Learn English – Is the word “formulæ” valid English

alphabetlatinligatureold-englishtypography

Is the word formulæ, written with an æ at the end, valid in English? I stumbled upon this apparently plural form of formula in the Wiktionary.

I had no idea the letter æ could occur in English. Does anyone know the story to this? Are there other examples of English words that contain letters not found in the standard English alphabet?

Best Answer

It’s not really part of Modern English vocabulary. Depends how you define vocabulary. Does it include words and letters being used? Or does it cover only those words and letters that are officially in words such as a or apple?

Wikipedia says this about it:

Æ (miniscule: æ) is a grapheme formed from the letters a and e. Originally a ligature representing a Latin diphthong, it has been promoted to the full status of a letter in the alphabets of some languages, including Danish, Faroese, Norwegian, and Icelandic. As a letter of the Old English Latin alphabet, it was called æsc (“ash tree”) after the Anglo-Saxon futhorc rune ᚫ, which it transliterated; its traditional name in English is still ash /æʃ/.

It’s not a letter in the English alphabet. So depending on how you define vocabulary, Æ either could be or is not part of English.

Another strange letter would be œ, which used to be in the word diarrhoea when written as diarrhœa.

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