Tamil Letter E

Use எ alone; type the consonant before its short-e sign.

The Tamil keyboard has separate routes for the standalone letter and dependent sign. On the Visual Media typewriter layout, C enters standalone எ; for கெ, type f then b. With Tamil99, enter the consonant key before the short-e vowel key.

Use standalone எ when a syllable starts with a vowel. The Tamil e vowel sign ◌ெ instead attaches to a consonant. Enter க then ◌ெ; it appears to the left of க in rendered கெ, though the text order keeps it after the consonant. On typewriter-style layouts, entering the sign first can leave it unattached.

What sound does எ make?

It marks Tamil’s short e vowel; ஏ marks its long counterpart.

Keep the vowel brief: எ is short, while its partner ஏ lasts longer. That length contrast can change a word: பெட்டை means “female bird,” while பேட்டை means “suburb.”

Where did the Tamil e letter come from?

It grew from Tamil-Brahmi, an early Brahmi script adapted for Tamil.

Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions appear on rock shelters and pottery by the middle of the third century BCE. That early script was adapted to write Tamil, and its letter forms developed in stages rather than appearing as a one-off invention.

In early Tamil-Brahmi, short and long e were not consistently marked differently, though Tamil distinguished them in speech. Later Tamil writing marks them separately with எ and ஏ. Later Tamil script forms developed through Vatteluttu, a rounded writing style, while Grantha developed in the Tamil region for writing Sanskrit.