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: ''This article is about the typographic ligature, for other uses, see Oe''
Œ œ
'Œthel' (pronounced ) is a Roman script letter (''Œ'', ''œ'') used in medieval and early modern Latin, and in modern French, and also the vowel sound it represents. The letter is a ligature of ''o'' and ''e''. In Old English the name was spelled ''eðel''. Another name for this symbol is 'œgule'.

Contents

Overview

Πin different languages

English

Germanic languages

In Romance languages

International

In computing

See also

External links

Overview

The combination denotes a diphthong, IPA , that had a value similar to English ''OI''. It was used in borrowings from Greek words having the diphthong ''OI'' (''ΟΙ'', ''οι''). Both classical and modern practice is to write the letters separately, but the ligature was used in medieval and early modern writings, in part because ''œ'' was reduced to a simple long vowel (IPA ) in late Latin.

Πin different languages

English

Borrowings into English from Latin words featuring ''œ'' (which in turn are often from Greek words featuring ''οι'') have changed to the letter ''e'', especially in American English. For example, ''fœderal'' has become ''federal'' in English, while ''phœnix'' can be spelled ''phenix'' only in American English. In those words that have not changed to ''e'', it has become generally acceptable to write any such ''œ'' as ''oe'' in English. Indeed, recent dictionaries generally list only the form without a ligature.
In all such words, the ''œ'', ''oe'', or ''e'' is pronounced /i:/, or /ɛ/ in a few cases.

Germanic languages

In German, ''Ö'' (''O'' with umlaut) is also a representation of a former ''oe'' combination; however, it does not represent a diphthong, but rather either one of the simple vowels or . Nevertheless, classical borrowings into German commonly render Latin ''oe'' as ''ö'', as in ''Fötus'' or ''föderal''. In Danish, Faroese, and Norwegian the equivalent letter is ''Ø''. ''Ö'' is also a letter in Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Estonian, Hungarian and Turkish.
In the Old Norse language there was a distinction in writing between ''Ø'' (representing the short sound /ø/) and ''Œ'' (representing the long sound /ø:/).

In Romance languages

In French, ''œ'' (called ''e dans l'o'', meaning "e in o" but also a pun as it sounds like ''œufs dans l'eau'', meaning "eggs in water") is a true linguistic ligature, not just a typographic one (like the ''fi'' or ''fl'' ligatures), reflecting etymology. It is most prominent in the words ''cœur'' ("heart"), ''sœur'' ("sister"), ''œuf'' ("egg") and ''œil'' ("eye"), in which it represents the sound /œ/ or /ø/. French also uses œ in direct borrowings from Latin and Greek. So, "cœliac" in French is ''cœliaque''. In such cases, the ''œ'' is pronounced /e/. In some words, e.g. ''phénix'', the ''œ'' is changed to a more French ''é''.
When ''oe'' occurs in French without the ligature, it is pronounced /wa/, just like words spelt with ''oi''. The most common words of this type are ''poêle'' ("stove", "frying pan") and ''moelleux'' ("soft"). If the ''oe'' is not to be pronounced thus, then a diaeresis, acute or grave 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 the prefix ''co-'', which is always pronounced /ko/ in hiatus with the following vowel, e.g. ''coentreprise'' ("joint venture") or ''coefficient'' ("ratio", "coefficient") and does not require any accent on the ''e'' to make this so.
The most common input methods for computers (made by Microsoft), make it easy to enter most special characters used in French, but provide no obvious way to enter ''œ''. Word processors such as MS Word automatically correct words like ''soeur'' to ''sœur'', but if another program is used (e.g. an instant messenger, or a browser) the word will be sent uncorrected. A cursory examination shows that incorrect ''oe'' spellings predominate on the Internet, whereas in standard printed matter it is all but unheard-of.

International

The symbol is also used in the International Phonetic Alphabet for the open-mid front rounded vowel. The small capital variant corresponds to a different phone, the open front rounded vowel, which so far has not been confirmed to exist as a phoneme of its own in any language.

In computing

For computers, when using the Unicode character set, the codes for ''Œ'' and ''œ'' are respectively 0152 and 0153 in hexadecimal. In ISO-8859-15, ''Œ'' is 0xBC and ''œ'' 0xBD in hexadecimal. In HTML, the HTML character entity references Œ and œ can also be used. In Windows-1252, at positions 0x8C and 0x9C. In Mac-Roman, they are at positions 0xCE and 0xCF. The LaTeX commands are oe and OE .
ISO-8859-1 and IBM code page 850 do not have this character. These encodings are mainly used in two situations: text consoles and the Internet. Text consoles tend to use fixed width fonts which render a naturally wide ligature like ''œ'' in a rather ugly way anyway (e.g., sœur). Most modern Internet protocols provide means to specify the encoding and, even if ISO-8859-1 is specified, it is often treated as meaning Windows-1252.
If the system utilized is in the IBM437 or IBM850 codepages, they also can be entered by holding the Alt key while typing in 0338 for Œ or 0156 for œ on the number pad on Windows systems.
In Mac OS X (Macintosh computers), using a CA-English or US-English keyboard, the character œ may be generated by the following keyboard shortcut: hold down the Option key while pressing the letter q (also expressed as Option-q).
On a DE-German keyboard, use Option-ö to generate the œ. Holding down the shift key in addition to either combination will generate the capital Œ. If preferred, the Macintosh Character Palette can also be used to enter special characters[1].

See also

★ Oe (digraph)

★ Å

★ Ä

★ Ø

★ Ö

★ Æ

★ List of words that may be spelled with a ligature

External links

★ Paleography: Special Characters in English Manuscripts, course notes