In English, is the ash a distinct character, then? Combat my ignorance!
Also, Kythereia – to do the funky char maps, you want to turn Num Lock on and use the number pad to do it. Some vague ghost of memory says there’s a good reason for not making it possible to do this with the regular number row, but it isn’t coming clear. shakes magic crystal ball
Hold down ALT. While holding it down, type 0 1 9 8 on the numeric keypad. Release the ALT key.
Nothing?
Okay, now we need to work on Thorn and Edh. Or maybe Wen.
(Just think, someday we may get back to Proto-Indo-European pharyngeal consonants! :D)
Strong or weak schwa?
Yes and no. From what I’ve read (OED & Webster’s Unabridged), it was a character that had more than one distinct pronounciation. The a and the e wee split off at different times and the character has been rendered nearly archaic. I get the impression that by being the ae ligature, it was created from the a and the e at some earlier date, but that’s just a WAG on my part. Right now I’m just going on my sketchy memory. IIRC, Wikipedia has an entry under “ligature” or “ae ligature” or “ash,” but I can’t recall what search term I used.
It does remain in some words, such as encyclopædia (sp?), as mentioned above.