J - wikipedia J This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 25 January 2018. This article is about the letter J of the alphabet. For other uses, see J ( disambiguation ). For technical reasons, `` J# '' redirects here. For the programming language, see J Sharp. ISO basic Latin alphabet Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz Writing cursive forms of J J is the tenth letter in the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Its normal name in English is jay / dʒ eɪ / or, now uncommonly, jy / dʒ aɪ /. When used for the palatal approximant, it may be called yod ( / jɒd / or / joʊd / ) or yot ( / jɒt / or / joʊt / ). Contents 1 History 2 Use in writing systems 2.1 English 2.2 Other languages 2.2. 1 Germanic and Eastern - European languages 2.2. 2 Romance languages 2.2. 3 Basque 2.2. 4 Non-European languages 3 Related characters 4 Computing codes 4.1 Wingdings smiley issue 5 Other uses 6 Other representations 7 References 8 External links History The letter J originated as a swash letter I, used for the letter I at the end of Roman numerals when following another I, as in XXIIJ or xxiij instead of XXIII or xxiii for the Roman numeral representing 23. A distinctive usage emerged in Middle High German. Gian Giorgio Trissino ( 1478 -- 1550 ) was the first to explicitly distinguish I and J as representing separate sounds, in his Ɛpistola del Trissino de le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte ne la lingua italiana ( `` Trissino 's epistle about the letters recently added in the Italian language '' ) of 1524. Originally, ' I ' and ' J ' were different shapes for the same letter, both equally representing / i /, / iː /, and / j / ; but, Romance languages developed new sounds ( from former / j / and / ɡ / ) that came to be represented as ' I ' and ' J ' ; therefore, English J, acquired from the French J, has a sound value quite different from / j / ( which represents the initial sound in the English word `` yet '' ). Use in writing systems English In English, ⟨ j ⟩ most commonly represents the affricate / dʒ /. In Old English, the phoneme / dʒ / was represented orthographically with ⟨ cg ⟩ and ⟨ cȝ ⟩. Under the influence of Old French, which had a similar phoneme deriving from Latin / j /, English scribes began to use ⟨ i ⟩ ( later ⟨ j ⟩ ) to represent word - initial / dʒ / in Old English ( for example, iest and, later jest ), while using ⟨ dg ⟩ elsewhere ( for example, hedge ). Later, many other uses of ⟨ i ⟩ ( later ⟨ j ⟩ ) were added in loanwords from French and other languages ( e.g. adjoin, junta ). The first English language book to make a clear distinction between ⟨ i ⟩ and ⟨ j ⟩ was published in 1633. In loan words such as raj, ⟨ j ⟩ may represent / ʒ /. In some of these, including raj, Azerbaijan, Taj Mahal, and Beijing, the regular pronunciation / dʒ / is actually closer to the native pronunciation, making the use of / ʒ / an instance of a hyperforeignism. Occasionally, ⟨ j ⟩ represents the original / j / sound, as in Hallelujah and fjord ( see Yodh for details ). In words of Spanish origin, where ⟨ j ⟩ represents the voiceless velar fricative ( x ) ( such as jalapeño ), English speakers usually approximate with the voiceless glottal fricative / h /. In English, ⟨ j ⟩ is the fourth least frequently used letter in words, being more frequent only than ⟨ z ⟩, ⟨ q ⟩, and ⟨ x ⟩. It is, however, quite common in proper nouns, especially personal names. Other languages Germanic and eastern - european languages Pronunciation of written < j > in European languages The great majority of Germanic languages, such as German, Dutch, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, use ⟨ j ⟩ for the palatal approximant / j /, which is usually represented by the letter ⟨ y ⟩ in English. Notable exceptions are English, Scots and ( to a lesser degree ) Luxembourgish. ⟨ j ⟩ also represents / j / in Albanian, and those Uralic, Slavic and Baltic languages that use the Latin alphabet, such as Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Polish, Czech, Serbo - Croatian, Slovak, Latvian and Lithuanian. Some related languages, such as Serbo - Croatian and Macedonian, also adopted ⟨ j ⟩ into the Cyrillic alphabet for the same purpose. Because of this standard, the lower case letter was chosen to be used in the IPA as the phonetic symbol for the sound. Romance languages In the Romance languages, ⟨ j ⟩ has generally developed from its original palatal approximant value in Latin to some kind of fricative. In French, Portuguese, Catalan, and Romanian it has been fronted to the postalveolar fricative / ʒ / ( like ⟨ s ⟩ in English measure ). In Spanish, by contrast, it has been both devoiced and backed from an earlier / ʝ / to a present - day / x ~ h /, with the actual phonetic realization