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This article is about the tenth letter of the Latin alphabet. For other uses, see J
(disambiguation).
For technical reasons, "J#" redirects here. For the programming language, see J Sharp.
For the Cyrillic letter Ј, see Je (Cyrillic).

Jjȷ

(See below)

Usage
Writing Latin script

system

Type Alphabetic

Language of Latin language

origin

Phonetic [j]

usage [dʒ]~[tʃ]

[x~h]

[ʒ]

[ɟ]

[ʝ]

[dz]

[tɕ]

[gʱ]

[t]~[dʑ]

[ʐ]

[ʃ]

[c̬ ]

[i]

/dʒeɪ/

/dʒaɪ/

Unicode U+004A, U+006A, U+0237

codepoint

Alphabetical 10

position

History

Development
 •
o
▪
▪

▪
▪ Ιι
▪ 𐌉
▪ Ii
▪ J
jȷ

Time period 1524 to present

Descendants •Ɉ

• Tittle

•J

Sisters І

‫י‬

‫ي‬
‫ܝ‬

‫ی‬

ࠉ
ዪ
Ⴢ

Variations (See below)

Other

Other letters j(x), ij

commonly
used with
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory
guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription
delimiters.

ISO basic
Latin alphabet

AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz

• v
• t
• e

J, or j, is the tenth letter in the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin
alphabet. Its usual name in English is jay (pronounced /ˈdʒeɪ/), with a now-uncommon
variant jy /ˈdʒaɪ/.[1][2] When used in the International Phonetic Alphabet for the y sound, it
may be called yod or jod (pronounced /ˈjɒd/ or /ˈjoʊd/).[3]

Contents

• 1History
• 2Pronunciation and use
o 2.1English
o 2.2Other languages
▪ 2.2.1Germanic and Eastern-European
languages
▪ 2.2.2Romance languages
▪ 2.2.3Other European Languages
▪ 2.2.4Non-European languages
• 3Related characters
• 4Computing codes
o 4.1Wingdings smiley issue
• 5Other uses
• 6Other representations
• 7References
• 8External links

History[edit]
Children's book from 1743, showing I and J considered as the same letter

The letter J used to be used as the 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 twenty-three. A distinctive usage emerged in Middle High
German.[4] 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.[5] Originally, 'I' and 'J' were different shapes for the same
letter, both equally representing /i/, /iː/, and /j/; however, 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 language word "yet").

Pronunciation and use[edit]

List of pronunciations hide

Most common pronunciation: /j/ Languages in italics do not use the Latin alphabet

Pronunciation
Language Dialect(s) Environment Notes
(IPA)

Afrikaans /j/
Albanian /j/
Standard; most dialects /dʒ/ Latinization
Gulf /j/ Latinization
Arabic
Sudanese, Omani, Yemeni /ɟ/ Latinization
Levantine, Maghrebi /ʒ/ Latinization
 Azeri /ʒ/
Bizkaian /dʒ/
also used in southwest
Lapurdian /j/
Bizkaian
Basque[6] Low Navarrese /ɟ/ also used in south Lapurdian
High Navarrese /ʃ/
Gipuzkoan /x/ also used in east Bizkaian
Zuberoan /ʒ/
Catalan /ʒ/ or /dʒ/
Czech /j/
Danish /j/
Dutch /j/
English /dʒ/
Esperanto /j/
Estonian /j/
/dʒ/ English loan words
Filipino
/h/ Spanish loan words
Finnish /j/
French /ʒ/
German /j/
Greenlandic /j/
Hindi /dʒ/
/dz/~/dʑ/
Hokkien
/z/~/ʑ/
Hungarian /j/
Icelandic /j/
Igbo /dʒ/
Indonesian /dʒ/
/ʑ/ and /dʑ/ distinct in some
Japanese /dʑ/~/ʑ/
dialects, see Yotsugana
Kiowa /t/
Konkani /ɟ/
/ts/
North
/dz/ after vowels
Korean
/tɕ/
South
/dʑ/ after vowels
Kurdish /ʒ/
 /j/
Luxembourgish
/ʒ/ Some loan words
Latvian /j/
Lithuanian /j/
Malay /dʒ/
Maltese /j/
/tɕ/ Pinyin latinization
Mandarin Standard
/ʐ/ Wade–Giles latinization
Manx /dʒ/
Norwegian /j/
Oromo /dʒ/
Pashto /dz/
Polish /j/
Portuguese /ʒ/
Romanian /ʒ/
Scots /dʒ/
Serbo-Croatian /j/
Shona /dʒ/
Slovak /j/
Slovenian /j/
Somali /dʒ/
Standard /x/
Spanish
Some dialects /h/
Swahili /ɟ/
Swedish /j/
Tamil /dʑ/
Tatar /ʐ/
Telugu /dʒ/
Turkish /ʒ/
Turkmen /dʒ/
Yoruba /ɟ/
Zulu /dʒ/

