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 occurs in the orthographies of many Niger–Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages, such as Ewe, Akan, Lingala, Dinka and Maasai, for the vowel or , and is included in the African reference alphabet.
In the Berber Latin alphabet currently used in Algerian Berber school books, and before that proposed by the French institute INALCO, it represents a voiced pharyngeal fricative . Some authors use ƹayin instead; both letters are similar in shape with the Arabic ʿayn .
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) uses various forms of the Latin epsilon: represents the open-mid front unrounded vowel represents the rhotacized open-mid central vowel represents the open-mid central rounded vowel (shown as on the 1993 IPA chart)
The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet uses various forms of the Latin epsilon:
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.
See also
Open O
Writing systems of Africa (section on Latin script) Open-mid front unrounded vowel Greek Epsilon Reversed Ze Ԑ (Cyrillic script)