Ê

E with circumflex
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	alphabetic
Sound values	[ɛ] [ɛː] [ɛ̂] [æː] [e] [eː] [ʔ] [ʁ] [je]
In Unicode	U+00CA, U+00EA
History
Development	Ε ε ϵ 𐌄 E e Ê
Transliterations	Єє, ﻉ
Other

Ê, ê (e-circumflex) is a letter of the Latin alphabet, found in Afrikaans, French, Friulian, Kurdish, Norwegian (Nynorsk), Portuguese, Vietnamese, and Welsh. It is used to transliterate Chinese, Persian, and Ukrainian.

Usage in various languages

Afrikaans

Ê is not considered a separate letter in Afrikaans but a variation of "E". The circumflex changes the pronunciation of "e" to be /ɛː/ (or /æː/ if the succeeding consonant is either a dorsal or a liquid)

Chinese

In the Pinyin romanization of Standard Mandarin Chinese, ê represents /ɛ/. It corresponds to Zhuyin ㄝ. The circumflex occurs only if ê is the only vowel in a syllable: ề /ɛ̂/ (诶; 誒; "eh!"). Without the circumflex, e as the only vowel represents /ɤ/: è /ɤ̂/ (饿; 餓; "hungry"). Elsewhere, /ɛ/ is written as a (after i or ü before n) or e (before or after another vowel), with the appropriate tone mark,: xiān /ɕi̯ɛ́n/ (先; "first"), xuǎn /ɕy̯ɛ̀n/ (选; 選; "to choose", noting that ü is written u after x), xué /ɕy̯ɛ̌ ~ ɕy̯ě/ (学; 學; "to learn"), xièxie /ɕi̯ɛ̂.ɕi̯ɛ ~ ɕi̯ê.ɕi̯e/ (谢谢; 謝謝; "thanks").

In Pe̍h-ōe-jī, ê is the fifth tone of e: ê (的; possessive, adjectival suffix).

French

Diacritics are not considered to be distinct letters of the French alphabet. In French, ê usually changes the pronunciation of e from /ə/ to /ɛ/. It is used instead of "è" for words that used to be written "es".

Friulian

Ê represents /eː/ and /ɛː/.

Khmer

Ê is used in UNGEGN romanization system for Khmer to represent /ae/ and /ɛː/, for example Khmêr (ខ្មែរ [kʰmae]) and Dângrêk Mountains (ដងរែក [ɗɑːŋrɛːk]).

Kurdish

Ê is the 7th letter of the Kurdish Kurmanji alphabet and represents /eː/.

Norwegian Nynorsk

In Nynorsk, ê is used to represent the reduction of the Old Norse sequence ⟨eð⟩, similar to the use of ê for the historical sequence ⟨es⟩ in French. It is mostly used to differentiate words which otherwise would be spelled the same, e.g. vêr 'weather' and ver, imperative of 'to be'.

Persian

Ê is used in the Persian Latin (Rumi) alphabet, equivalent to ع.

Portuguese

In Portuguese, ê marks a stressed /e/ only in words whose stressed syllable is in an otherwise unpredictable location in the word: "pêssego" (peach). The letter, pronounced /e/, can also contrast with é, pronounced /ɛ/, as in pé (foot).

Tibetan

Ê is used in Tibetan pinyin to represent /e/, for example Gêrzê County.

Ukrainian

Ê is used in the ISO 9:1995 system of Ukrainian transliteration as the letter Є.

Vietnamese

Ê is the 9th letter of the Vietnamese alphabet and represents /e/. In Vietnamese phonology, diacritics can be added to form five forms to represent five tones of ê:

• Ề ề
• Ể ể
• Ễ ễ
• Ế ế
• Ệ ệ

Welsh

In Welsh, ê represents long stressed e [eː] if the vowel would otherwise be pronounced as short [ɛ]: llên [ɬeːn] "literature", as opposed to llen [ɬɛn] "curtain", or gêm [ɡeːm] "game", as opposed to gem [ɡɛm] "gem, jewel". That is useful for borrowed words with a final stress like apêl [apˈeːl] "appeal".

Other

In Popido, a fictitious dialect of Esperanto made by Manuel Halvelik for use in literature, ê represents /ə/. It is only used epenthetically to break consonant clusters, especially before grammatical suffixes.

Character mappings

Unicode encoded 5 pairs of precomposed characters (Ề / ề, Ể / ể, Ễ / ễ, Ế / ế, Ệ / ệ) for the five tones of ê in Vietnamese. Two pairs of the five (Ế / ế and Ề / ề) can also be used as the second and fourth tones of ê in Pinyin. The first and third tones of ê in Pinyin have to be represented by combining diacritical marks, like ê̄ (ê̄) and ê̌ (ê̌).

Character information

Preview	Ê		ê
Unicode name	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH CIRCUMFLEX		LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH CIRCUMFLEX
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	202	U+00CA	234	U+00EA
UTF-8	195 138	C3 8A	195 170	C3 AA
Numeric character reference	Ê	Ê	ê	ê
Named character reference	Ê		ê
EBCDIC family	114	72	82	52
ISO 8859-1/3/9/14/15/16	202	CA	234	EA

See also

• Circumflex