N, or n, is the fourteenth
letter of the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...
, used in the
modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages, and others worldwide. Its name in English is
''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''.
History
One of the most common
hieroglyphs,
snake
Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...
, was used in
Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like the English , 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
An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...
.
Some hold that they used the same snake symbol to represent N, with a great proponent of this theory being
Alan Gardiner
Sir Alan Henderson Gardiner, (29 March 1879 – 19 December 1963) was an English Egyptologist, linguist, philologist, and independent scholar. He is regarded as one of the premier Egyptologists of the early and mid-20th century.
Personal li ...
, because their word for "snake" may have begun with n (an example of a possible word being ''nahash''). However, this theory has become disputed. The name for the letter in the
Phoenician,
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
,
Aramaic, and
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
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. The sound value of the letter was —as in
Greek,
Etruscan,
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, and modern languages.
Use in writing systems
English
In
English, usually represents a
voiced alveolar nasal , but can represent other
nasal consonants due to
assimilation. For example, before a
velar plosive (as in ''ink'' or ''jungle''), represents a
voiced velar nasal .
is generally silent when it is preceded by an 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 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 articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
in the
English language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
(after ).
Other languages
The letter represents a
voiced dental nasal or
voiced alveolar nasal 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, represents a
palatal nasal . The
Portuguese and
Vietnamese spelling for this sound is , while
Spanish,
Breton, and a few other languages use the letter .
A common
digraph with is , which represents a
voiced velar nasal in a variety of languages.
Other systems
In the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...
, represents the
voiced alveolar nasal .
Other uses
* In
mathematics
Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
, the italic form ''n'' is a particularly common symbol for a
variable quantity which represents a
natural number
In mathematics, the natural numbers are the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, and so on, possibly excluding 0. Some start counting with 0, defining the natural numbers as the non-negative integers , while others start with 1, defining them as the positive in ...
. The
set of natural numbers is referred to as
.
Related characters
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
*N with
diacritic
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...
s:
Ń ń Ñ ñ Ň ň Ǹ ǹ Ṅ ṅ Ṇ ṇ Ņ ņ Ṉ ṉ Ṋ ṋ Ꞥ ꞥ ᵰ ᶇ
*
Phonetic alphabet symbols related to N (the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...
only uses lowercase, but uppercase forms are used in some other writing systems):
**Ŋ ŋ :
Latin letter eng, which represents a
velar nasal in the IPA
**𝼔 : Small letter eng with palatal hook, which is used in
phonetic transcription
**𝼇 : Small letter reversed eng, which is an
extension to IPA for disordered speech (extIPA)
**Ɲ ɲ :
Latin letter Ɲ, which represents a
palatal nasal or an
alveolo-palatal nasal in the IPA
**
n : Superscript small n, which represents a
nasal release in the IPA
**Ƞ ƞ :
Latin letter Ƞ (encoded in Unicode as "N with long right leg"), a mostly obsolete letter used to transcribe various nasal sounds
** ɳ : Latin letter n with a hook, which represents a
retroflex nasal in the IPA
** ᶯ : Modifier letter small n with retroflex hook
**
ᶮ : Modifier letter small n with left hook
**ɴ : Small capital N, which represents a
uvular nasal in the IPA
**ᶰ : Modifier letter small capital N
*
Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to N:
**
**
**
**
*
n : Subscript small n was used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902
* The
Teuthonista phonetic transcription system uses and
*
ȵ : N with curl is used in Sino-Tibetanist linguistics
*Ꞑ ꞑ :
N with descender
*: Small letter n with mid-height left hook was used by the
British and Foreign Bible Society in the early 20th century for
romanization
In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...
of the
Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...
language.
Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets
*𐤍 :
Semitic letter
Nun, from which the following symbols originally derive:
**Ν ν :
Greek letter Nu, from which the following symbols originally derive:
*** :
Coptic letter Ne
***Н н :
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
letter
En
*** 𐌍 :
Old Italic N, which is the ancestor of modern Latin N
*** :
Gothic letter nauþs
Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations
*₦ :
Nigerian Naira
Other representations
Computing
Other
See also
*
* – phonetic symbol
Notes
References
External links
*
*
{{Latin alphabet, N}
ISO basic Latin letters