Fun fact: the æ ligature was only introduced to Latin during the early modern era. Classical Latin just wrote out AE (and it was always in capitals because min

Fun fact: the æ ligature was only introduced to Latin during the early modern era. Classical Latin just wrote out AE (and it was always in capitals because minuscule hadn't been invented yet). In the middle ages, after sound changes resulted in AE being pronounced just like E, they switched to ę (called e caudata, the little tail at the bottom being called a cauda). In the early modern era, scribal abbreviations fell out of fashion and they went back to writing the a... but they ligatured it with the e as æ in order to make it clear it was a single sound.