1. Oranim Academic College of Education Department of Graduate Studies
The Origin of the Letter 'E‘
Presented by: Maha Khouriyeh
The Development of English Course
Prof. Penny Ur
Dec 2009

2. E is the fifth letter and the second vowel in the Latin alphabet.
Its name in English (pronounced /ˈiː/) is spelled e; or rarely "ee", and the plural is ees.
The letter E is the most commonly used letter in the Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Latin, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish languages.

3. Egyptian hieroglyph q’
History
Roman/Cyrillic E
Greek Epsilon
Etruscan E
Phoenician he
Proto-Semitic H
Egyptian hieroglyph q’
E is derived from the Greek letter epsilon which is much the same in appearance (Ε, ε) and function.
In etymology, the Semitic hê probably first represented a praying or calling human figure (hillul jubilation), and was probably based on a similar Egyptian hieroglyph that was pronounced and used quite differently.
In Semitic, the letter represented /h/which is a consonant symbol (and /e/ in foreign words), in Greek hê became a vowel Εψιλον (Epsilon) with the value /e/.
Etruscans and Romans followed this usage.

4. Capital and lowercase versions of E, in normal and italic type
The lower-case letter developed as a smaller, rounded variant of the capital in cursive style.
Uppercase and
lowercase E in Fraktur
Capital and lowercase versions of E, in normal and italic type

5. Arising from the Great Vowel Shift, English usage is rather different, namely /iː/ (derived from /eː/ in "me" or "bee") whereas other words like "bed" are closer to Latin and other languages in usage.
E in other variants: English, certain, ballet, serious
Combined with other vowel letters: a- great, ear
i- rein, believe
u- Europe
o- leopard
e- meet, beer
It could have some differences in spelling (US ax, UK axe) and sound (US/UK clerk)

6. At the end of a word, E is very often silent in English (silent e), with a testimonial to an earlier period of pronunciation history (have, some, more). But it could also indicate a preceding long vowel whether adjacent(die) or separated (the magic e as in sale, line)
Digraphs starting with E are common in many languages to indicate diphthongs and monophthongs, such as EA or EE for /iː/ or /eɪ/ in English, EI for /aɪ/ in German, or EU for /ø/ in French or /ɔɪ/ in German.

7. In other languages that use the letter E or e, it represents various other phonetic values, sometimes with accents to indicate contrasts
Éé  Èè  Êê  Ḙḙ  Ěě  Ĕĕ  Ẽẽ  Ḛḛ  Ẻẻ  Ėė  Ëë  Ēē  Ȩȩ  Ęę  Ȅȅ  Ếế  Ềề  Ễễ  Ểể  Ḝḝ  Ḗḗ  Ḕḕ  Ȇȇ  Ẹẹ  Ệệ  Ｅｅ  Ææ  Ǽǽ  Ǣǣ  Œœ

8. · Braille Flag semaphore Signal flag American Sign Language
Alternative representations of E
Braille
Flag semaphore
Signal flag
Morse code
American Sign Language