Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...
, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''em'' (pronounced ), plural ''ems''.
History
The letter M is derived from the Phoenician Mem, via theGreek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
Mu (Μ, μ). Semitic
Semitic most commonly refers to the Semitic languages, a name used since the 1770s to refer to the language family currently present in West Asia, North and East Africa, and Malta.
Semitic may also refer to:
Religions
* Abrahamic religions
** ...
Mem is most likely derived from a " Proto-Sinaitic" (Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
) adoption of the "water" ideogram in Egyptian writing. The Egyptian sign had the acrophonic value , from the Egyptian word for "water", ''nt''; the adoption as the Semitic letter for was presumably also on acrophonic grounds, from the Semitic
Semitic most commonly refers to the Semitic languages, a name used since the 1770s to refer to the language family currently present in West Asia, North and East Africa, and Malta.
Semitic may also refer to:
Religions
* Abrahamic religions
** ...
word for "water", '' *mā(y)-''.
Use in writing systems
The letter represents thebilabial nasal
The voiced bilabial nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is m. The bilabial nasal occurs in ...
consonant sound in the orthography of Latin as well as in that of many modern language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s, and also in the International Phonetic Alphabet. In English, the Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
(first edition) says that is sometimes a vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (l ...
, in words like ''spasm'' and in the suffix ''-ism''. In modern terminology, this is described as a syllabic consonant (IPA ).
In Washo, lower-case represents a typical em sound, while upper-case represents a voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
em sound.
Other uses
* The Roman numeral
Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...
M represents the number 1000, though it was not used in Roman times. There is, however, scant evidence that the letter was later introduced in the early centuries A.D. by the Romans.
* Unit prefix A unit prefix is a specifier or mnemonic that is prepended to units of measurement to indicate multiples or fractions of the units. Units of various sizes are commonly formed by the use of such prefixes. The prefixes of the metric system, such as ...
M (mega), meaning one million times, and m (milli) meaning one-thousandth.
* m is the standard abbreviation for metre
The metre ( British spelling) or meter ( American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its p ...
(or meter) in the International System of Units (SI). However, m is also used as an abbreviation for mile
The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 Engli ...
.
* M is used as the unit abbreviation for molarity
Molar concentration (also called molarity, amount concentration or substance concentration) is a measure of the concentration of a chemical species, in particular of a solute in a solution, in terms of amount of substance per unit volume of solu ...
.M (James Bond)
M is a codename held by a number of fictional characters in Ian Fleming's James Bond book and film series; the characters are the current or past Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, the agency known as MI6. Fleming based the character o ...