N
Encyclopedia
N is the fourteenth letter
in the basic modern Latin alphabet
.
, snake
, was used in Egypt
ian writing to stand for a sound like English ⟨J
⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet. It is speculated that Semitic
people working in Egypt adapted hieroglyphics to create the first alphabet
, and that they used the same snake symbol to represent N, because their word for "snake" may have begun with that sound. However, the name for the letter in the Phoenician
, Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic
alphabets is nun
, which means "fish
" in some of these languages. The sound value of the letter was /n/—as in Greek
, Etruscan
, Latin
and all modern languages.
or alveolar nasal
in virtually all languages that use the Latin alphabet. A common digraph
with ⟨n⟩ is ⟨ng⟩, which represents a velar nasal
in a variety of languages, usually positioned word-finally in English
. Often, before a velar plosive
(as in ink or jungle), ⟨n⟩ alone represents a velar nasal. In languages like Italian and French, ⟨gn⟩ represents a palatal nasal
(/ɲ/). The Portuguese spelling for this sound is ⟨nh⟩ (while Spanish and a few other languages use the letter ⟨ñ
⟩). In English, ⟨n⟩ is generally silent when it is preceded by an ⟨m⟩ at the end of words, as in hymn; however, ⟨n⟩ is pronounced in this combination when occurring word medially, as in hymnal.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the lowercase [n] represents the alveolar nasal
sound. A small capital [ɴ] represents the uvular nasal.
⟨n⟩ is the sixth most common letter and the second-most commonly used consonant
in the English language
(after ⟨t
⟩).
, the italic form (n) is the common symbol for a variable
quantity, especially one which represents an integer
.
is often used to refer to the set of natural number
s.
1 and all encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.
Letter (alphabet)
A letter is a grapheme in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Letters compose phonemes and each phoneme represents a phone in the spoken form of the language....
in the basic modern Latin alphabet
Basic modern Latin alphabet
The International Organization for Standardization basic Latin alphabet consists of the following 26 letters:By the 1960s it became apparent to the computer and telecommunications industries in the First World that a non-proprietary method of encoding characters was needed...
.
History of the forms
One of the most common hieroglyphsEgyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...
, snake
Snake
Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...
, was used in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian writing to stand for a sound like English ⟨J
J
Ĵ or ĵ is a letter in Esperanto orthography representing the sound .While Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for its four postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets, the base letters are Romano-Germanic...
⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet. It is speculated that Semitic
Semitic
In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...
people working in Egypt adapted hieroglyphics to create the first alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
, and that they used the same snake symbol to represent N, because their word for "snake" may have begun with that sound. However, the name for the letter in the Phoenician
Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia...
, Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic
Arabic alphabet
The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...
alphabets is nun
Nun (letter)
Nun is the fourteenth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic alphabet . It is the third letter in Thaana , pronounced as "noonu"...
, which means "fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
" in some of these languages. The sound value of the letter was /n/—as in Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, Etruscan
Etruscan language
The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization, in what is present-day Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna...
, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and all modern languages.
| Egyptian hieroglyph for 'J' | Phoenician N | Etruscan N | Greek Nu Nu (letter) Nu , is the 13th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 50... |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
Language
DentalDental nasal
The dental nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .-Features:Features of the dental nasal:- Occurrence :...
or alveolar nasal
Alveolar nasal
The alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar nasals is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is n....
in virtually all languages that use the Latin alphabet. A common digraph
Digraph
Digraph may refer to:* Digraph , a pair of characters used together to represent a single sound, such as "sh" in English* Typographical ligature, the joining of two letters as a single glyph, such as "æ"...
with ⟨n⟩ is ⟨ng⟩, which represents a velar nasal
Velar nasal
The velar nasal is the sound of ng in English sing. It is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is N....
in a variety of languages, usually positioned word-finally in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. Often, before a velar plosive
Velar stop
In phonetics and phonology, a velar stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the back of the tongue in contact with the soft palate , held tightly enough to block the passage of air . The most common sounds are the plosives and , as in English cut and gut...
(as in ink or jungle), ⟨n⟩ alone represents a velar nasal. In languages like Italian and French, ⟨gn⟩ represents a palatal nasal
Palatal nasal
The palatal nasal is a type of consonant, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase letter n with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bottom of the left stem of the letter. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J...
(/ɲ/). The Portuguese spelling for this sound is ⟨nh⟩ (while Spanish and a few other languages use the letter ⟨ñ
Ñ
Ñ is a letter of the modern Latin alphabet, formed by an N with a diacritical tilde. It is used in the Spanish alphabet, Galician alphabet, Asturian alphabet, Basque alphabet, Aragonese old alphabet , Filipino alphabet, Chamorro alphabet and the Guarani alphabet, where it represents...
⟩). In English, ⟨n⟩ is generally silent when it is preceded by an ⟨m⟩ at the end of words, as in hymn; however, ⟨n⟩ is pronounced in this combination when occurring word medially, as in hymnal.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the lowercase [n] represents the alveolar nasal
Alveolar nasal
The alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar nasals is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is n....
sound. A small capital [ɴ] represents the uvular nasal.
⟨n⟩ is the sixth most common letter and the second-most commonly used consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
in the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
(after ⟨t
T
T is the 20th letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used consonant and the second most common letter in the English language.- History :Taw was the last letter of the Western Semitic and Hebrew alphabets...
⟩).
Mathematics
In mathematicsMathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, the italic form (n) is the common symbol for a variable
Variable (mathematics)
In mathematics, a variable is a value that may change within the scope of a given problem or set of operations. In contrast, a constant is a value that remains unchanged, though often unknown or undetermined. The concepts of constants and variables are fundamental to many areas of mathematics and...
quantity, especially one which represents an integer
Integer
The integers are formed by the natural numbers together with the negatives of the non-zero natural numbers .They are known as Positive and Negative Integers respectively...
.
is often used to refer to the set of natural numberNatural number
In mathematics, the natural numbers are the ordinary whole numbers used for counting and ordering . These purposes are related to the linguistic notions of cardinal and ordinal numbers, respectively...
s.
Related letters and other similar characters
- Ν ν : Greek letter NuNu (letter)Nu , is the 13th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 50...
- П п (П п) : Cyrillic letter PePe (Cyrillic)Pe is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet.It commonly represents the voiceless bilabial plosive , like the pronunciation of ⟨p⟩ in "pack".-History:...
- Н н (Н н) : Cyrillic letter EnEn (Cyrillic)En is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet.It commonly represents the alveolar nasal consonant , like the pronunciation of ⟨n⟩ in "nice".-History:The Cyrillic letter En was derived from the Greek letter Nu ....
- И и (И и) : Cyrillic letter II (Cyrillic)I is a letter used in almost all ancient and modern Cyrillic alphabets.It commonly represents the close front unrounded vowel , like the pronunciation of ⟨i⟩ in "machine", or the near-close near-front unrounded vowel , like the pronunciation of ⟨i⟩ in "bin".-History:The Cyrillic letter I was...
- Ń ń : Latin letter N with acuteNN is the fourteenth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History of the forms :One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake, was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like English ⟨J⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet...
- Ñ ñ : Latin letter N with tildeÑÑ is a letter of the modern Latin alphabet, formed by an N with a diacritical tilde. It is used in the Spanish alphabet, Galician alphabet, Asturian alphabet, Basque alphabet, Aragonese old alphabet , Filipino alphabet, Chamorro alphabet and the Guarani alphabet, where it represents...
- Ň ň : Latin letter N with caronNN is the fourteenth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History of the forms :One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake, was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like English ⟨J⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet...
Computing codes
| character | N | n | ||
| Unicode name | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N | LATIN SMALL LETTER N | ||
| character encoding | decimal | hex | decimal | hex |
| Unicode Unicode Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems... |
78 | 004E | 110 | 006E |
| UTF-8 UTF-8 UTF-8 is a multibyte character encoding for Unicode. Like UTF-16 and UTF-32, UTF-8 can represent every character in the Unicode character set. Unlike them, it is backward-compatible with ASCII and avoids the complications of endianness and byte order marks... |
78 | 4E | 110 | 6E |
| Numeric character reference Numeric character reference A numeric character reference is a common markup construct used in SGML and other SGML-related markup languages such as HTML and XML. It consists of a short sequence of characters that, in turn, represent a single character from the Universal Character Set of Unicode... |
N | N | n | n |
| EBCDIC EBCDIC Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code is an 8-bit character encoding used mainly on IBM mainframe and IBM midrange computer operating systems.... family |
213 | D5 | 149 | 95 |
| ASCII ASCII The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text... 1 |
78 | 4E | 110 | 6E |
1 and all encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.