| Π| |
|---|---|
| Œ œ ɶ | |
 | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Latin script |
| Type | Alphabet |
| Language of origin | English language,French language,German language,Swedish language,Turkish language |
| Sound values | |
| In Unicode | U+0152 |
| History | |
| Development | |
| Other | |
| Writing direction | Left-to-right |
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
Œ (minuscule:œ), in English known asethel orœthel (also spelt,ēðel,odal), is aLatin alphabetgrapheme, aligature ofo ande. In medieval and early modern Latin, it was used inborrowings fromGreek that originally contained thediphthongοι, and in a few non-Greek words. These usages continue inEnglish andFrench. In French, the words that were borrowed from Latin and contained the Latin diphthong written asœ now generally haveé orè; butœ is still used in some non-learned French words, representingopen-mid front rounded vowels, such asœil ("eye") andsœur ("sister").
It is used in the modernorthography forOld West Norse and is used in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet to represent theopen-mid front rounded vowel. InEnglish runology,œ ɶ is used to transliterate the runeothalaᛟ (Old English:ēðel, "estate, ancestral home"), of which English derives its name.[1]
Classical Latin wrote theo ande separately (as has today again become the general practice), but the ligature was used by medieval and early modern writings, in part because the diphthongal sound had, byLate Latin, merged into the sound[e]. The classical diphthong had the value[oe̯], similar to (standard) Englishoi as inchoice. It occurs most often in borrowings from Greek, rendering that language'sοι (in majusculeΟΙ), although it is also used in some native words such ascoepi "I began".
In French,œ is callede dans l'o[ədɑ̃lo], which meanse in the o (amnemotechnic pun used first at school, sounding like(des) œufs dans l'eau, meaningeggs in water) or sometimeso et e collés, (literallyo and e glued) and is a true linguisticligature, not just a typographic one (like thefi orfl ligatures), reflectingetymology. InCanadian French, the nameso-e liés ("linked O and E") orlettre double œ (where O and E are pronounced separately for clarity) are used officially.[2]Œ is most prominent in the wordsmœurs ("mores"),cœur ("heart"),chœur ("choir"),sœur ("sister"),œuf ("egg"),bœuf ("beef", "steer"),œuvre ("work") andœil ("eye"), in which the digraphœu, likeeu, represents the sound[œ] (in other cases, like pluralsœufs ("eggs") andbœufs ("steers"), it stands for[ø]).
French also usesœ in direct borrowings from Latin and Greek. So, "coeliac" in French iscœliaque, "fetus / foetus" isfœtus and "Oedipus" isŒdipe. In such cases, theœ is classically pronounced[e], or, sometimes, in modern pronunciation,[œ]. In some words, likephénix andéconomique, the etymologicalœ is changed toé.
In French placenames orfamily names of Germanic origin (mostly in and aroundAlsace-Lorraine, historically Germanic-speaking areas that have changed hands between France and Germany (or Prussia before 1871) a number of times),œ replaces Germanö and is pronounced[œ]. Examples includeSchœneck (Moselle),Kœtzingue (Haut-Rhin), andHœrdt (Bas-Rhin) for placenames, or Schœlcher (as inVictor Schœlcher) for surnames.
In all cases,œ isalphabetized asoe, rather than as a separate letter.
Whenoe occurs in French without the ligature, it is pronounced/wa/ or sometimes/wɛ/, just like words spelt withoi. The most common words of this type arepoêle ("stove", "frying pan") andmoelleux ("soft").poêle is itself an etymological spelling, with theê reflecting its derivation from Latinpatella. If theoe is not to be pronounced thus, then a diaeresis, acute orgrave accent needs to be added in order to indicate that the vowels should be pronounced separately. For example,Noël,poésie,poète. The exception to this rule is when a morpheme ending ino is joined to one beginning ine, as inélectroencéphalogramme, or with the prefixco-, which is always pronounced/ko/ in hiatus with the following vowel, as incoefficient ("ratio", "coefficient").
InLombard "œ" is used in many writing systems, sometimes along with "u", the/øː/ phoneme. For example:tegnœura (bat).
A number of words written withœ were borrowed from French andfrom Latin into English, where theœ is now rarely written. ModernAmerican English spelling usually substitutesœ withe, sodiarrhœa has becomediarrhea, although there are some exceptions, such asphoenix. In modernBritish English, the spellings generally keep theo but remove the ligature (e.g.diarrhoea).
