I, or ı, called dotless I, is a letter used in the Latin-script alphabets of Azerbaijani, Crimean Tatar, Gagauz, Kazakh,

Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

, Kyrgyz, and Turkish. It commonly represents the

close back unrounded vowel The close back unrounded vowel, or high back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system ...

, except in Kazakh where it represents the near-close front unrounded vowel . All of the languages it is used in also use its dotted counterpart İ while not using the basic Latin letter I. In scholarly writing on

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...

, ï is sometimes used for .

Implications for ligature use

In some

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

s, if the lowercase letters ''fi'' are placed adjacently, the dot-like upper end of the ''f'' would fall inconveniently close to the dot of the ''i'', and therefore a

ligature Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...

glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

is provided with the top of the ''f'' extended to serve as the dot of the ''i''. A similar ligature for ''ffi'' is also possible. Since the forms without ligatures are sometimes considered unattractive and the ligatures make the ''i'' dotless, such fonts are not appropriate for use in a Turkish setting. However, the ''fi'' ligatures of some fonts do not merge the letters and instead space them next to each other, with the dot on the ''i'' remaining. Such fonts are appropriate for Turkish, but the writer must be careful to be consistent in the use of ligatures.

In computing

Usage in other languages

The dotless ''ı'' may also be used as a stylistic variant of the dotted ''i'', without there being any meaningful difference between them. This is common in Irish, for example, but is considered simply an omission of the

tittle A tittle or superscript dot is a small distinguishing mark, such as a diacritic in the form of a dot on a letter (for example, lowercase ''i'' or ''j''). The tittle is an integral part of the glyph of ''i'' and ''j'', but diacritic dots can app ...

rather than a separate letter. In some of the

Athabaskan languages Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific Co ...

of the

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...

in Canada, specifically

Slavey The Slavey (also Slave and South Slavey) are a First Nations indigenous peoples of the Dene group, indigenous to the Great Slave Lake region, in Canada's Northwest Territories, and extending into northeastern British Columbia and northwestern ...

, Dogrib and Chipewyan, all instances of ''i'' are undotted to avoid confusion with tone-marked vowels ''í'' or ''ì''. Lowercase dotless is used as the lowercase form of the letter Í in the official Karakalpak alphabet approved in 2016. Both the dotted and dotless I can be used in transcriptions of Rusyn to allow distinguishing between the letters Ы and И, which would otherwise be both transcribed as "y", despite representing different phonemes. Under such transcription the dotted İ would represent the Cyrillic І, and the dotless I would represent either Ы or И, with the other being represented by "Y".

References

External links

Unicode chart
*Tex Texin

accessed 15 Nov 2005 {{Latin script, I, , show pairs=no Turkish language I

Implications for ligature use

In computing

Usage in other languages

See also

References

External links