Ę

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

Contents

[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 IPA: [/ɛ̃/] or IPA: [/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 represented as /ɛ̃/.

Some examples,

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,

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

[edit] Other languages

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[edit] Computer use

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[edit] See also

The ISO basic 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
Letters using ogonek sign

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