What ஏ means
Choose the independent-vowel entry for standalone ஏ.
In Keyman Tamil99 2.0.2, enter a consonant first and its vowel second, even when the dependent sign appears before or around the consonant. Backspace removes the vowel part first, so a combined syllable may take two presses to erase.
What sound does ஏ make?
It writes Tamil’s long e, distinct from short எ.
The vowel is held longer than short எ. When Tamil sounds are written with Latin letters, this long vowel is commonly represented as ē or ee.
Why did early Tamil spelling leave e-length unmarked?
Tamil-Brahmi spelling left short and long e unmarked.
Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions are the oldest surviving Tamil records, and Brahmi was used for Tamil from the 2nd century BCE. This early spelling did not mark the contrast between short and long e, even though Tamil had both sounds. Tamil-Brahmi developed through Vatteluttu, an older Tamil script, and later Tamil-script forms; later forms use separate letters to mark the difference.
Part of the collection
Who writes ஏ
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Don't confuse it with
1
Related characters
1
Alphabet
Questions people ask
1Why does ஏ show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
More like this
9
Collections with ஏ
2
How to type or find ஏ
- Also called
- ē · ee · long e
- Search it as
- tamil e · type tamil · tamil keyboard
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
ஏ\0B8FCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.