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I (minuscule: i) is the ninth letter and the third vowel 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 i (pronounced /ˈaɪ/ <phonos file="LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-I.wav"></phonos>), plural i's or is.[1][2]
Name
In English, the name of the letter is the "long I" sound, pronounced /ˈaɪ/. In most other languages, its name matches the letter's pronunciation in open syllables.
History
| Egyptian hieroglyph ꜥ | Phoenician Yodh |
Western Greek Iota |
Etruscan I |
Latin I |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Egyptian Hieroglyph describing an arm | File:PhoenicianI-01.svg | File:Greek Iota normal.svg | File:EtruscanI-01.svg | Latin I |
In the Phoenician alphabet, the letter may have originated in a hieroglyph for an arm that represented a voiced pharyngeal fricative (Script error: No such module "IPA".) in Egyptian, but was reassigned to Script error: No such module "IPA". (as in English "yes") by Semites because their word for "arm" began with that sound. This letter could also be used to represent Script error: No such module "IPA"., the close front unrounded vowel, mainly in foreign words.
The Greeks adopted a form of this Phoenician yodh as their letter iota (⟨Ι, ι⟩) to represent Script error: No such module "IPA"., the same as in the Old Italic alphabet. In Latin (as in Modern Greek), it was also used to represent Script error: No such module "IPA". and this use persists in the languages that descended from Latin. The modern letter 'j' originated as a variation of 'i', and both were used interchangeably for both the vowel and the consonant, coming to be differentiated only in the 16th century.[3]
Typographic variants
In some sans serif typefaces, the uppercase ⟨I⟩ may be difficult to distinguish from the lowercase letter L, 'l', the vertical bar character '|', or the digit one '1'. In serifed typefaces, the capital form of the letter has both a baseline and a cap height serif, while the lowercase L generally has a hooked ascender and a baseline serif.
The dot over the lowercase 'i' is sometimes called a tittle. The uppercase I does not have a dot, while the lowercase 'i' does in most Latin-derived alphabets. The dot can be considered optional and is usually removed when applying other diacritics. However, some schemes, such as the Turkish alphabet, have two kinds of I: dotted and dotless. In Turkish, dotted İ and dotless I are considered separate letters, representing a front and back vowel, respectively, and both have uppercase ('I', 'İ') and lowercase ('ı', 'i') forms.
The uppercase I has two kinds of shapes, with serifs (File:I with crossbars.svg) and without serifs (File:I without crossbars.svg). Usually these are considered equivalent, but they are distinguished in some extended Latin alphabet systems, such as the 1978 version of the African reference alphabet. In that system, the former is the uppercase counterpart of ɪ and the latter is the counterpart of 'i'.
Use in writing systems
| Orthography | Phonemes |
|---|---|
| Template:Nwr (Pinyin) | /i/ |
| English | /ɪ/, Script error: No such module "IPA"., /ə/, /ɜː/, Script error: No such module "IPA"., /j/ |
| Esperanto | /i/ |
| French | /i/, /j/ |
| German | /ɪ/, /iː/, /i/ |
| Italian | /i/, /iː/, /j/ |
| Kurmanji (Hawar) | /ɪ/ |
| Portuguese | /i/, /j/ |
| Spanish | /i/, /ʝ/ |
| Turkish | /ɯ/ for dotless ⟨I, ı⟩ |
| /i/ for dotted ⟨İ, i⟩ |
English
In Modern English spelling, ⟨i⟩ represents several different sounds, either the diphthong /aɪ/ ("long" ⟨i⟩) as in kite, the short /ɪ/ as in bill, or the ⟨ee⟩ sound /iː/ in the last syllable of machine. The diphthong Script error: No such module "IPA". developed from Middle English Script error: No such module "IPA". through a series of vowel shifts. In the Great Vowel Shift, Middle English Script error: No such module "IPA". changed to Early Modern English Script error: No such module "IPA"., which later changed to Script error: No such module "IPA". and finally to the Modern English diphthong Script error: No such module "IPA". in General American and Received Pronunciation. Because the diphthong Script error: No such module "IPA". developed from a Middle English long vowel, it is called "long" ⟨i⟩ in traditional English grammar.[citation needed]
The letter ⟨i⟩ is the fifth most common letter in the English language.[4]
The English first-person singular nominative pronoun is "I", pronounced /aɪ/ and always written with a capital letter. This pattern arose for basically the same reason that lowercase ⟨i⟩ acquired a dot: so it wouldn't get lost in manuscripts before the age of printing:
Other languages
In many languages' orthographies, ⟨i⟩ is used to represent the sound Script error: No such module "IPA". or, more rarely, Script error: No such module "IPA"..
Other systems
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, Template:Angbr IPA represents the close front unrounded vowel. The small caps Template:Angbr IPA represents the near-close near-front unrounded vowel.
