| Ɛ | |
| Letter: | Ɛ ɛ |
| Imagealt: | Upper and lower case Latin Epsilon |
| Script: | Latin script |
| Type: | Alphabet |
| Typedesc: | ic and Logographic |
| Unicode: | U+0190, U+025B |
| Fam1: | |
| Fam6: | Ε ε ϵ |
| Direction: | Left-to-Right |
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 was introduced in the 16th century by Gian Giorgio Trissino[1] to represent the pronunciation of the "open e" (the letter e pronounced as the open-mid front unrounded vowel) in the Italian language; this use of the letter has since become the standard in IPA notation[1]
. Since the 20th century, the letter also occurs in the orthographies of many Niger–Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages, such as Ewe, Akan, Lingala, Dinka and Maasai, for the vowel pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /[e̙]/, and is included in the African reference alphabet.
In the Berber Latin alphabet used in Algerian Berber school books,[2] and before that proposed by the French institute INALCO, it represents a voiced pharyngeal fricative pronounced as /[ʕ]/. 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:
The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet uses various forms of the Latin epsilon:[3]
Akan, Bambara, Baule, Dagbani, Dogon, Douala. Ewe, Fante, Frafra, Fon, Ga, Jula, Kabiye, Kpelle, Kuya, Lingala, Loma, Mende, Moore, Soninke, Twi, Vai.
Dinka, Maasai, Nuer, Songhai, Zarma.
Latin epsilon is called "Open E" in Unicode.[4]