I thought "Et cetera" was linguistically correct, sans

Hmm well I wouldn't be surprised to word being mistreated every now and then. That's the way it's written in a text by George Pennec so I would guess it's correct... Maybe there are other translations.

Opinions anyone? =)

Actually, my main text is in french but I think Et c

That's more than I could have asked for, thanks!

Em

So is it linguistically correct to toss in

It isn't linguistically incorrect but most people would think it a strange affectation.

Since, in german,

Using the ae ligature is considered somewhat archaic in U.S. English -- in fact, American usage has dropped the leading a in most instances. (For example: encyclopaedia vs. encyclopedia.)

Although British style retains both letters in most instances, I do not know whether they commonly use the ligature or not. I suspect it is not necessarily improper to use it, but it may look quaint/mannered/overly formal.

Moreover, I believe the æ ligature is only properly used in English for words derived from Latin that contain the specific ae dipthong in question, not any random occurrence of the a-e letter sequence.

In Norwegian and Danish, “æ” is not a ligature of “a” and “e”, but an independent letter, representing the vowel sound in English “hat”. Using “ae” as a substitute for “aelig;” in Norwegian and Danish would be akin to using “vv” as a substitute for “w” in English—comprehensible, but jarring.

Regarding “et cetera” vs “et caetera”: either is acceptable, but the former is found more frequently than the latter, at least in English language contexts.

I believe that “æ” and “œ” usage in (post-Anglo-Saxon) English had been preferred for words ultimately of Greek origin that were spelled with alpha-iota and omicron-iota respectively. As the Latin word “c(a)eterus” [for which “c(a)etera” is likely the feminine ablative] is not of Greek origin, it probably shouldn‘t be spelled with æ.

Oops. It looks like the "Enable HTML code in message" option excludes character entities...

In Old (and Middle) English, the character