Æ

Æ (minuscule: æ), known as ash or æsh, is a Latin-script character. It is a ligature of a and e, originally representing the Latin diphthong ae.

It has become a letter in some languages, like Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese.

It was also used in Old Swedish, but was later replaced by ä. In Old English, it was dropped in favour of a.

The modern International Phonetic Alphabet uses it to show a certain vowel sound, like the 'a' in the word cat.

As a letter in the old Old English Latin alphabet, it was called æsc, meaning "ash tree". This name comes from an old Anglo-Saxon futhorc symbol ᚫ. Its traditional English name is ash, or æsh when the ligature is used.

Languages

English

In English, the letter æ is not used very often. When people cannot use the æ letter, such as on typewriters or in simple computer writing, they often use the two letters ae instead.

In Old English, the æ letter made a sound similar to the "a" in "cat."

French

In modern French, the æ letter is used in words borrowed from Latin and Greek, like curriculum vitæ and et cætera.

Latin

In Classical Latin, the letters AE made a sound like the long "i" in "fine." People usually write the letters separately, but in older writings, the æ ligature was used.

Other Germanic languages

Old Norse

In Old Norse, æ represented a long vowel sound.

Icelandic

In Icelandic, æ makes a sound similar to putting together "a" and "i."

Faroese

In Faroese, æ can sound different depending on its place in a word.

German and Swedish

In German and Swedish, the similar letter is ä.

Danish and Norwegian

In Danish and Norwegian, æ is a letter in the alphabet. It can make a few different sounds depending on the word.

Ossetian

Ossetian used the æ letter when it wrote with the Latin alphabet from 1923 to 1938. It made a special sound in that language.

South American languages

The letter æ is used in some languages spoken in South America, like Kawésqar in Chile and Yahgan. It makes a specific sound in those languages.

International Phonetic Alphabet

The symbol [æ] is used in the International Phonetic Alphabet to show a vowel sound, like the "a" in the word cat in many types of English. This symbol is always written in lowercase. There is also a special uppercase version used in the IPA.

Uralic Phonetic Alphabet

The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet uses four extra symbols related to æ. You can see them in the Unicode table below.

Unicode

The character Æ (and its lowercase form æ) has special codes used in computers. These codes help different devices show the letter correctly.