Ae (Ӕ ӕ; italics: <span style="font-family: times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: larger">Ӕ ӕ ) is a letter of the Cyrillic script, used exclusively in the Ossetian language to represent the near open central vowel, a sound similar to the pronunciation of the ⟨u⟩ in "up". Its ISO 9 transliteration is ⟨æ⟩ but some transliteration schemes may render it as ⟨ä⟩. It looks identical to the letter Æ (Æ æ <span style="font-family: times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: larger">Æ æ ) in the Latin script.

History

The letter was first used in Anders Johan Sjögren's Ossetian Cyrillic alphabet in 1844 and appeared first in fiction and poetry books published at the beginning of the 20th century. It was preserved during the shift to a Latin alphabet and the reversion to a Cyrillic alphabet. It is one of the most common letters in the Ossetian language. The letter was also found in the Lezgin alphabets of 1871 and 1911, the 1892 Dargwa alphabet and the 1875 Tabasaran alphabet.iuj

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