English[edit]
In English, ⟨j⟩ most commonly represents the affricate /dʒ/. In Old English, the
phoneme /dʒ/ was represented orthographically with ⟨cg⟩ and ⟨cȝ⟩.[7] 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).[7] 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 the King James Bible 1st Revision Cambridge 1629
and an English grammar book published in 1633.[8] In loan words such as bijou or Dijon,
⟨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 hyperforeignism, a type of hypercorrection.[9] 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[edit]
Germanic and Eastern-European languages[edit]
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, Slovenian, 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[edit]
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 (except Valencian), and Romanian it has been fronted
to the postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ (like ⟨s⟩ in English measure). In Valencian and Occitan it
has the same sound as in English, /dʒ/. In Spanish, by contrast, it has been
both devoiced and backed from an earlier /ʝ/ to a present-day /x/ or /h/,[10] with the actual
phonetic realization depending on the speaker's dialect.
Generally, ⟨j⟩ is not commonly present in modern standard Italian spelling. Only proper
nouns (such as Jesi and Letojanni), Latin words (Juventus), or those borrowed from
foreign languages have ⟨j⟩. The proper nouns and Latin words are pronounced as
the palatal approximant /j/, while words borrowed from foreign languages tend to follow
that language's pronunciation of ⟨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 in official writing. ⟨j⟩ is also used to render /j/ in dialectal
spelling, e.g. Romanesco dialect ⟨ajo⟩ [ajo] (garlic; cf. Italian aglio [aʎo]). 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).[11]
Other European Languages[edit]
The Maltese language is a Semitic language, not a Romance language; but has been
deeply influenced by them (especially Sicilian) and it uses ⟨j⟩ for the sound /j/ (cognate
of the Semitic yod).
In Basque, the diaphoneme represented by ⟨j⟩ has a variety of realizations according to
the regional dialect: [j, ʝ, ɟ, ʒ, ʃ, x] (the last one is typical of Gipuzkoa).
Non-European languages[edit]
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/.
⟨j⟩ stands for /dʒ/ in the romanization systems of most of the Languages of India such
as Hindi and Telugu and stands for /dʑ/ in the Romanization of Japanese and Korean.
For Chinese languages, ⟨j⟩ stands for /t͡ɕ/ in Mandarin Chinese Pinyin system, the
unaspirated equivalent of ⟨q⟩ (/t͡ɕʰ/). In Wade–Giles, ⟨j⟩ stands for Mandarin
Chinese /ʐ/. Pe̍h-ōe-jī of Hokkien and Tâi-lô for Taiwanese Hokkien, ⟨j⟩ stands
for /z/ and /ʑ/, or /d͡z/ and /d͡ʑ/, depending on accents. In Jyutping for Cantonese, ⟨j⟩
stands for /j/.
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].
In Greenlandic and in the Qaniujaaqpait spelling of the Inuktitut language, ⟨j⟩ is used to
transcribe /j/.
Following Spanish usage, ⟨j⟩ represents [x] or similar sounds in many Latin-alphabet-
based writing systems for indigenous languages of the Americas, such as [χ] in Mayan
languages (ALMG alphabet) and a glottal fricative [h] in some spelling systems used
for Aymara.

