Æ

Categories: Uncommon Latin letters | Danish language | Norwegian language | Icelandic language | Faroese language | Old English language

For the article on Æ, the Irish writer, see: George William Russell

Ash (Æ, æ; pronounced [æʃ]) is a letter of the Latin alphabet for English. It is formed as a ligature of the letters a and e, representing the vowel sound [æ] as in cat (the near-open front unrounded vowel). In Modern English, usage varies in different places. It is mainly used in words derived from Latin, such as encyclopædia and athenæum. In some places such as the United States, such spellings may be considered archaic and replaced with encyclopedia and atheneum, respectively. In the United Kingdom, such spellings are more common, leading the Oxford English Dictionary to use the ligature in the main entries, with other spellings listed only as alternatives. Given the long history of such spellings, they are sometimes used to invoke archaism or in literal quotations of historic sources, for words such as encyclopædia or dæmon. It also belongs to several other modern alphabets.

In Old English, the a–e ligature was used to denote a sound intermediate between those of a and e (IPA [æ]), very much like the short a of cat in many dialects of modern English. The letter was inherited from Latin, but its name ash (in Old English æsc, meaning "ash tree") comes from the corresponding Anglo-Saxon Futhorc rune ᚫ, related to the Elder Futhark rune áss.

In Classical Latin, the combination AE denotes a diphthong (IPA [ae̯]) that had a value similar to the long i in most dialects of modern English. It was used both in native words (spelled with ai before the 2nd century BC) and in borrowings from Greek words having the diphthong αι (alpha iota). Both classical and modern 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 a simple long vowel (IPA [eː]) in late Latin. In some medieval scripts, the ligature was simplified to ȩ, the letter e with a tail hanging to the left, e-caudata. This form further simplified into a plain e, which may have influenced or been influenced by the pronunciation change.

In the modern French alphabet, it is used to spell Latin borrowings like et cætera, tænia, ex æquo.

In Icelandic, the aesc signifies a diphthong (IPA [ai]). The same goes in Faroese for the so-called long æ (IPA [ɛa]), whereas the short æ is a simple [a]. In Danish and Norwegian, æ represents a simple vowel, namely IPA [ɛ] and [æ], respectively. The same phoneme is represented in Finnish and Swedish by the letter ä, and in German by a-umlaut (ä).

In Ossetian the letter has been used since the first Ossetian Cyrillic alphabet (note however, that these are separate Unicode code points in the Cyrillic character range: U+04D4 and U+04D5 for Ӕ and ӕ). It was also used during the time period that Ossetian was written in Latin script (1923–38).

International Phonetic Alphabet

The symbol [æ] is also used in the International Phonetic Alphabet to denote the sound of the Old English letter, a near-open front unrounded vowel, as in the modern English word cat. In this context, it is always in lowercase.

Computer use

For computers, when using the Latin-1 or Unicode sets, the codes for 'Æ' and 'æ' are respectively 0198 and 0230, as well as 146 and 145, respectively (holding down the ALT key whilst typing in 0198 or 146 on the number pad will produce the character on Windows systems and holding down the option or alt key whilst typing an apostrophe (') on a United States Macintosh keyboard), or C6 and E6 in hexadecimal.

There is also Cyrillic Ӕ ӕ in Unicode (U+04D4, U+04D5), though in practice the Latin letters Æ and æ (U+00C6, U+00E6) are used in Cyrillic texts (e.g., on Ossetian sites in the Internet).

In HTML, the HTML character entity references Æ and æ have been assigned to Æ and æ, respectively.

Æ in art

George William Russell, the fin-de-siècle Irish poet, signed himself Æ, for Æon.

The progressive metal band Tool used an Æ for the title of their third album, Ænima, and the song Ænema from that album. This is similar to the usage of the heavy metal umlaut, but is meant as a combination of anima and enema.

In addition, the British electronic music group Autechre sometimes abbreviate their name to æ, as can be seen, for example, on the cover of their single, Gantz Graf.

See also

• Å
• Ø
• Ö
• Ä
• List of words with "ae" in alternate spellings

Reference

• Robert Bringhurst (2002). The Elements of Typographic Style, page 271. Vancouver, Hartley & Marks. ISBN 0-88179-205-5

de:Æ eo:Æ fr:Æ is:Æ la:Æ nl:Æ (ligatuur) ja:Æ no:Æ pl:Æ pt:Æ fi:Æ