Æ: Encyclopedia - Æ

Æ

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. In Modern English, usage varies in different places. It is mainly used in words derived from Latin, such as encyclopædia, nebulæ 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. In the UK, ae is used in place of æ, so encyclopaedia is correct in the UK. 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. It is common to see it rendered, albeit incorrectly, as "ae", most often by computer users and typewriter users who are unable to render the letter properly due to technological limitations or being unaware of how to do it; a recent example of this is the rendering of the television series/movie title Æon Flux, which often appeared in the media and elsewhere as "Aeon Flux".

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]). In Faroese it represents the ligature of 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. In the southdanish dialect, as well as in several Norwegian dialects, the æ has a significant meaning "I". And is thus a normal spoken word. The same phoneme is represented in Finnish and Swedish by the letter ä, and in German by a-umlaut (ä).

The Ossetian language included the letter æ when it was written using the Latin script (1923–38). Since then, Ossetian has used a Cyrillic alphabet with an identical-looking letter (Ӕ and ӕ).

Æ - 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 word cat in many dialects of modern English. In this context, it is always in lowercase.

Æ - 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 (such as 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 - 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
• Ä
• Ø
• Ö
• œ
• List of words spelled with æ

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Æ", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki