What is that A coming off of the E called?

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I think you know what I'm talking about, that funny A that looks like it's growing out of the side of an E. You see it in such words as:
Aegis
Aethelbert
Aether

There is also this thing, the A on the O, as in manoeuvre.

So what are they called? I know how to pronounce them.

 

[Taliesin]

In the case of Anglo-Saxon words such as Aethelbert, at least, the Ae is a transliteration of Æ, an old character called the æsc ("ash"). It was pronounced roughly like the "a" in modern English "cat."

 

[GenMarshall]

I treat the A as a silent leter. But since English is a language spounge, it does have funky rules when certan letters come together.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I see, I pronounce it like CG said, with a silent A, thus Aegis would be said simply "eeejisss." Is that right? Aegis comes from Greece, IIRC.

What about Aether? And that weird thing in manoeuvre, with the o and the e?

 

[Taliesin]

I think in Latin æ was pronounced like the "i" in "hide", and in Greek was spelled "ai" (pronounced the same way). However, modern pronunciation is as you say-- eegis, medieeval, encyclopeedia, etc., and in some of these words æ has simply been replaced with e.

 

[Irish Caesar]

I've seen my name spelled and heard it pronounced both ways.

 

[shortguy]

I believe they're called ligatures.

 

[Leifmk]

I think in Latin æ was pronounced like the "i" in "hide", and in Greek was spelled "ai" (pronounced the same way). However, modern pronunciation is as you say-- eegis, medieeval, encyclopeedia, etc., and in some of these words æ has simply been replaced with e.

The classical Latin pronounciation of these ligatures is indeed thought to have been as diphthongs: ae pronounced much like "ai", oe pronounced like "oi".

In the post-classical period pronounciation drifted toward monophthongs ("flat" vowels), the exact pronounciation of which would vary geographically and depending on the user's native language. Making "ae" equivalent to the "e"-sound is particularily English, most others would pronounce it as something between an "a" and an "e".

In the Scandinavian languages these ligatures have become separate vowels of their own, treated like any other letters (and appended to the end of the alphabet).

As an additional bit of trivia, I might add that in classical Latin the consonants c and g were always pronounced "hard" (c = k and for a long time they didn't have a separate letter for k). So "Caesar" would have been pronounced "Kaisar".