Other uses
- The Roman numeral I represents the number 1.[5][6]
- In mathematics, a lowercase "i" is used to represent the unit imaginary number,[7] while an uppercase "I" serves to denote an identity matrix.[8]
- In some countries, a sign bearing the letter Template:Char or Template:Char indicates an information point, sometimes specifically for a visitor center.
Related characters
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
- I with diacritics: Ị ị Ĭ ĭ Î î Ǐ ǐ Ɨ ɨ Ï ï Ḯ ḯ Í í Ì ì Ȉ ȉ Į į Į́ Į̃ Ī ī Ī̀ ī̀ ᶖ[9] Ỉ ỉ Ȋ ȋ Ĩ ĩ Ḭ ḭ ᶤ[9]
- İ i and I ı : Latin letters dotted and dotless I
- IPA-specific symbols related to I: ɪ ɨ
- The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet uses various forms of the letter I:[10]
- Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+1D35 ᴵ Script error: No such module "Unicode data".
- Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+1D62 ᵢ Script error: No such module "Unicode data".
- Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+1D09 ᴉ Script error: No such module "Unicode data".
- Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+1D4E ᵎ Script error: No such module "Unicode data".
- Other variations used in phonetic transcription: ᵻ[9] ᶤ[9] ᶦ[9] ᶧ[9] 𝼚[11][12]
- i : Superscript small i is used for computer terminal graphics[13]
- Ꞽ ꞽ : Glottal I, used for Egyptological yod[14]
- Ɪ ɪ : Small capital I
- ꟾ : Long I
- ꟷ : Sideways I
Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets
- Script error: No such module "Lang". : Semitic letter Yodh, from which the following symbols originally derive:
- Ι ι: Greek letter Iota, from which the following letters derive:
- Page Template:Script/styles coptic.css has no content.Ⲓ ⲓ : Coptic letter Yota
- І і : Cyrillic letter soft-dotted I
- 𐌉 : Old Italic I, which is the ancestor of modern Latin I
- Page Template:Script/styles runic.css has no content.ᛁ : Runic letter isaz, which probably derives from old Italic I
- Page Template:Script/styles gothic.css has no content.𐌹 : Gothic letter iiz
- Ι ι: Greek letter Iota, from which the following letters derive:
Other representations
Unicode
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- Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+0049 I Script error: No such module "Unicode data".
- Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+0069 i Script error: No such module "Unicode data".
- Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+0130 İ Script error: No such module "Unicode data".
- Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+0131 ı Script error: No such module "Unicode data".
- Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+2139 ℹ Script error: No such module "Unicode data".
- Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+FF29 Ｉ Script error: No such module "Unicode data".
- Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+FF49 ｉ Script error: No such module "Unicode data".
The positions 0x49 and 0x69 were used by ASCII and inherited by Unicode. EBCDIC used 0xC9 and 0x89 for I and i.
Other
References
Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.
- ^ Brown & Kiddle (1870) The institutes of English grammar, p. 19.
Ies is the plural of the English name of the letter; the plural of the letter itself is rendered I's, Is, i's, or is. - ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."i". Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. Retrieved 13 December 2025.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Calvert, J. B. (8 August 1999). "The Latin Alphabet". University of Denver. Archived from the original on Sep 21, 2022.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Frequency Table". Cornell University. Archived from the original on Jun 17, 2018. Retrieved 25 January 2015.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Gordon, Arthur E. (1983). Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy. University of California Press. pp. 44. ISBN 9780520038981. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
roman numerals.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.King, David A. (2001). The Ciphers of the Monks. Franz Steiner Verlag. p. 282. ISBN 9783515076401.
In the course of time, I, V and X became identical with three letters of the alphabet; originally, however, they bore no relation to these letters.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Svetunkov, Sergey (2012-12-14). Complex-Valued Modeling in Economics and Finance. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 9781461458760.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Boyd, Stephen; Vandenberghe, Lieven (2018). Introduction to Applied Linear Algebra: Vectors, Matrices, and Least Squares. Cambridge University Press. p. 113. ISBN 978-1-108-56961-3.
- ^ a b c d e f Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF). Unicode.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF). Unicode.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Miller, Kirk (2020-07-11). "L2/20-125R: Unicode request for expected IPA retroflex letters and similar letters with hooks" (PDF).
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Anderson, Deborah (2020-12-07). "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).
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Cruz, Frank da (2000-03-31). "L2/00-159: Supplemental Terminal Graphics for Unicode". Unicode.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Suignard, Michel (2017-05-09). "L2/17-076R2: Revised proposal for the encoding of an Egyptological YOD and Ugaritic characters" (PDF). Unicode.
External links
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- Page Template:Sister-inline/styles.css has no content.Script error: No such module "Sister project logo". Media related to Script error: No such module "Commons link". at Wikimedia Commons
- Template:Wiktionary-inline
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