S, or s, is the nineteenth
letter
Letter, letters, or literature may refer to:
Characters typeface
* Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet.
* Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
in the
Latin alphabet, used in the
modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is
''ess'' (pronounced ), plural ''esses''.
History
Origin
Northwest Semitic
Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite in the Middle Bronze Age ...
šîn represented a
voiceless postalveolar fricative (as in 'ip'). It originated most likely as a
pictogram of a
tooth () and represented the phoneme via the acrophonic principle.
Ancient Greek did not have a phoneme, so the derived Greek letter
sigma () came to represent the
voiceless alveolar sibilant .
While the letter shape Σ continues Phoenician ''šîn'', its name ''sigma'' is taken from the letter ''
samekh'', while the shape and position of ''samekh'' but name of ''šîn'' is continued in the ''
xi''.
Within Greek, the name of ''sigma'' was influenced by its association with the Greek word (earlier ) "to hiss". The original name of the letter "sigma" may have been ''san'', but due to the complicated early history of the Greek epichoric alphabets, "san" came to be identified as a separate letter,
Ϻ.
Herodotus reports that "San" was the name given by the
Dorians
The Dorians (; el, Δωριεῖς, ''Dōrieîs'', singular , ''Dōrieús'') were one of the four major ethnic groups into which the Hellenes (or Greeks) of Classical Greece divided themselves (along with the Aeolians, Achaeans, and Ionians ...
to the same letter called "Sigma" by the
Ionians
The Ionians (; el, Ἴωνες, ''Íōnes'', singular , ''Íōn'') were one of the four major tribes that the Greeks considered themselves to be divided into during the ancient period; the other three being the Dorians, Aeolians, and Achaea ...
.
The
Western Greek alphabet used in
Cumae was adopted by the
Etruscans and
Latins in the 7th century BC, over the following centuries developing into a range of
Old Italic alphabets
The Old Italic scripts are a family of similar ancient writing systems used in the Italian Peninsula between about 700 and 100 BC, for various languages spoken in that time and place. The most notable member is the Etruscan alphabet, which ...
including the
Etruscan alphabet and the early
Latin alphabet.
In
Etruscan, the value of Greek sigma (𐌔) was maintained, while san (𐌑)
represented a separate phoneme, most likely (transliterated as ''ś'').
The early Latin alphabet adopted sigma, but not san, as Old Latin did not have a phoneme.
The shape of Latin S arises from Greek Σ by dropping one out of the four strokes of that letter.
The (angular) S-shape composed of three strokes existed as a variant of the four-stroke letter Σ already in the epigraphy in
Western Greek alphabets, and the three and four strokes variants existed alongside one another in the classical Etruscan alphabet. In other
Italic alphabets (Venetic, Lepontic), the letter could be represented as a zig-zagging line of any number between three and six strokes.
The Italic letter was also adopted into
Elder Futhark, as ''
Sowilō'' (), and appears with four to eight strokes in the earliest runic inscriptions, but is occasionally reduced to three strokes () from the later 5th century, and appears regularly with three strokes in
Younger Futhark.
Long s
The
minuscule form ſ, called the
long ''s'', developed in the early medieval period, within the
Visigothic
The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is ...
and
Carolingian
The Carolingian dynasty (; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne, grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant of the Arnulfing and Pippin ...
hands, with predecessors in the
half-uncial and
cursive
Cursive (also known as script, among other names) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionalit ...
scripts of
Late Antiquity. It remained standard in western writing throughout the medieval period and was adopted in early printing with movable types.
It existed alongside minuscule "round" or "short" ''s'', which was at the time only used at the end of words.
In most Western orthographies, the ſ gradually fell out of use during the second half of the 18th century, although it remained in occasional use into the 19th century.
In Spain, the change was mainly accomplished between 1760 and 1766. In France, the change occurred between 1782 and 1793. Printers in the United States stopped using the long ''s'' between 1795 and 1810. In English orthography, the London printer
John Bell (1745–1831) pioneered the change. His edition of Shakespeare, in 1785, was advertised with the claim that he "ventured to depart from the common mode by rejecting the long 'ſ' in favor of the round one, as being less liable to error....." ''
The Times'' of London made the switch from the long to the short ''s'' with its issue of 10 September 1803.
''Encyclopædia Britannica'''s 5th edition, completed in 1817, was the last edition to use the long ''s''.
In
German orthography, long ''s'' was retained in
Fraktur
Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. The blackletter lines are broken up; that is, their forms contain many angles when compared to the curves of the Antiq ...
