Latin epsilon
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.

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 § Usage 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.

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⟩.

Usage

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+025C ɜ LATIN SMALL LETTER REVERSED OPEN E represents the open-mid central unrounded vowel
  • U+1D08 ᴈ LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED OPEN E was historically used between 1907–1979
• 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
  • U+029A ʚ LATIN SMALL LETTER CLOSED OPEN E was historically used in 1921 and 1993

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

There are capital forms for usage in standard alphabets:

• U+0190 Ɛ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OPEN E
• U+A7AB Ɜ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER REVERSED OPEN E

List of languages that use Latin epsilon

Unicode

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

See also

• Open O
• Writing systems of Africa (section on Latin script)
• Open-mid front unrounded vowel
• Greek Epsilon
• Epsilon Ԑ (Cyrillic script)

References