E. This three-barred square letter-sign for the vowel E occurs in Early Sumerian[1] and in Egyptian signaries from the First Dynasty onwards, and in most of the alphabets onwards down to modern times (see Plate I).
Its parent is now seen to be the Sumerian pictogram for E or Ē picturing a system of irrigation canals with the meaning of "Water," French, Eau. (See Plate I, col. 1.)[2] In this pictogram the cross-bars are turned towards the left, which significantly is the direction in which they are turned in its earliest Egyptian form from the first to the twelfth Dynasty, and this direction persists in Etruscan and South Iberian. The change by which the bars are turned to the right as in ordinary Cadmean Phœnician and modern style first appears in Egypt in the Eighteenth Dynasty.
The Tree-twig form of E which occurs in the Ogam (see Plate I, col. 19) is found in some of the earlier alphabets as an alternative form of E. It is obviously a form of the Sumerian canal-sign E with the bars extended on both sides of the stem; but it early disappeared, presumably because it was identical with a form of the letter S, see below.
The lens-like or lenticular form of E as ᘀ surviving in our small e was probably merely a cursive form of writing the three-barred square letter. As, however, it so closely resembles the Sumerian Eye-sign, which has the Sumerian phonetic value of En[3] it is possible this syllabic Sumerian sign was also used alphabetically for the letter E. The Indian Asokan, if that letter has been correctly identified, appears to be based on the Eye-sign (see Plate I, col. 11); and more especially as the Hindi letter
