Ę

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ę (minuscule: ę) is a letter in the Polish alphabet and Lithuanian alphabet. It is formed from the letter e and an ogonek. In Latin and Irish palaeography, it is known as E caudata (tailed E).

Contents 1 In Polish 1.1 History 1.2 Alternations 1.3 Audio examples 2 Other languages 3 Computer use 4 See also

[edit] In Polish

In Polish ę comes after e in the alphabet but never appears at the start of a word. It usually represents a nasal vowel, more specifically [ɛ̃] or [ɛw̃].

Unlike in French, nasal vowels in Polish are asynchronous, meaning that they are pronounced as an oral vowel + a nasal semivowel, or a nasal vowel + a nasal semivowel. For instance, ę might be more accurately represented as [ɛw̃] but for the sake of simplicity, it is usually transcribed [ɛ̃].

Some examples,

• język ("language"), pronounced [ˈjɛ̃zɨk]
• mięso ("meat"), pronounced [ˈmjɛ̃sɔ]
• ciężki ("heavy", "hard"), pronounced [ˈtɕɛ̃ʂki]

Before all stops and affricates, it is pronounced as an oral vowel + nasal consonant. The nasal consonant may be either m (before p or b) or n (all other cases). For example,

• więcej ("more"), pronounced [ˈvjɛntsɛj] rather than [ˈvjɛ̃tsɛj]
• sędzia ("judge", "referee"), pronounced [ˈsɛndʑa]
• głęboki ("deep"), pronounced [ɡwɛmˈbɔki]

If ę is the final letter of a word, or if it is followed by either l or ł, most Poles will pronounce it simply as [ɛ]. For example, będę ("I will (be)") can be either [ˈbɛndɛ] or [ˈbɛndɛ̃], similarly dziękuję ("I thank") can be either [dʑɛnˈkujɛ] or [dʑɛnˈkujɛ̃].

[edit] History

Polish ę evolved from short nasal a of medieval Polish, which developed into a short nasal e in the modern language. This medieval vowel, along with its long counterpart, evolved in turn from the merged nasal *ę and *ǫ of Late Proto-Slavic. Thus,

Evolution

Late Proto-Slavic	/ẽ/ and /õ/, represented by ę and ǫ
Medieval Polish	long and short /ã/, written approximately as ø
Modern Polish	long /ã/ → short /ɔ̃/, written ą short /ã/ → short /ɛ̃/, written ę

[edit] Alternations

ę often alternates with ą, for example:

• husband: mąż → mężowie (husbands), snake: wąż → węże (snakes), pigeon: gołąb → gołębie (pigeons)
• oak in nominative: dąb → dębem (instrumental)
• hands in nominative: ręce → rąk (genitive)
• five: pięć → piąty (fifth)

[edit] Audio examples

• węże (help·info) (snakes)
• dźwięk (help·info) (sound)
• mogę (help·info) (I can, I am able to)

[edit] Other languages

This section requires expansion.

[edit] Computer use

This section requires expansion.

[edit] See also

• Ą
• Polish phonology
• Polish alphabet
• Ogonek
• Yus

The Basic modern Latin alphabet
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp	Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz
Letter E with diacritics ÉéÈèĔĕÊêẾếỀềỄễỂểĚěËëẼẽĖėȨȩḜḝĘęĒēḖḗḔḕẺẻȄȅȆȇẸẹỆệḘḙḚḛɆɇᶒⱸ Letters using ogonek sign ĄąĘęĮįǪǫŲų history • palaeography • derivations • diacritics • punctuation • numerals • Unicode • list of letters • ISO/IEC 646