Related characters[edit]
• 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[12]
 • ᶨ : Modifier letter small j with crossed-tail[12]
• IPA-specific symbols related to J: ʝ ɟ ʲ ʄ 𐤉[13]
• Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to
J:
o U+1D0A ᴊ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL J[14]
o U+1D36 ᴶ MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL J[14]
o U+2C7C ⱼ LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER J[15]
• J with diacritics: Ĵ ĵ ǰ Ɉ ɉ J ̃ ȷ ̃

Computing codes[edit]
Character information

Preview J j ȷ

LATIN CAPITAL LATIN SMALL LATIN SMALL LETTER

Unicode name LETTER J LETTER J DOTLESS J

Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex

Unicode 74 U+004A 106 U+006A 567 U+0237

UTF-8 74 4A 106 6A 200 183 C8 B7

Numeric character
J J j j ȷ ȷ
reference

Named character
ȷ
reference

EBCDIC family 209 D1 145 91

ASCII 1 74 4A 106 6A
 1
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).[16]
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.[17][18] 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.[19][20]
Wingdings smiley issue[edit]
In the Wingdings font by Microsoft, the letter "J" is rendered
as a smiley face (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.[21] [22]

Other uses[edit]
• In international licence plate codes, J stands
for Japan.
• In mathematics, j is one of the three imaginary
units of quaternions.
• Also in mathematics, j is one of the three unit
vectors.
• In the Metric system, J is the symbol for
the joule, the SI derived unit for energy.
• In some areas of 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 joint (marijuana cigarette)
 • In the United Kingdom under the old
system (before 2001), a licence plate that begins
with "J" for example "J123 XYZ" would
correspond to a vehicle registered between
August 1, 1991 and July 31, 1992. Again under
the old system, a licence plate that ends with "J"
for example "ABC 123J" would correspond to a
vehicle that was registered between August 1,
1970 and July 31, 1971.[23]

Other representations[edit]
NATO phonetic Morse code

Juliet ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄

Braille dots-245
American manual British manual
Signal flag Flag semaphore Unified English
alphabet (ASL fingerspelling) alphabet (BSL fingerspelling)
Braille

References[edit]
1. ^ "J", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989)
2. ^ "J" and "jay", Merriam-Webster's Third New
International Dictionary of the English Language,
Unabridged (1993)
3. ^ "yod". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford
University Press. (Subscription or participating institution
membership required.)
4. ^ "Wörterbuchnetz". Retrieved 22 December 2016.
5. ^ De le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte ne la lingua
Italiana in Italian Wikisource.
6. ^ Trask, R. L. (Robert Lawrence), 1944-2004.
(1997). The history of Basque. London:
Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13116-2. OCLC 34514667.
7. ^ Jump up to:a b 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.
8. ^ English Grammar, Charles Butler, 1633
9. ^ Wells, John (1982). Accents of English 1: An
Introduction. Cambridge, UN: Cambridge University
Press. p. 108. ISBN 0-521-29719-2.
 10. ^ Penny, Ralph John (2002). A History of the Spanish
Language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 0-521-01184-1.
11. ^ Cipolla, Gaetano (2007). The Sounds of Sicilian: A
Pronunciation Guide. Mineola, NY: Legas. pp. 11–
12. ISBN 9781881901518. Retrieved 2013-03-31.
12. ^ Jump up to:a b Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-
132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the
UCS" (PDF).
13. ^ Miller, Kirk; Ashby, Michael (2020-11-08). "L2/20-252R:
Unicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a),
pulmonic" (PDF).
14. ^ Jump up to:a b Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-
20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for
the UCS" (PDF).
15. ^ 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).
16. ^ The Unicode Standard, Version 8.0, p. 293 (at the very
bottom)
17. ^ Nick Nicholas, "Yot" Archived 2012-08-05
at archive.today
18. ^ "Unicode Character 'GREEK LETTER YOT' (U+03F3)".
Retrieved 22 December 2016.
19. ^ "Unicode: Greek and Coptic" (PDF). Retrieved 2014-06-
26.
20. ^ "Unicode 7.0.0". Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 2014-
06-26.
21. ^ Pirillo, Chris (26 June 2010). "J Smiley Outlook Email:
Problem and Fix!". Archived from the original on 26
November 2016. Retrieved 22 December 2016.
22. ^ Chen, Raymond (23 May 2006). "That mysterious
J". The Old New Thing. MSDN Blogs. Retrieved 2011-04-
01.
23. ^ "Car Registration Years | Suffix Number Plates |
Platehunter". www.platehunter.com. Retrieved 2018-12-
20.

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to J.

• The dictionary definition of J at Wiktionary

• The dictionary definition of j at Wiktionary
• "J" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.).
1911.

show
 Latin script
Categories:
• ISO basic Latin letters

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