The Origins of the a Sound in Old English

The letter A was never used for the A sound in old English. The original old English scribes didn't like to use a vowel letter for more than one vowel sound. In Latin and old English, that sound was represented by the letter E. But it's actually pretty rare to find the letter E by itself representing the A sounds in modern English. And when we do find it, it tends to be a word borrowed from another language. So if the letter E represented the ASound in old English, what letter represented the E sound? Well, that was the next vowel letter, I.