What is "e caudata"

n. 1 A form of the letter (l mul e) modified by the addition of a (l/en: diacritical) “tail”: ⟨(l mul ę)⟩. 2 # Used in Latin for a long (term ē Latin) that represents an etymological ⟨ae⟩ or ⟨oe⟩ (l/en: diphthong). ((non-gloss definition Both of which diphthongs had phonologically merged into ''⟨ē⟩'' by the early Mediaeval period. English)) 3 # Used in (l/en Middle Irish Middle) and (l/en Irish Early Modern Irish) for ⟨e⟩, ⟨ae⟩, and ⟨ea⟩. 4 # Used in (l/en: Old Norse) for (IPAchar /æ(ː)/ Old Norse), representing the (l/en: Proto-Germanic) (IPAchar */a/ lang=gem) (as opposed to the Proto-Germanic (IPAchar */e/ lang=gem)).

The e caudata ("tailed e", from "tail") is a modified form of the letter E that can be graphically represented as E with ogonek ( ę) but has a distinct history of usage. It was used in Latin from as early as the ninth century to represent the vowel also written ae or æ or in old Gaelic texts from the 13th century to represent an ea ligature.

In Middle and Early Modern Irish manuscripts, and in unnormalised transcriptions of them, e caudata is used for e, ae and ea.

In Old Norse manuscripts, e caudata was used for both short and long versions of /æ/. In a few texts on Old Norse, it, like German ä, represents short /æ/, the result of i-mutation of Proto-Germanic */a/, and contrasts with e, which represents Proto-Germanic */e/. However, because these two vowels eventually merged to /e/ in the written varieties of Old Norse, they are commonly both written as e.