Ě

From MedBib.com - Medicine & Nature

The grapheme Ě, ě (E with háček) is used in the Czech alphabet.

The letter ě is a vestige of Old-Czech palatalization. The originally palatalizing phoneme /ě/ [ʲɛ] became extinct, changing to [ɛ] or [jɛ], but it is preserved as a grapheme.

This letter never appears in the initial position, and its pronunciation depends on the preceding consonant:

• Dě, tě, ně [ɟɛ, cɛ, ɲɛ] is written instead of ďe, ťe, ňe (analogically to di, ti, ni).
• Bě, pě, vě, fě is written instead of bje, pje, vje, fje. But in some words (vjezd, entry, drive-in, objem, volume), bje, vje is written because –je- is preceded by prefixes v- or ob- in such cases.
• Mě [mɲɛ] is written instead of mňe. For etymological reasons, mně is written in some words (jemný, soft -> jemně, softly).

See also

• Czech orthography
• Czech phonology