(
Schwabacher) type as well as in standard cursive (
Sütterlin
(, " script") is the last widely used form of , the historical form of German handwriting that evolved alongside German blackletter (most notably ') typefaces. Graphic artist Ludwig Sütterlin was commissioned by the Prussian Ministry of Scie ...
) well into the 20th century, and was officially abolished in 1941.
The
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 ...
of ''ſs'' (or ''ſz'') was retained, however, giving rise to the ''
Eszett'' , in contemporary German orthography.
Use in writing systems
The letter is the seventh most common letter in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
and the third-most common consonant after and . It is the most common letter for the first letter of a word in the English language.
In English and several other languages, primarily
Western Romance
Western Romance languages are one of the two subdivisions of a proposed subdivision of the Romance languages based on the La Spezia–Rimini Line. They include the Gallo-Romance and Iberian Romance branches. Gallo-Italic may also be include ...
ones like
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
and
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, final is the usual mark of
plural nouns. It is the regular ending of English
third person
Third person, or third-person, may refer to:
* Third person (grammar), a point of view (in English, ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', and ''they'')
** Illeism, the act of referring to oneself in the third person
* Third-person narrative, a perspective in ...
present tense
The present tense (abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present t ...
verbs.
represents the
voiceless alveolar or
voiceless dental sibilant
The voiceless alveolar fricatives are a type of fricative consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are at lea ...
in most languages as well as in the
International Phonetic Alphabet. It also commonly represents the
voiced alveolar or
voiced dental sibilant
The voiced alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being described.
* The symbol for the alveolar sibilant ...
, as in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
''mesa'' (table) or English 'rose' and 'bands', or it may represent the
voiceless palato-alveolar fricative , as in most
Portuguese dialects when syllable-finally, in
Hungarian, in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
(before , ) and some English words as 'sugar', since
yod-coalescence
The phonological history of the English language includes various changes in the phonology of consonant clusters.
H-cluster reductions
The H-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English, inv ...
became a dominant feature, and , as in English 'measure' (also because of yod-coalescence),
European Portuguese
European Portuguese ( pt, português europeu, ), also known as Portuguese of Portugal (Portuguese: português de Portugal), Iberian Portuguese (Portuguese: português ibérico), and Peninsular Portuguese (Portuguese: português peninsular), refer ...
''Islão'' (Islam) or, in many sociolects of
Brazilian Portuguese, ''esdrúxulo'' (
proparoxytone) in some
Andalusian dialects, it merged with
Peninsular Spanish and and is now pronounced . In some English words of French origin, the letter is silent, as in 'isle' or 'debris'. In
Turkmen, represents .
The
digraph for English arises in Middle English (alongside
), replacing the Old English digraph. Similarly, Old High German was replaced by in Early Modern High German orthography.
Related characters
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
*ſ : Latin letter
long s, an obsolete variant of s
*ẜ ẝ : Various forms of long s were used for medieval
scribal abbreviation
Scribal abbreviations or sigla (singular: siglum) are abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in various languages, including Latin, Greek, Old English and Old Norse. In modern manuscript editing (substantive and mechanica ...
s
*ẞ ß :
German Eszett or "sharp S", derived from a ligature of long s followed by either s or z
*S with
diacritics:
Ś ś Ṡ ṡ ẛ Ṩ ṩ Ṥ ṥ Ṣ ṣ S̩ s̩ Ꞩ ꞩ Ꟊꟊ Ŝ ŝ Ṧ ṧ Š š Ş ş Ș ș S̈ s̈ ᶊ
The palatal hook () is a type of hook diacritic formerly used in the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent palatalized consonants. It is a small, leftwards-facing hook joined to the bottom-right side of a letter, and is distinguished from ...
Ȿ ȿ ᵴ
ᶳ
Unicode has subscripted and superscripted versions of a number of characters including a full set of Arabic numerals. These characters allow any polynomial, chemical and certain other equations to be represented in plain text without using ...
