin script from 1923 to 1938. Since then, Ossetian has used a Cyrillic alphabet with an identical-looking letter ( Ӕ and ӕ). It is pronounced as a mid-central vowel (schwa).

South American languages

The letter ''æ'' is used in the official orthography of Kawésqar spoken in Chile and also in that of the Fuegian language Yaghan.

International Phonetic Alphabet

The symbol is also used in the International Phonetic Alphabet to denote a near-open front unrounded vowel like in the word ''cat'' in many dialects of Modern English, which is the sound that was most likely represented by the Old English letter. In the IPA, it is always in lowercase.

Uralic Phonetic Alphabet

The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) uses several additional æ-related symbols:
*
*
*
*

Computer encodings and entering

* When using the Latin-1 or Unicode/HTML character sets, the code points for ''Æ'' and ''æ'' are and , respectively.
* The characters can be entered by holding the Alt key while typing in 0198 (upper case) or 0230 (lower case) on the number pad on Windows systems (the Alt key and 145 for æ or 146 for Æ may also work from the legacy IBM437 codepage).
* In the TeX typesetting system, ''ӕ'' is produced by \ae.
* In Microsoft Word, ''Æ'' or ''æ'' can be written using the key combination + + followed by or .
* On US-International keyboards, Æ is accessible with the combination of AltGr+z.
* In X, AltGr+A is often mapped to æ/Æ, or a Compose key sequence Compose + a + e can be used. For more information, see Unicode input.
* In all versions of the Mac OS (Systems 1 through 7, Mac OS 8 and 9, and the current OS X), the following key combinations are used: æ: Option + ' (apostrophe key), Æ: Option + Shift + '.
* On the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, as well as phones running Google's Android OS or Windows Mobile OS and on the Kindle Touch and Paperwhite, æ and Æ are accessed by holding down "A" until a small menu is displayed.
* The Icelandic keyboard layout has a separate key for Æ (and Ð, Þ and Ö).
* The Norwegian keyboard layout also has a separate key for Æ, rightmost of the letters, to the right of Ø and below Å.

Cyrillic

The Latin letters are frequently used in place of the Cyrillic Ӕ and ӕ in Cyrillic texts (such as on Ossetian sites on the Internet).

See also

* Æ (Cyrillic)
* Ae (digraph)
* Å
* Ä
* Ę
* Ø
* Ö
* Œ
* Near-open front unrounded vowel (represented by æ in the IPA)
* Ə
* Ansuz rune
* List of words that may be spelled with a ligature
* Anavae
* Aespa

Footnotes

Notes

References

External links

* Robert Bringhurst (2002). ''The Elements of Typographic Style'', page 271. Vancouver, Hartley & Marks.

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Latin-script ligatures
Phonetic transcription symbols
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Old English language
Vowel letters
Latin-script letters