E, the German Kurrent letter e
E is the 5th letter of the German alphabet, representing the most frequent sound in the German language, representing both the close-mid front unrounded vowel /eː/ and the open-mid /ɛ/, as well as the unstressed schwa /ə/. In German Kurrent handwriting, it has a distinct historical ductus taught across German-speaking Europe until 1941.
In words
Mutter · mother
Vater · father
Liebe · love; dear
Easy to confuse with
Looks like n (Kurrent n)
The e is joined at the top and the n at the bottom: two short strokes linked across their tops are an e, linked across their feet an n.
Looks like u (Kurrent u)
The u is joined at the bottom and carries a small arc above it; the e is joined at the top and has no arc.
History
The letter E occupies the 5th position in the German alphabet. Phonetically, it represents the most frequent sound in the German language, representing both the close-mid front unrounded vowel /eː/ and the open-mid /ɛ/, as well as the unstressed schwa /ə/.
Lowercase e in Kurrent is famously distinct from modern Latin cursive: it is formed by two closely spaced, parallel vertical strokes connected at the top by a sharp diagonal hairline. Untrained transcribers frequently confuse it with n (which connects at the bottom) or u (which requires an arc above). Capital E consists of two curved hooks or loops stacked vertically in the upper two zones.
As the most common letter in German, e appears in nearly every line of handwritten records. Furthermore, lowercase e is the direct historical origin of the German umlaut: scribes in the early modern period wrote a tiny cursive e over vowels (aͤ, oͤ, uͤ), which over centuries gradually simplified into the two modern umlaut dots (ä, ö, ü).