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{{dablink|J# redirects here for technical reasons; see [[J Sharp]]. For other uses, see [[J (disambiguation)]].'' }}
{{wiktionarypar2|J|j}}
{{Latin alphabet navbox|uc=J|lc=j}}
'''J''' is the tenth letter in the modern [[Latin alphabet]]; it was the last of the 26 letters to be added. Its name in [[English language|English]] is '''jay''' ({{pronEng|dʒeɪ}}).<ref name="j-oed">"J", ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' 2nd edition (1989)</ref><ref> "J" and "jay", ''Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1993)</ref> It was formerly ''jy'' (from French ''ji''), and in some dialects, mainly of [[Scottish English]], it still is ({{pronEng|dʒaɪ}}).<ref name="j-oed"/>
== History ==
'''J''' was originally an alternative version of [[I]]. Its [[Lower case|minuscule]], '''j''', was used in the [[Middle Ages]] as a [[Swash (typography)|swash]] character to end some [[Roman numerals]] in place of ''i''. There was an emerging distinctive use in [[Middle High German]].<ref>[http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/WBB/woerterbuecher/lexer/selectarticle?lemid=LJ00001 Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch von Matthias Lexer (1878)]</ref> [[Petrus Ramus]] (d. 1572) was the first to explicitly distinguish I and J as representing separate sounds. Originally, both I and J represented {{IPA|/i/}}, {{IPA|/iː/}}, and {{IPA|/j/}}; but [[Romance languages]] developed new sounds (from former {{IPA|/j/}} and {{IPA|/g/}}) that came to be represented as I and J; therefore, [[English language|English]] J (from [[French language|French]] J) has a sound value quite different from {{IPA|/j/}}.
All the [[Germanic languages]] except English, [[Scots language|Scots]] and [[Luxembourgish language|Luxembourgish]] use ''J'' for {{IPA|/j/}}. This is also true of [[Albanian language|Albanian]], and those [[Uralic languages|Uralic]] and [[Slavic languages]] that use the Latin alphabet, such as [[Magyar language|Hungarian]], [[Finnish language|Finnish]], [[Estonian language|Estonian]], [[Polish language|Polish]], [[Czech language|Czech]], and [[Slovak language|Slovak]]. Some languages in these families, such as [[Serbian language|Serbian]], also adopted J into the [[Je (Cyrillic)|Cyrillic alphabet]] for the same purpose. Because of this standard, the [[Lower case|minuscule]] letter was chosen to be used in the [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]] as the phonetic symbol for the sound.
Linguists from Germany and Central Europe also took up this letter in transliterations from those Slavic languages which use the Cyrillic alphabet. Specifically, the "[[Ye (Cyrillic)|Е]]" in [[Russian language|Russian]] is sometimes transliterated "je" (with the "[[Yo (Cyrillic)|Ё]]" becoming "jo"); the "[[Ya (Cyrillic)|Я]]" is transliterated as "ja"; and the character "[[Yu (Cyrillic)|Ю]]" is transliterated "ju" - whereas the linguists from America and the English speaking world use "y" in place of "j" because of English, French, and Spanish use of Y for {{IPA|/j/}}. European linguists also use the character [[Short I|Й]] so that their transliterations of nominative case of adjectives ("-ий") end in "-ij" whereas in American transliterations it's "-ii". The student who uses the American transliteration has to remember that the second "i" is different from the first in the original.
In modern standard [[Italian language|Italian]] spelling, only [[Latin]] words or those of foreign languages have J. Until the 19th century, J was used instead of I in [[diphthong]]s, as a replacement for final ''-ii'', and in vowel groups (as in ''Savoja''); this rule was quite strict for official writing. And J is also used for rendering words in dialect, where it stands for {{IPA|/j/}}, e.g. Romanesque ''ajo'' for standard ''aglio'' (garlic). The Italian Novelist [[Luigi Pirandello]] utilised J in vowel groups in his works.
In [[Spanish language|Spanish]] J stands for {{IPA|/x ~ h/}} (which developed from an earlier [[affricate consonant|affricate]] {{IPA|/dʒ/}}), similar to the English "H" sound. However, the actual phonetic realization depends on dialect. When followed by an 'A' or an 'O' however, it assumes a guttural sound (fricative uvular /χ/), probably a remainder of [[Arabic]] or [[Hebrew]] influences.
