Proposed in 1908 as part of the new Latvian spelling by the scientific commission headed byK. Mīlenbahs, which was accepted and began to be taught in schools in 1909. Prior to that, Latvian had been written in GermanFraktur, and sporadically inCyrillic.
Despite being an independent letter with its own position in the Latvian alphabet,Ē/ē, like all long vowels with macrons, is treated as a simpleE/e in alphabetized lists (e.g., in dictionaries).
The letterĒ/ē (like its short counterpartE/e) represent two sounds, [ɛ] —šaurais e(“narrow e”) — and [æ] —platais e(“broad e”). In principle, [ɛ] is used when there is a palatal element (the vowelsi,ī,e,ē, the diphthongsie,ei, and the palatal consonantsj,ķ,ģ,ļ,ņ,š,ž,č,dž, and, in the old spelling,ŗ) either in the same or in the following syllable; otherwise, [æ] is used. Unfortunately, some historical changes have obscured this pattern by removing some previously existing palatal elements; as a result of that, for a number of words the actual pronunciation of the lettere — [ɛ] or [æ] — must be memorized.
