U00EA

U+00EA is the Unicode code point for the Latin small letter E with circumflex, ê. Its official Unicode name is LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH CIRCUMFLEX. The uppercase counterpart is Ê (U+00CA). This character belongs to the Latin-1 Supplement block and appears in various Latin-script languages.

In Unicode and common encodings, ê is represented in UTF-8 as two bytes: 0xC3 0xAA. In many Western encodings, such as ISO-8859-1 and Windows-1252, it is encoded as 0xEA. In HTML and XML, the character can be written as ê for the lowercase form or as ê (decimal) / ê (hex) when a named entity is not available.

Usage and pronunciation vary by language. In French, ê often marks a historical vowel length or a specific pronunciation, appearing in words like pâté and forêt. In Portuguese, ê appears in stressed closed vowels in certain dialects and loanwords. In Vietnamese, ê is a distinct vowel letter used in combination with tonal diacritics to encode vowel sounds, functioning as part of the standard Vietnamese alphabet. Beyond these languages, ê occurs in loanwords and proper names across various languages that use the Latin alphabet.

Typography and typography history note that the circumflex diacritic over ê can signal vowel quality changes or historical ligatures in etymology. Modern typesetting treats ê as a single, stable letter, critical for correct spelling in affected languages.

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