Ɛ | |||
---|---|---|---|
Ɛ ɛ | |||
Usage | |||
Writing system | Latin script | ||
Type | Alphabetic and Logographic | ||
Unicode codepoint | U+0190, U+025B | ||
History | |||
Development |
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Other | |||
Writing direction | Left-to-Right | ||
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 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 currently[when?] used in Algerian Berber school books,[1] and before that proposed by the French institute INALCO, it represents a voiced pharyngeal fricative [ʕ]. Some authors use ƹayin ⟨ƹ⟩ instead; both letters are similar in shape with the Arabic ʿayn ⟨ع⟩.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) uses various forms of the Latin epsilon:
The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet uses various forms of the Latin epsilon:[2]