Œ


Œ, in English known as ethel or œthel, is a Latin alphabet grapheme, a ligature of o and e. In medieval and early modern Latin, it was used in borrowings from Greek that originally contained the diphthong οι, and in a few non-Greek words. These usages continue in English and French. In French, the words that were borrowed from Latin and contained the Latin diphthong written as œ now generally have é or è; but œ is still used in some non-learned French words, representing open-mid front rounded vowels, such as œil and sœur.
It is used in the modern orthography for Old West Norse and is used in the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent the open-mid front rounded vowel. In English runology, œ ɶ is used to transliterate the rune othala , of which English derives its name.

Languages

Latin

wrote the o and e separately, but the ligature was used by medieval and early modern writings, in part because the diphthongal sound had, by Late Latin, merged into the sound. The classical diphthong had the value, similar to English oi as in choice. It occurs most often in borrowings from Greek, rendering that language's οι, although it is also used in some native words such as coepi "I began".

French

In French, œ is called e dans l'o, which means e in the o or sometimes o et e collés, and is a true linguistic ligature, not just a typographic one, reflecting etymology. In Canadian French, the names o-e liés or lettre double œ are used officially. Œ is most prominent in the words wikt:mœurs, wikt:cœur, chœur, wikt:sœur, wikt:œuf, wikt:bœuf, wikt:œuvre and wikt:œil, in which the digraph œu, like eu, represents the sound and wikt:bœufs.
French also uses œ in direct borrowings from Latin and Greek. So, "coeliac" in French is wikt:cœliaque, "fetus / foetus" is fœtus and "Oedipus" is Œdipe. In such cases, the œ is classically pronounced, or, sometimes, in modern pronunciation,. In some words, like wikt:phénix and wikt:économique, the etymological œ is changed to é.
In French placenames or family names of Germanic origin, œ replaces German ö and is pronounced. Examples include Schœneck, Kœtzingue, and Hœrdt for placenames, or Schœlcher for surnames.
In all cases, œ is alphabetized as oe, rather than as a separate letter.
When oe occurs in French without the ligature, it is pronounced or sometimes, just like words spelt with oi. The most common words of this type are wikt:poêle and wikt:moelleux. poêle is itself an etymological spelling, with the ê reflecting its derivation from Latin wikt:patella. 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, wikt:Noël, wikt:poésie, wikt:poète. The exception to this rule is when a morpheme ending in o is joined to one beginning in e, as in wikt:électroencéphalogramme, or with the prefix co-, which is always pronounced in hiatus with the following vowel, as in wikt:coefficient.

Lombard

In Lombard "œ" is used in many writing systems, sometimes along with "u", the phoneme. For example: wikt:tegnœra.

