Ə

Ə, ə

The Ə , lowercase letter ə (handwriting: Эə ), is a letter that is written in the Latin form of Azerbaijani and some minority languages in Azerbaijan, such as Taty , Udish and Talysh , in the Latin alphabets of the former Soviet Union that are no longer in use today, e.g. B. Kildinsamisch and only occurs in the small form in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

The ə was originally developed as a lowercase letter for the IPA in the 19th century as a rotated small e to symbolize the shortened, slightly changed pronunciation, and was first adopted as a full lowercase letter at the end of the 19th century to spell the German dialect Gottscheerisch , at the beginning of the 20th century also for the scientific Africa alphabet . In the course of the latinization in the Soviet Union of almost all national languages, except the Slavic, in the 1920s it was widespread for the uniform Latin alphabet Janalif , for the first time also with capital letters. When these Latin alphabets were replaced by the Cyrillic script at the end of the 1930s , the letter was transferred as the Cyrillic letter Ә in some minority languages, where it is still used today, e.g. B. in Tatar is used. With the reintroduction of Latin spellings for some Turkic languages after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the letter for Azerbaijani was transferred back to the Latin script and from there adopted into some minority languages in Azerbaijan .

In IPA and Gottscheer the lower case letter ə stands for the middle central vowel ( Schwa ); in Kildin for a high central vowel; in Azerbaijan represent Ə and ə the unrounded almost open front vowel [⁠ æ ⁠] .

Individual evidence

↑ ИЗ ИСТОРИИ ПИСЬМА АЗЕРБАЙДЖАНСКИХ ТЮРКОВ, Мансур Рахбари (Южный Азербайджан, Иран), Bextiyartuncay. Example for э (ə) - " э (ə) СРи: леорард (Китаб аль - Идрак ли - Лисан аль - Атрак), тигр (Махмуд Кашгари) "
↑ Eesti Keele Instituut / Institute of the Estonian Language KNAB: Kohanimeandmebaas / Place Names Database, Taadi / Tat / Жугьури Džuhuri latinisatsioon / romanization: KNAB Notes-2: "In the earlier Azerbaijani Cyrillic there were variations: ə (= э)."

[1] ИЗ ИСТОРИИ ПИСЬМА АЗЕРБАЙДЖАНСКИХ ТЮРКОВ, Мансур Рахбари (Южный Азербайджан, Иран), Bextiyartuncay. Example for э (ə) - " э (ə) СРи: леорард (Китаб аль - Идрак ли - Лисан аль - Атрак), тигр (Махмуд Кашгари) "

[2] Eesti Keele Instituut / Institute of the Estonian Language KNAB: Kohanimeandmebaas / Place Names Database, Taadi / Tat / Жугьури Džuhuri latinisatsioon / romanization: KNAB Notes-2: "In the earlier Azerbaijani Cyrillic there were variations: ə (= э)."