J - Use in English

Use in English

In English J most commonly represents the affricate /dʒ/ (as in jet). In Old English the phoneme /dʒ/ was represented orthographically as cg or . 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/ of Old English (for example, iest, later jest), while using dg elsewhere (for example, hedge). Later many other uses of i (later j) were added in loan words 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 1634. In loanwords such as raj, "J" may be pronounced /ʒ/ by some, but not all, speakers. In some such cases, including raj, Taj Mahal and others, the regular /dʒ/ is actually closer to the original sound of the foreign language, making this realization a hyperforeignism. Occasionally J represents other sounds, as in Hallelujah which is pronounced the same as "Halleluyah" (See the Hebrew yud for more details).

In English, J is the fourth least frequently used letter in words, and is more frequent than Z, Q and X. J is quite common in proper nouns.

Read more about this topic:  J

Famous quotes containing the word english:

    What else has been English news for so long a season? What else, of late years, has been England to us,—to us who read books, we mean?... Carlyle alone, since the death of Coleridge, has kept the promise of England. It is the best apology for all the bustle and the sin of commerce, that it has made us acquainted with the thoughts of this man.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)