English

A number of words written with œ were borrowed from French and from Latin into English, where the œ is now rarely written. Modern American English spelling usually substitutes œ with e, so diarrhœa has become diarrhea, although there are some exceptions, such as phoenix. In modern British English, the spellings generally keep the o but remove the ligature.
The œ ~ oe ~ e is traditionally pronounced as "short Ĕ", as "long Ē", or as an unstressed vowel. These three Modern-English values interchange with one another in consistent ways, just as do the values within each of the sets from the other vowel-spellings that at the Middle English stage likewise represented non-diphthongs — except for, as was recognised particularly in certain positions by Dobson a tendency whereby
There are a few words that English has recently borrowed from contemporary French. The pronunciation of these English words is generally an approximation of that of the French word. English-speakers use a variety of substitutions for these sounds. The words involved include manœuvre, hors d'œuvre, wikt:oeuvre, and œil de bœuf.
However, most œ words use the traditional English pronunciation of borrowings from/via pre-modern French and from/via Latin. Examples are listed in the following categories, into which they have been divided by developments in our pronunciation since Middle English.
  • An overriding rule is that where œ ~ oe ~ e is followed by another vowel of stress, it is pronounced as a long Ē.
  • In open syllables immediately following or preceding a syllable that bears primary or secondary stress, an œ ~ oe ~ e is pronounced as an unstressed vowel, as in the short Ĭ or Schwa-like sound. Alternatively, especially when clearer enunciation is desired, an additional stress can be added, resulting in a long Ē.
  • A long Ē can be used for œ ~ oe ~ e in a primary stressed open syllable that lies within the final two syllables of the word.
  • A long Ē is used for œ ~ oe ~ e in primary-stressed open syllables that lie in the third-to-final position if the final syllable begins with a vowel and the penultimate ends in a vowel other than o or u.
  • Finally, there are some cases where a short Ĕ is used, as what Dobson called in the quote above the "naturally-developed pronunciation" though "the long vowels are, in later use, often substituted":
  1. for an œ ~ oe ~ e lying in a secondarily-stressed syllable not adjacent to the primary-stressed one, as in fœderation, œcologic, œconomic, œcumenical and œstrogenic;
  2. for an œ ~ oe ~ e in a closed syllable anywhere as long as it bears some stress, as in œstrogenic, œstrogen, œstral and œstrus;
  3. for an œ ~ oe ~ e in a primary-stressed syllable that does not lie within the final two syllables of the word.
The likes of fœ̯tid, though superficially exceptional here, do indeed belong here in this category because the counting properly includes also final -e that has gone silent since Middle English in those situations where speakers before the -es demise, such as Chaucer, would have had the -e as an intrinsic part of the word — save for its regularly disappearing where followed with no pause by a word beginning with a vowel or sometimes.
As less circumstantial evidence that it contained the final -e, consider both the spelling of its earliest attestation in English recorded by the NED, within "It maketh to blister both handes, & feet, out of which issueth foetide, and stinckinge water.". And from the immediate ancestor of the word, lying between it and Latin's , -a, -um, namely, Anglo-Norman fetide, attested 13th century.

Other Germanic languages

;Old Norse:
Œ is used in the modern scholarly orthography of Old West Norse, representing the long vowel, contrasting with ø, which represents the short vowel. Sometimes, the ǿ is used instead for Old West Norse, maintaining consistency with the designation of the length of the other vowels, e.g. mǿðr "mothers".
;Middle High German:
Œ is also used to express long in the modern scholarly orthography of Middle High German. It contrasts ö, pronounced as a short.
; German:
Œ is not used in modern German. Loanwords using œ are generally rendered ö, e.g. Esophagus. A common exception is the French word wikt:oeuvre and its compounds. It remains used in Swiss German, especially in the names of people and places.
;Danish:
Œ is not used in Danish, just like German, but unlike German, Danish replaces œ or œu in loan-words with ø, as in wikt:økonomi "economy" from Greek via Latin wikt:œconomia or wikt:bøf "beef" from French wikt:bœuf. œ, mainly lowercase, has historically been used as a typeface alternative to æ in Danish.

Transcription

The symbol is used in the International Phonetic Alphabet for the open-mid front rounded vowel. This sound resembles the "œu" in the French wikt:œuf or the "ö" in the German wikt:öffnen. These contrast with French wikt:feu and German wikt:schön, which have the close-mid front rounded vowel,.
The small capital variant represents the open front rounded vowel in the IPA.
Modifier letter small ligature oe is used in extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet.
is used as an IPA superscript letter.
The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet includes.
The Teuthonista phonetic transcription system uses several related symbols:
The Voice Quality Symbol for oesophageal speech is Œ.

Encodings

In Unicode, the characters are encoded at and. In ISO-8859-15, Œ is 0xBC and œ/ɶ 0xBD. In Windows-1252, at positions 0x8C and 0x9C. In Mac-Roman, they are at positions 0xCE and 0xCF.
Œ and œ/ɶ were omitted from ISO-8859-1, which are still widespread in internet protocols and applications. Œ is the only character in modern French that is not included in ISO-8859-1, and this has led to it becoming replaced by 'oe' in many computer-assisted publications. This was due, in part, to the lack of available characters in the French ISO/IEC 646 version that was used earlier for computing. Another reason is that œ is absent from most French keyboards, and as a result, few people know how to input it.
The above-mentioned small capital of the International Phonetic Alphabet is encoded at.