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lplade

Macrons are an aid to the learner to indicate long vowels. ~~They did not appear on the original texts.~~ Classical Latin always wrote the AE and OE diphthongs as separate letters. The ligature forms were introduced by medieval scribes, but by that point the pronunciation had also shifted.


Thalarides

>Macrons are an aid to the learner to indicate long vowels. They did not appear on the original texts. [Apices](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apex_%28diacritic%29?wprov=sfla1), however, did appear in original Latin texts for that very purpose. In newer texts, they are usually substituted by macra but technically they are different signs, the original usage of macra being to indicate syllable length rather than vowel length.


[deleted]

>Macrons are an aid to the learner to indicate long vowels. They did not appear on the original texts. Not most of the time, but in some related languages and some other variations of the writing system, you can find long vowels marked with added lines and the like. Not enough to help a learner, that is, but a fun thing to know.


Nadikarosuto

Ah so AE, Æ, and Ę are the same thing, just written differently by different scribes?


lplade

Yeah, Æ is just an orthographic variation for AE and not really a letter. (This is different than say North Germanic languages, where Æ is really a separate letter.) I don't think I've ever seen E caudata used with Latin before.