Avestan letter Ee

It records Avestan’s long e vowel, written ē in scholarly transliteration.

The macron in ē marks vowel length; it is a Latin scholarly spelling, not another Avestan glyph. The related 𐬈 is short e, while 𐬍 is long i, a different vowel.

An Avestan letter records a sound in the language; it does not carry a standalone word meaning.

Why was the Avestan alphabet made?

It was made to preserve the pronunciation of sacred Avestan texts.

Avestan texts were recited before they were written down. In the Sasanian period, scribes adapted Pahlavi, a Middle Persian script descended from Aramaic, and expanded it to record vowel distinctions that Pahlavi writing could leave unclear. The long-e form was made by adding a rightward flourish to the short-e letter 𐬈.

An inscription on a sarcophagus (a carved stone coffin) in Istanbul, dated before 430, shows the script was developing early in its history. The earliest surviving Avestan manuscript cited by Encyclopaedia Iranica dates to 1288; that dates a surviving manuscript, not the letter’s origin. Later Iranian and Indian manuscript traditions preserve different recitation and ritual developments around these sacred texts.

What does 𐬉 mean if someone sends it?

Treat it as a letter reference unless the sender gives more context.

As of 2026, a lone 𐬉 has no settled everyday message reading. In a discussion of Avestan, Zoroastrian worship, manuscripts, or Unicode, it points to the letter; elsewhere, ask what the sender means.