Ae (Ӕ ӕ; italics:
''Ӕ ӕ'') is a letter of the
Cyrillic script
The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic, Uralic languages, Uralic, C ...
, used exclusively in the
Ossetian language
Ossetian ( , , ), commonly referred to as Ossetic and rarely as Ossete, is an Eastern Iranian language that is spoken predominantly in Ossetia, a region situated on both sides of the Russian-Georgian border in the Greater Caucasus region. ...
to represent the
near open central vowel , a sound similar to the pronunciation of the in "up". Its
ISO 9
ISO 9 is an international standard establishing a system for the transliteration into Latin characters of Cyrillic characters constituting the alphabets of many Slavic and non-Slavic languages.
Published on February 23, 1995 by the Internation ...
transliteration is ⟨æ⟩ but some transliteration schemes may render it as ⟨ä⟩. It looks identical to the letter
Æ (Æ æ
''Æ æ'') in the Latin script.
History
The letter was first used in
Anders Johan Sjögren
Anders Johan Sjögren (also spelled Andreas Johan Sjögren, in Russian also known as Andrei Mikhailovich Shëgren, Андре́й Миха́йлович Шёгрен; May 8, 1794 in Iitti, Finland – January 18, 1855 in St. Petersburg, Russia) ...
's Ossetian Cyrillic alphabet in 1844 and appeared first in fiction and poetry books published at the beginning of the 20th century. It was preserved during the shift to a
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from ...
and the reversion to a Cyrillic alphabet. It is one of the most common letters in the Ossetian language.
The letter was also found in the
Lezgin alphabets of 1871 and 1911,
[Ќу̇ре ჭалан елифарни аҳпа гw æниз қелдаj. ]Tiflis
Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი, ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), ( ka, ტფილისი, tr ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia ( ...
, 1911. the 1892
Dargwa alphabet and the 1875
Tabasaran alphabet.
Computing codes
See also
*
Ligature (writing)
In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes or letters are joined to form a single glyph. Examples are the characters and used in English and French, in which the letters and are joined for the first ligature a ...
References
Ae
Ossetian language
{{Cyrillic-alphabet-stub