depending on the speaker 's dialect / s. In modern standard Italian spelling, only Latin words, proper nouns ( such as Jesi, Letojanni, Juventus etc. ) or those borrowed from foreign languages have ⟨ j ⟩. Until the 19th century, ⟨ j ⟩ was used instead of ⟨ i ⟩ in diphthongs, as a replacement for final - ii, and in vowel groups ( as in Savoja ) ; this rule was quite strict for official writing. ⟨ j ⟩ is also used to render / j / in dialect, e.g. Romanesque ajo for standard aglio ( -- / ʎ / -- ) ( garlic ). The Italian novelist Luigi Pirandello used ⟨ j ⟩ in vowel groups in his works written in Italian ; he also wrote in his native Sicilian language, which still uses the letter ⟨ j ⟩ to represent / j / ( and sometimes also ( dʒ ) or ( gj ), depending on its environment ). Basque In Basque, the diaphoneme represented by ⟨ j ⟩ has a variety of realizations according to the regional dialect : ( gh, kh, j, ʝ, ɟ, ʒ, ʃ, x ) ( the last one is typical of Gipuzkoa ). Non-European languages Among non-European languages that have adopted the Latin script, ⟨ j ⟩ stands for / ʒ / in Turkish and Azerbaijani, for / ʐ / in Tatar. ⟨ j ⟩ stands for / dʒ / in Indonesian, Somali, Malay, Igbo, Shona, Oromo, Turkmen, and Zulu. It represents a voiced palatal plosive / ɟ / in Konkani, Yoruba, and Swahili. In Kiowa, ⟨ j ⟩ stands for a voiceless alveolar plosive, / t /. In Chinese Pinyin, ⟨ j ⟩ stands for / tɕ /, the unaspirated equivalent of ⟨ q ⟩. The Royal Thai General System of Transcription does not use the letter ⟨ j ⟩, although it is used in some proper names and non-standard transcriptions to represent either จ ( tɕ ) or ช ( tɕh ) ( the latter following Pali / Sanskrit root equivalents ). In romanized Pashto, ⟨ j ⟩ represents ځ, pronounced ( dz ). Related characters 𐤉 : Semitic letter Yodh, from which the following symbols originally derive I i : Latin letter I, from which J derives ȷ : Dotless j ɟ : Modifier letter small dotless j with stroke ʝ : Modifier letter small j with crossed - tail IPA - specific symbols related to J : ʝ ɟ ʄ j Uralic Phonetic Alphabet - specific symbols related to J : U + 1D0A ᴊ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL J, U + 1D36 J MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL J, and U + 2C7C j LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER J J with diacritics : Ĵ ĵ ǰ Ɉ ɉ J̃ j̇̃ Computing codes Character J j ȷ Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER J LATIN SMALL LETTER J LATIN SMALL LETTER DOTLESS J Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex Unicode 74 U + 004A 106 U + 006A 567 U + 0237 UTF - 8 74 4A 106 6A 200 183 C8 B7 Numeric character reference & # 74 ; & # x4A ; & # 106 ; & # x6A ; & # 567 ; & # x237 ; EBCDIC family 209 D1 145 91 ASCII 74 4A 106 6A Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO - 8859 and Macintosh families of encodings. Unicode also has a dotless variant, ȷ ( U + 0237 ). It is primarily used in Landsmålsalfabet and in mathematics. It is not intended to be used with diacritics since the normal j is softdotted in Unicode ( that is, the dot is removed if a diacritic is to be placed above ; Unicode further states that, for example i+  ̈ ≠ ı +  ̈ and the same holds true for j and ȷ ). In Unicode, a duplicate of ' J ' for use as a special phonetic character in historical Greek linguistics is encoded in the Greek script block as ϳ ( Unicode U + 03F3 ). It is used to denote the palatal glide / j / in the context of Greek script. It is called `` Yot '' in the Unicode standard, after the German name of the letter J. An uppercase version of this letter was added to the Unicode Standard at U + 037F with the release of version 7.0 in June 2014. Wingdings smiley issue In the Wingdings font by Microsoft, the letter `` J '' is rendered as a smiley face ( note this is distinct from the Unicode code point U + 263A, which renders as ☺ ). In Microsoft applications, `` : ) '' is automatically replaced by a smiley rendered in a specific font face when composing rich text documents or HTML email. This autocorrection feature can be switched off or changed to a Unicode smiley. Other uses In international licence plate codes, J stands for Japan. In mathematics, j is one of the three imaginary units of quaternions. In the Metric system, J is the symbol for the joule, the SI derived unit for energy. In physics, electrical engineering and related fields, j is the symbol for the imaginary unit ( the square root of - 1 ) ( in other fields the letter i is used, but this would be ambiguous as it is also the symbol for current ). A J can be a slang term for a spliff ( marijuana cigarette ) Other representations NATO phonetic Morse code Juliet -- -- -- Signal flag Flag semaphore American manual alphabet ( ASL fingerspelling ) Braille dots - 245 