Theœ ~oe ~e is traditionally pronounced as "short Ĕ"/ɛ/, as "long Ē"/iː/, or as an(unrounded) unstressed vowel. These three Modern-English values interchange with one another in consistent ways, just as do the values within each of the sets from the other vowel-spellings that at theMiddle English stage likewise represented non-diphthongs — except for, as was recognised particularly in certain positions by Dobson[3]: 495 a tendency whereby
... long vowels are, in later use, often substituted ... cf. Pres(ent-Day) E(nglish) [iːkənɒmik] 'economic' in place of the popular [ekənɒmik], which (latter) is in accord with the normal rules and must be regarded as the traditional and naturally-developed pronunciation ...
There are a few words that English has recently borrowed fromcontemporary French. The pronunciation of these English words is generally an approximation of that of the French word (the French use[œ] or[ø] in terms of theInternational Phonetic Alphabet). English-speakers use a variety of substitutions for these sounds. Thewords involved includemanœuvre,hors d'œuvre,œuvre, andœil de bœuf.
However, mostœ words use the traditional English pronunciation of borrowings from/via pre-modernFrench and from/viaLatin. Examples are listed in the following categories, into which they have been divided by developments in our pronunciation sinceMiddle English.
The likes offœ̯tid, though superficially exceptional here, do indeed belong here in this category because the counting properly includes alsofinal-e that hasgone silent sinceMiddle English (and therefore has been left out by some spellings) in those situations where speakers before the-e's demise, such asChaucer (who did not drop it in rhymes), would have had the-e as an intrinsic part of the word (rather than as just a suffix) — save for its regularly disappearing where followed with no pause by a word beginning with a vowel or sometimes/h/.
As less circumstantial evidence (than this word's modern short Ĕ/ɛ/) that it contained the final-e, consider both the spelling of its earliest attestation in English recorded by theNED,[4] within"It maketh to blister both handes, & feet, out of which issuethfoetide, and stinckinge water." (in a text dating to 1599). And from the immediateancestor of the word, lying between it andLatin'sfœtidus, -a, -um, namely,Anglo-Normanfetide, attested13th century.[a]
Œ is used in the modern scholarly orthography ofOld West Norse, representing thelong vowel/øː/, contrasting withø, which represents the short vowel/ø/. Sometimes, theǿ is used instead for Old West Norse, maintaining consistency with the designation of the length of the other vowels, e.g.mǿðr "mothers".
Œ is also used to express long/øː/ in the modern scholarly orthography ofMiddle High German. It contrastsö, pronounced as a short/œ/.
Œ is not used in modernGerman.Loanwords usingœ are generally renderedö, e.g.Ösophagus. A common exception is the French wordŒuvre[7] and its compounds (e.g.Œuvreverzeichnis[8]). It remains used inSwiss German, especially in the names of people and places.
Œ is not used in Danish, just like German, but unlike German, Danish replacesœ orœu in loan-words withø, as inøkonomi "economy" from Greek via Latinœconomia orbøf "beef" from Frenchbœuf.œ, mainly lowercase, has historically been used as a typeface alternative toæ in Danish.
The symbol[œ] is used in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for theopen-mid front rounded vowel. This sound resembles the "œu" in theFrenchœuf or the "ö" in theGermanöffnen. These contrast with Frenchfeu and Germanschön, which have theclose-mid front rounded vowel,[ø].
The small capital variant[ɶ] represents theopen front rounded vowel in the IPA. Modifier letter small ligature oe (ꟹ) is used inextensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet.[9]
U+107A3 𐞣MODIFIER LETTER SMALL CAPITAL OE is used as anIPA superscript letter.[10]
TheUralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) includesU+1D14 ᴔLATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED OE.[11]
TheTeuthonista phonetic transcription system uses several related symbols:[12]
TheVoice Quality Symbol foroesophageal speech is Œ.
InUnicode, the characters are encoded atU+0152 ŒLATIN CAPITAL LIGATURE OE (Œ) andU+0153 œLATIN SMALL LIGATURE OE (œ). InISO-8859-15,Œ is 0xBC andœ/ɶ 0xBD. InWindows-1252, at positions 0x8C and 0x9C. InMac-Roman, they are at positions 0xCE and 0xCF.
Œ andœ/ɶ were omitted fromISO-8859-1 (as well as derived standards, such asIBMcode page 850), which are still widespread ininternet protocols and applications. Œ is the only character inmodern French that is not included in ISO-8859-1, and this has led to it becoming replaced by 'oe' in many computer-assisted publications (including printed magazines and newspapers). This was due, in part, to the lack of available characters in the FrenchISO/IEC 646 version that was used earlier for computing. Another reason is thatœ is absent from mostFrench keyboards, and as a result, few people know how to input it.
The above-mentioned small capital of the International Phonetic Alphabet is encoded atU+0276 ɶLATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL OE.
