N
Page semi-protected

N
N n
Usage
Writing systemLatin script
TypeAlphabetic and logographic
Language of originLatin language
Sound values[n][ŋ][ɲ][ɳ][nˠ][ⁿ][◌̃]/ɛn/
In UnicodeU+004E, U+006E
Alphabetical position14
History
Development
Time periodc. 700 BCE to present
Descendants
Sisters
Other
Associated graphsn(x), nh, ng, ny
Writing directionLeft-to-right

N, or n, is the fourteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages, and others worldwide. Its name in English is en (pronounced /ˈɛn/), plural ens.[1]

History

Egyptian hieroglyph PhoenicianNunWestern GreekNuEtruscan N Latin N
D
Latin N

One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake, was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like the English ⟨J⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet. It is speculated by some, such as archeologist Douglas Petrovich, that Semitic speakers working in Egypt adapted hieroglyphs to create the first alphabet.[2]

Some hold that they used the same snake symbol to represent N, with a great proponent of this theory being Alan Gardiner,[3] because their word for "snake" may have begun with n (an example of a possible word being nahash[4]). However, this theory has become disputed.[5] The name for the letter in the Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic alphabets is nun, which means "fish" in some of these languages. This possibly connects the letter to the hieroglyph for a water ripple, which phonetically makes the n sound.[6] The sound value of the letter was /n/—as in Greek, Etruscan, Latin, and modern languages.

Use in writing systems

Pronunciation of ⟨n⟩ by language
Orthography Phonemes
Standard Chinese (Pinyin) /n/
English/n/, silent
French/n/
German/n/
Portuguese/n/
Spanish/n/
Turkish/n/

English

In English, ⟨n⟩ usually represents a voiced alveolar nasal/n/, but can represent other nasal consonants due to assimilation. For example, before a velar plosive (as in ink or jungle), ⟨n⟩ represents a voiced velar nasal/ŋ/.

⟨n⟩ is generally silent when it is preceded by an ⟨m⟩ at the end of words, as in hymn; however, it is pronounced in this combination when occurring word medially, as in hymnal. Other consonants are often silent when they precede an ⟨n⟩ at the beginning of an English word. Examples include gnome, knife, mnemonic, and pneumonia.

The letter N is the sixth-most common letter and the second-most commonly used consonant in the English language (after ⟨t⟩).[7]

Other languages

The letter ⟨n⟩ represents a voiced dental nasal/n̪/ or voiced alveolar nasal/n/ in virtually all languages that use the Latin alphabet. In many languages, these nasal consonants assimilate with the consonant that follows them to produce other nasal consonants.

In Italian and French, ⟨gn⟩ represents a palatal nasal/ɲ/. The Portuguese and Vietnamese spelling for this sound is ⟨nh⟩, while Spanish, Breton, and a few other languages use the letter ⟨ñ⟩.

A common digraph with ⟨n⟩ is ⟨ng⟩, which represents a voiced velar nasal/ŋ/ in a variety of languages.[8][9]

Other systems

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, ⟨n⟩ represents the voiced alveolar nasal/n/.

Other uses

  • In mathematics, the italic form n is a particularly common symbol for a variable quantity which represents a natural number. The set of natural numbers is referred to as N{\displaystyle \mathbb {N} }.

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

  • 𐤍 : Semitic letter Nun, from which the following symbols originally derive:

Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations

Other representations

Computing

Other

See also

Notes

References

  1. ^"N" Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "en," op. cit.
  2. ^"Oldest alphabet identified as Hebrew". 19 November 2016. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  3. ^Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William, eds. (1996). The world's writing systems. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-507993-7.
  4. ^Goldwasser, Orly. "How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs". The BAS Library. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  5. ^LeBlanc, Paul (2017). Deciphering the Proto-Sinaitic Script: Making Sense of the Wadi El-Hol and Serabit El-Khadim Early Alphabetic Inscriptions. SubclassPress. ISBN 9780995284401.
  6. ^"Gardiner's Sign List of Egyptian Hieroglyphs – Egyptian Hieroglyphs". Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  7. ^"English Letter Frequency".
  8. ^ abCook, Richard; Everson, Michael (20 September 2001). "L2/01-347: Proposal to add six phonetic characters to the UCS"(PDF).
  9. ^ abEverson, Michael; Dicklberger, Alois; Pentzlin, Karl; Wandl-Vogt, Eveline (2 June 2011). "L2/11-202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS"(PDF).
  10. ^Constable, Peter (30 September 2003). "L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS"(PDF).
  11. ^ abcConstable, Peter (19 April 2004). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS"(PDF).
  12. ^Miller, Kirk (11 July 2020). "L2/20-125R: Unicode request for expected IPA retroflex letters and similar letters with hooks"(PDF).
  13. ^Anderson, Deborah (7 December 2020). "L2/21-021: Reference doc numbers for L2/20-266R "Consolidated code chart of proposed phonetic characters" and IPA etc. code point and name changes"(PDF).
  14. ^Miller, Kirk; Ball, Martin (11 July 2020). "L2/20-116R: Expansion of the extIPA and VoQS"(PDF).
  15. ^Constable, Peter (19 April 2004). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS"(PDF).
  16. ^Everson, Michael; et al. (20 March 2002). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS"(PDF).
  17. ^Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (27 January 2009). "L2/09-028: Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet"(PDF).
  18. ^Miller, Kirk; Rees, Neil (16 July 2021). "L2/21-156: Unicode request for legacy Malayalam"(PDF).
  • Media related to N at Wikimedia Commons
  • The dictionary definition of n at Wiktionary
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=N&oldid=1335520451"