References Jump up ^ `` J '', Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition ( 1989 ) Jump up ^ `` J '' and `` jay '', Merriam - Webster 's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged ( 1993 ) Jump up ^ `` Wörterbuchnetz ''. Retrieved 22 December 2016. Jump up ^ De le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte ne la lingua Italiana in Italian Wikisource. ^ Jump up to : Hogg, Richard M. ; Norman Francis Blake ; Roger Lass ; Suzanne Romaine ; R.W. Burchfield ; John Algeo ( 1992 ). The Cambridge History of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. p. 39. ISBN 0 - 521 - 26476 - 6. Jump up ^ English Grammar, Charles Butler, 1633 Jump up ^ Wells, John ( 1982 ). Accents of English 1 : An Introduction. Cambridge, UN : Cambridge University Press. p. 108. ISBN 0 - 521 - 29719 - 2. Jump up ^ Penny, Ralph John ( 2002 ). A History of the Spanish Language. Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0 - 521 - 01184 - 1. Jump up ^ Cipolla, Gaetano ( 2007 ). The Sounds of Sicilian : A Pronunciation Guide. Mineola, NY : Legas. pp. 11 -- 12. Retrieved 2013 - 03 - 31. ^ Jump up to : Constable, Peter ( 2004 - 04 - 19 ). `` L2 / 04 - 132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS '' ( PDF ). ^ Jump up to : Everson, Michael ; et al. ( 2002 - 03 - 20 ). `` L2 / 02 - 141 : Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS '' ( PDF ). Jump up ^ Ruppel, Klaas ; Rueter, Jack ; Kolehmainen, Erkki I. ( 2006 - 04 - 07 ). `` L2 / 06 - 215 : Proposal for Encoding 3 Additional Characters of the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet '' ( PDF ). Jump up ^ The Unicode Standard, Version 8.0, p. 293 ( at the very bottom ) Jump up ^ Nick Nicholas, `` Yot '' Archived 2012 - 08 - 05 at Archive.is Jump up ^ `` Unicode Character ' GREEK LETTER YOT ' ( U + 03F3 ) ''. Retrieved 22 December 2016. Jump up ^ `` Unicode : Greek and Coptic '' ( PDF ). Retrieved 2014 - 06 - 26. Jump up ^ `` Unicode 7.0. 0 ''. Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 2014 - 06 - 26. Jump up ^ Pirillo, Chris ( 26 June 2010 ). `` J Smiley Outlook Email : Problem and Fix ! ''. Retrieved 22 December 2016. Jump up ^ Chen, Raymond ( 23 May 2006 ). `` That mysterious J ''. The Old New Thing. MSDN Blogs. Retrieved 2011 - 04 - 01. External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to J. The dictionary definition of J at Wiktionary The dictionary definition of j at Wiktionary `` J ''. Encyclopædia Britannica. 15 ( 11th ed. ). 1911. Latin script History Spread Romanization Roman numerals Alphabets ( list ) Classical Latin alphabet ISO basic Latin alphabet phonetic alphabets International Phonetic Alphabet X-SAMPA Spelling alphabet Letters ( list ) Letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz Letter J with diacritics Ĵĵ Ɉɉ J̌ǰ ȷ Ʝʝ J̃ j̇̃ ɟ ʄ Multigraphs Digraphs ch cz dž dz gh ij ll ly nh ny sh sz th Trigraphs dzs eau Tetragraphs ough Pentagraphs tzsch Keyboard layouts ( list ) QWERTY QWERTZ AZERTY Standards ISO / IEC 646 Unicode Western Latin character sets Lists precomposed Latin characters in Unicode letters used in mathematics Diacritics Palaeography Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=J&oldid=822294838 '' Categories : ISO basic Latin letters Hidden categories : Webarchive template archiveis links Wikipedia pending changes protected pages Articles containing Thai - language text Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference Talk Contents About Wikipedia Acèh Afrikaans Alemannisch አማርኛ Aragonés ܐܪܡܝܐ Asturianu Avañe'ẽ Azərbaycanca تۆرکجه Bân - lâm - gú Беларуская Беларуская ( тарашкевіца ) ‎ Български Boarisch Bosanski Brezhoneg Català Чӑвашла Čeština Corsu Cymraeg Dansk Davvisámegiella Deutsch Eesti Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Euskara فارسی Føroyskt Français Frysk Furlan Gaeilge Gaelg Gàidhlig Galego 贛 語 Хальмг 한국어 Հայերեն Hrvatski Ido Ilokano Bahasa Indonesia Íslenska Italiano עברית ქართული Kaszëbsczi Kernowek Kiswahili Коми Kreyòl ayisyen Kurdî Latina Lëtzebuergesch Lietuvių Lumbaart Magyar Македонски Malagasy मराठी Bahasa Melayu Mìng - dĕ̤ng - ngṳ̄ မြန်မာဘာသာ Nāhuatl Nederlands 日本 語 Nordfriisk Norsk Norsk nynorsk Nouormand Occitan Олык марий Oʻzbekcha / ўзбекча ਪੰਜਾਬੀ Polski Português Română Runa Simi Русский Scots Seeltersk Sicilianu Simple English Slovenčina Slovenščina Sranantongo Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Basa Sunda Suomi Svenska Tagalog Татарча / tatarça ไทย Тоҷикӣ Türkçe Українська Vepsän kel ' Tiếng Việt Volapük Walon Winaray ייִדיש Yorùbá 粵語 Zazaki Žemaitėška 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 25 January 2018, at 15 : 21. 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Question: when was the letter j introduced to the alphabet
Answer: 1524; in Middle High German