J
- For the programming language, see J programming language.
- J# redirects here due to technical limitations.
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The letter J is the tenth of the Latin alphabet; it was the last to be added to that alphabet. Its name in English is jay. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, [j] represents the palatal approximant. It is also the only letter not to appear in the Periodic Table. On alphanumeric keyboards using the QWERTY layout, the F and J keys generally have a raised bar (perceptible to the touch) over them to assist in touch typing. All other keys can be found with their relative positions around these two keys as the index finger is generally used to type the F and the J.
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History
J was originally a capital of I.
Petrus Ramus (d. 1572) was the first to make a distinction between I and J. Originally, both I and J were pronounced (see IPA) as [i], [i:], and [j]; but Romance languages developed new sounds (from former [j] and [g]) that came to be represented as I and J; therefore, English J (from French J) has a sound quite different from I.
Other than English, the Germanic languages use J for the sound [j]. This is true of Hungarian, Albanian, and Finnish, where it can never be a fricative. Further, those Slavic languages that use the Latin alphabet (or adopted J into the Cyrillic, as in Serbian) use this letter for the same purpose. Because of this standard, the minuscule letter was chosen by 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 "E" in Russian is sometimes transliterated "je" (with the "Ё" becoming "jo" sometimes); the "Я" is transliterated as "ja"; and the character "Ю" is transliterated "ju" - whereas the linguists from America and the english speaking world use "y" in place of "j" because it produces fewer mistakes there. European linguists also use this for the character 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 only foreign or Latin words have J. Until the 19th century, J was used instead of I in diphthongs, as a replacement for final -ii, or in vowels groups (as in Savoja); this rule was quite strict for official writing. J is also used for rendering words in dialect, where it stands for [j], e.g. Romanesque ajo for standard aglio (garlic). The Italian Novelist Luigi Pirandello utilised J in vowels group in his works.
In Spanish J stands for [x ~ h] (which in some cases developed from the [dʒ] sound, i.e. the same sound that English still represents orthographically by <j>). In French former dʒ is now pronounced as [ʒ] (as in English measure).
In Portuguese, Turkish, Azeri and Tatar J is always prounced [ʒ].
Hebrew also influenced the English J, which in a few cases is used for [j] in place of the more normal Y. The classic example is Hallelujah which is pronounced the same as Halleluyah. See the Hebrew yodh for more details.
Codes for computing
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In Unicode the capital J is codepoint U+004A and the lowercase j is U+006A.
The ASCII code for capital J is 74 and for lowercase j is 106; or in binary 01001010 and 01101010, correspondingly.
The EBCDIC code for capital J is 209 and for lowercase j is 145.
The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "J" and "j" for upper and lower case respectively.
Meanings for J
- In astronomy,
- J stands for the planet Jupiter; for example, S/2003 J 2 is the second satellite of Jupiter sighted in 2003.
- J stands for a May 1 through 15 discovery, in the provisional designation of a comet (e.g. C/1861 J1, the Great Comet of 1861) or asteroid (e.g. (4089) 1986 JG).
- In calendars, J is an abbreviation for the months of January, June, and/or July
- In computing, J is the J programming language
- In games, J is the jack in a deck of playing cards
- In high-energy physics, J is one of the two names of the J/Psi particle
- In music, J Records is a record label
- In physics, J is one of the three imaginary units of quaternions
- In the SI system, J is the symbol for the joule, the SI derived unit of energy
- In theology, J is an abbreviation for the Jehovist or Yahwist source, in the documentary hypothesis of the Hebrew Bible
- In urban slang, a J is a spliff (i.e. an abbreviation for "joint")
Meanings for j
The minuscule letter j can refer to:
- The index variable after i
- The imaginary unit (<math>\sqrt{-1}</math>), in fields such as physics and electrical engineering where i is traditionally used to denote a changing current)
Special Uses in German
The Germans write this letter differently from what is pictured above. They like to put a long serif on top, but only to the left of the character.
They readily make use of Roman numerals (which use the letter "I" but not the letter "J"), so when listing things by capital letters of the alphabet, they disdain to use the letter I for purposes of safety, skipping over to J. For example, in every regiment in the German Army there is what would be expressed in English as a "J company" but no "I company."
Regional meanings
- The international license plate code for Japan;
- As the first letter of a postal code in Canada, J is used for the western and northern regions of Quebec;
- On the New York City Subway system, J is a rapid transit service running from Downtown Manhattan to Jamaica.
- J is also used to denote Jayalalitha a Tamil actress, politician and chief minister of Tamil nadu
- J is also the name of a very well known Tamil artist Jeyaraj
