E

E (minuscule: e) is the fifth letter and the second vowel letter of the Latin alphabet. It is used in the modern English alphabet and many other languages around the world.

Its name in English is e (pronounced /ˈiː/ ).

It is the most commonly used letter in many languages. These include Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Latin, Latvian, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish. This makes it very important for writing and reading in many places.

Name

In English, the letter E is said with a "long E" sound. In many other languages, the name of the letter sounds similar to when it is used in words that end with a vowel.

History

The Latin letter E looks like the Greek letter epsilon, written as Ε. The Greek letter came from an older Semitic letter called hê. This letter might have started as a picture of a person praying. It was also based on an Egyptian hieroglyph.

In Semitic, this letter made the /h/ sound, but it was used for the /e/ sound in other words. Later, it became the epsilon in Greek, and was used for the /e/ sound. Then it moved into the Old Italic script and finally into the Latin alphabet, where we still use it today.

Use in writing systems

English

In old English writing, the letter e was used to show a special sound. Over time, this sound changed in many words. Now, in words without stress, e often has a quiet or very short sound. Sometimes, at the end of words like queue, e does not make any sound at all.

Other languages

Many languages use e to show similar sounds, sometimes with marks added above or below the letter to give it different meanings. In some languages like French or German, e can also have a middle sound. Letters together with e, like ea or ei, can make different sounds depending on the language.

Other systems

The International Phonetic Alphabet also uses e to represent a certain vowel sound.

Frequency

The letter e is the most used letter in English and many other European languages. This fact is important in secret code writing and saving space when storing information.

Other uses

In the hexadecimal (base 16) numbering system, "E" means the number 14 in our normal decimal (base 10) counting. The lowercase "e" is also often used to represent Euler's number, an important math constant.

Related characters

The letter E has many related forms and symbols. In the Latin alphabet, E can have special marks called diacritics, such as Ê or Ě.

E comes from the Greek letter Epsilon and the Semitic letter He. It is related to letters in the Cyrillic, Coptic, and Gothic alphabets. Many symbols are based on E, like the Euro sign (€) and the symbol for the elementary charge (e).

Other representations

Computing

Other

In British Sign Language (BSL), the letter 'e' is signed by touching the tip of the index finger on the right hand to the tip of the index finger on the left hand. The left hand has all fingers open.