Latin epsilon

Not to be confused with the Greek letter ε or the Cyrillic letter Ԑ.

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 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 (see § Use in phonetic alphabets, 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.

Ɛ
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

Fante translation of the Book of Mormon; note the use of the Latin epsilon in the word N'AHYƐMU.

In the Berber Latin alphabet used in Algerian Berber school books, 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⟩.

Use in phonetic alphabets

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 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 (shown as U 029A ʚ LATIN SMALL LETTER CLOSED OPEN E on the 1993 IPA chart)

The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet uses various forms of the Latin epsilon:

• 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

List of languages that use Latin epsilon

Niger-Congo

Akan, Bambara, Baule, Dagbani, Dogon, Douala. Ewe, Fante, Frafra, Fon, Ga, Jula, Kabiye, Kpelle, Kuya, Lingala, Loma, Mende, Moore, Soninke, Twi, Vai.

Nilo-Saharan

Dinka, Maasai, Nuer, Songhai, Zarma.

Unicode

Latin epsilon is called "Open E" in Unicode.

It looks similar to the lowercase epsilon.

Character information

Preview	Ɛ		ɛ
Unicode name	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OPEN E		LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN E
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	400	U 0190	603	U 025B
UTF-8	198 144	C6 90	201 155	C9 9B
Numeric character reference	Ɛ	Ɛ	ɛ	ɛ

See also

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