*ₛ : Subscript small s was used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902
*
ˢ : Modifier letter small s is used for phonetic transcription
*ꜱ : Small capital S was used in the Icelandic
First Grammatical Treatise
The First Grammatical Treatise ( is, Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin ) is a 12th-century work on the phonology of the Old Norse or Old Icelandic language. It was given this name because it is the first of four grammatical works bound in the Icelandic ...
to mark
gemination
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
*Ʂ ʂ : S with hook, used for writing
Mandarin Chinese using the early draft version of
pinyin romanization during the mid-1950s
*Ƨ ƨ : Latin letter
reversed S (used in
Zhuang transliteration)
* 𝼩 : Latin small letter s with mid-height left hook was used by the
British and Foreign Bible Society
The British and Foreign Bible Society, often known in England and Wales as simply the Bible Society, is a non-denominational Christian Bible society with charity status whose purpose is to make the Bible available throughout the world.
The So ...
in the early 20th century for
romanization of the
Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...
language.
*
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA may also refer to:
Organizations International
* Insolvency Practitioners A ...
-specific symbols related to S:
* Para-IPA version of the
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA may also refer to:
Organizations International
* Insolvency Practitioners A ...
fricative ɕ:
𝼞 𐞺
*Ꞅ ꞅ :
Insular S
*Ꟗ ꟗ : Used in
Middle Scots
*Ꟙ ꟙ : Latin letter Sigmoid S was used in
medieval palaeography
Derived signs, symbols, and abbreviations
*$ :
Dollar sign
The dollar sign, also known as peso sign, is a symbol consisting of a capital " S" crossed with one or two vertical strokes ($ or ), used to indicate the unit of various currencies around the world, including most currencies denominated "pe ...
*₷ :
Spesmilo
The ''spesmilo'' (, plural ''spesmiloj'' ) is an obsolete decimal international currency, proposed in 1907 by René de Saussure and used before World War I by a few British and Swiss banks, primarily the Ĉekbanko Esperantista.
The ''spesmilo ...
*§ :
Section sign
The section sign, §, is a typographical character for referencing individually numbered sections of a document; it is frequently used when citing sections of a legal code. It is also known as the section symbol, section mark, double-s, or si ...
*℠ :
Service mark symbol
The service mark symbol (the letters in small capitals and superscript style), is a symbol used in the United States and some other jurisdictions to provide notice that the preceding mark is a service mark. This symbol may be used for servi ...
*∫ :
Integral symbol, short for
summation (derived from long s)
Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets
* 𐤔 :
Semitic letter
Shin, from which the following symbols originally derive
**
archaic Greek
Archaic Greece was the period in Greek history lasting from circa 800 BC to the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, following the Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical period. In the archaic period, Greeks settled across the Me ...
Sigma could be written with different numbers of angles and strokes. Besides the classical form with four strokes (), a three-stroke form resembling an angular Latin S () was commonly found, and was particularly characteristic of some mainland Greek varieties including Attic and several "red" alphabets.
***Σ:
classical Greek letter
Sigma
****Ϲ ϲ: Greek
lunate sigma
***** :
Coptic
Coptic may refer to:
Afro-Asia
* Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya
* Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century
* Coptic alphabet, t ...
letter sima
*****С с :
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = Gr ...
letter
Es, derived from a form of sigma
***𐌔 :
Old Italic letter S, includes the variants also found in the archaic Greek letter
****S:
Latin letter S
**** :
Runic
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
letter
sowilo, which is derived from Old Italic S
***:
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
letter sigil
* Ս :
Armenian letter Se
Computing codes
:
1
Other representations
Chemistry
The letter S is used:
* In a
chemical formula to represent
sulfur. For example, is
sulfur dioxide.
* In the
preferred IUPAC name
In chemical nomenclature, a preferred IUPAC name (PIN) is a unique name, assigned to a chemical substance and preferred among the possible names generated by IUPAC nomenclature. The "preferred IUPAC nomenclature" provides a set of rules for choo ...
for a chemical, to indicate a specific
enantiomer
In chemistry, an enantiomer ( /ɪˈnænti.əmər, ɛ-, -oʊ-/ ''ih-NAN-tee-ə-mər''; from Ancient Greek ἐνάντιος ''(enántios)'' 'opposite', and μέρος ''(méros)'' 'part') – also called optical isomer, antipode, or optical ant ...
. For example, "(S)-2-(4-Chloro-2-methylphenoxy)propanoic acid" is one of the enantiomers of
mecoprop.
See also
*
Cool S
The Cool S (also known as the Stussy S, Super S, Superman S, Universal S, Pointy S, Middle School S, Graffiti S, and by many other names) is a graffiti sign in popular culture that is typically doodled on children's notebooks or graffitied on wall ...
* See about Ⓢ in
Enclosed Alphanumerics
References
External links
*
*
*
*
{{Latin alphabet, S}
ISO basic Latin letters