As a letter of the Old English
A: When the letters “a” and “e” are printed as one squished-together symbol—“æ”—they form what is known as a digraph (a two-letter symbol) or a ligature. This symbol represents a diphthong—one sound gliding into another within the same syllable.
Æ (lower: æ) is a ligature formed from the letters a and e. It is still used in some languages, including Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic, but in US English the 'a' was removed and the 'e' remained in the majority of words.
The letter Ash, or, "æ" is named after the Futhark rune ash, and can most commonly be recognized for pronunciation in such words as encyclopedia/encyclopædia.
It was also used in Old Swedish before being changed to ä. The modern International Phonetic Alphabet uses it to represent the near-open front unrounded vowel (the sound represented by the 'a' in the English word cat).
æ in American English
2. an Old English ligature representing a low front unrounded vowel like that in Modern English hat. see also ash2 (sense 3) 3. a character in the International Phonetic Alphabet and some other transcription systems, representing this low front unrounded vowel.
In dictionaries, j, q, and z are found the least, but some of the words are rarely used. And if you value the opinion of cryptologists (people who study secret codes and communication), x, q, and z make the fewest appearances in the writing scene.
Ø (or more properly, the similar null sign, ∅), is used in English as a short for "no" or "none", but this usage is discouraged in handwriting, since it may be mistaken as another number, especially "0".
The symbol /ə/ (an upside down 'e') is used in the dictionary to show the most common weak vowel in English, which is pronounced as a relaxed 'uh'. /ə/ is called 'schwa'.
Ə, or ə, also called schwa, is an additional letter of the Latin alphabet. In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), minuscule ə is used to represent the mid central vowel or a schwa.
The main distinction between these two sounds is that /æ/ is shorter than /ɑ:/, but the mouth position is also different – the reason that doctors say “Say ah” is that /ɑ:/ uses a wide open mouth.
The letter Ä arose in German and later in Swedish from originally writing the E in AE on top of the A, which with time became simplified as two dots. In the Icelandic, Faroese, Danish and Norwegian alphabets, "Æ" is still used instead of Ä.
Old English. The combination of the Latin alphabet and the runic alphabet of Futhorc resulted in the modern English alphabet. Some of the additions from the runic alphabets were 'thorn' that had a 'th' sound and 'wynn' that made a 'w' sound. Remember that there was no letter 'w' in the Latin alphabet.
In the orthography of Modern English, the letters thorn (þ), eth (ð), wynn (ƿ), yogh (ȝ), ash (æ), and ethel (œ) are obsolete.
Q without U is used to represent sounds not often found in English but typical in Semitic languages. Loan words such as Qur'an and Iraq are examples of Q's guttural /k/ sound. (Want to learn more about loanwords?
The Missal of Silos is the oldest known surviving paper document (as opposed to parchment) of European origin in existence today, dating back to at least 1080 AD. It was made by the monastery at the Santa María la Real of Nájera.
The questioner asked about the "one circle over a vowel". It's called a ring (bet that surprised you) and it isn't actually considered a diacritic, but part of the letter itself, which is considered different from the letter it appears over, usually an A or U (Å å Ů ů).
Pronouncing the umlaut Ä
The short Ä is pronounced like the “e” in the word “bet” in English. It is like saying “eh”. The long Ä on the other hand is simply taking the short one and keeping the sound, so making it longer. It is like saying the “ay” in “say”.