In [[French language|French]], [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], and [[Romanian language|Romanian]], former {{IPA|/dʒ/}} is now pronounced as {{IPA|/ʒ/}} (as in English ''mea''s''ure'').
In [[Turkish language|Turkish]], [[Azerbaijani language|Azerbaijani]] and [[Tatar language|Tatar]], J always represents {{IPA|/ʒ/}}.
[[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] also influenced the English J, which in a few cases is used in place of the more normal Y. The classic example is [[Hallelujah]] which is pronounced the same as "Halleluyah". See the [[yodh|Hebrew yud]] for more details.
Some German typefaces of the [[Fraktur (typeface sub-classification)|fraktur]] or [[schwabacher]] types, obsolete since the end of the [[Second World War]], do not necessarily distinguish between the capital I and J. The same character, a 'J' with a top [[serif]] of the [[tilde]] form, was sometimes used for both. The minuscule i and j, however, were distinguished.
In [[Thomas Hardy]]'s novel ''[[Tess Of The D'Urbervilles]]'', Tess's mother writes letters to [[Angel Clare]] using "J" as the first person singular [[pronoun]]. Although the novel is set in the 19th century, this practice apparently remained in some rural areas.
In [[Denmark]], [[Germany]], [[Norway]], [[Sweden]] and [[Albania]], this letter is often written with a long [[serif]] on top, but only to the left of the character.
J is used relatively infrequently in the [[English Language]], though it is more commonly used than [[Q]], [[X]] or [[Z]].
The dot above the lowercase "i" and "j" is known as a [[tittle]].
"J" is the only letter that does not appear in the [[Periodic Table of the Elements]] (although ''Jl'' was once symbol for [[joliotium]], and ''J'' alone has been used for [[iodine]]<ref>[[Chemical element#Specific_chemical_elements]]</ref>). "Q" is only used in temporary [[systematic element name|systematic chemical symbols]].
==Codes for computing==
{{Letter
|NATO=Juliet
|Morse=·–––
|Character=J0
|Braille=⠚
}}
In [[Unicode]] the [[majuscule|capital]] J is codepoint U+004A and the [[Lower case|lowercase]] j is U+006A. Unicode also has a dotless variant, {{Unicode|ȷ}} (U+0237) for use with [[combining diacritics]].
The [[ASCII]] code for capital J is 74 and for lowercase j is 106; or in [[Binary numeral system|binary]] 01001010 and 01101010, respectively.
The [[EBCDIC]] code for capital J is 209 and for lowercase j is 145.
The [[numeric character reference]]s in [[HTML]] and [[XML]] are "<tt>&#74;</tt>" and "<tt>&#106;</tt>" for upper and lower case respectively.
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{Latin alphabet}}
[[Category:Latin letters]]
[[af:J]]
[[als:J]]
[[ar:J]]
[[arc:J]]
[[ast:J]]
[[az:J]]
[[bs:J]]
[[br:J (lizherenn)]]
[[ca:J]]
[[cs:J]]
[[co:J]]
[[cy:J]]
[[da:J]]
[[de:J]]
[[el:J]]
[[es:J]]
[[eo:J]]
[[eu:J]]
[[fa:J]]
[[fr:J (lettre)]]
[[fur:J]]
[[gan:J]]
[[gd:J]]
[[gl:J]]
[[ko:J]]
[[hr:J]]
[[ilo:J]]
[[is:J]]
[[it:J]]
[[he:J]]
[[ka:J]]
[[kw:J]]
[[sw:J]]
[[ht:J]]
[[la:J]]
[[lv:J]]
[[lt:J]]
[[hu:J]]
[[mzn:J]]
[[nah:J]]
[[nl:J (letter)]]
[[ja:J]]
[[no:J]]
[[nn:J]]
[[nrm:J]]
[[uz:J (harf)]]
[[pl:J]]
[[pt:J]]
[[ro:J]]
[[qu:J]]
[[ru:J (латиница)]]
[[se:J]]
[[scn:J]]
[[simple:J]]
[[sk:J]]
[[sl:J]]
[[sr:J (слово латинице)]]
[[fi:J]]
[[sv:J]]
[[tl:J]]
[[th:J]]
[[vi:J]]
[[tg:J (забони барномасозӣ)]]
[[tr:J (harf)]]
[[uk:J (латиниця)]]
[[vo:J]]
[[yo:J]]
[[zh-yue:J]]
[[bat-smg:J]]
[[zh:J]]