E is the fifth letter of the alphabet used for the modern English language. The letter E is also used in a number of other languages, including French, German, and Spanish.
The letter E is the second of the English vowel letters (see Vowel). The E sound can be heard in such words as beet (long E) or bet (short E).
Scholars believe that E evolved from an Egyptian hieroglyph (pictorial symbol) that represented a man with his arms upraised, shouting for joy. Hieroglyphs were adapted to be used for a Semitic language by around 1500 B.C. The alphabet for this Semitic language—the earliest known alphabet—is called Proto-Sinaitic. By 1100 B.C., an alphabet for another Semitic language, Phoenician, had evolved from Proto-Sinaitic. See Semitic languages.
The Phoenician letter that can be traced to the Egyptian joy hieroglyph is the fifth letter of the Phoenician alphabet, he, which was the Phoenician word for “Lo!” (an exclamation of wonder or surprise). The Phoenicians used the letter to represent the beginning H sound of he. The ancient Greeks did not use this sound. However, when the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet about 800 B.C., they changed he to epsilon and used the letter for the long E sound. The letter kept that sound when it was adopted by the Etruscans around 700 B.C. and by the Romans by about 650 B.C.
See also Alphabet.
