N, or n, is the fourteenth 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 en (pronounced /ˈɛn/), plural ens.[1]

Quick Facts Usage, Writing system ...
N
N n
Usage
Writing systemLatin script
TypeAlphabetic and logographic
Language of originLatin language
Sound values[n]
[ŋ]
[ɲ]
[ɳ]
[nˠ]
[]
[◌̃]
/ɛn/
In UnicodeU+004E, U+006E
Alphabetical position14
History
Development
Time period~−700 to present
Descendants 
  Ƞ
  Ŋ
  ɧ
  ʩ
SistersН
Ң
Ӊ
Ӈ
Ԋ
נ
ן
ن
ܢ

ނ
Ն ն
Մ մ





Other
Associated graphsn(x), nh, ng, ny
Writing directionLeft-to-right
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and  , see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
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History

More information Egyptian hieroglyph, Phoenician Nun ...
Egyptian hieroglyph
Phoenician
Nun
Western Greek
Nu
Etruscan
N
Latin
N
D
Latin N
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One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake, was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like the English J, 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.[2]

Some hold that they used the same snake symbol to represent N, with a great proponent of this theory being Alan Gardiner,[3] because their word for "snake" may have begun with n (an example of a possible word being nahash[4]). However, this theory has become disputed.[5] The name for the letter in the Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic 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.[6] The sound value of the letter was /n/—as in Greek, Etruscan, Latin, and modern languages.

Use in writing systems

More information Orthography, Phonemes ...
Pronunciation of n by language
Orthography Phonemes
Standard Chinese (Pinyin) /n/
English /n/, silent
French /n/
German /n/
Portuguese /n/
Spanish /n/
Turkish /n/
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English

In English, n usually represents a voiced alveolar nasal /n/, but can represent other nasal consonants due to assimilation. For example, before a velar plosive (as in ink or jungle), n represents a voiced velar nasal /ŋ/.

n is generally silent when it is preceded by an m 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 n 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 the English language (after t).[7]

Other languages

The letter n represents a voiced dental nasal /n̪/ or voiced alveolar nasal /n/ 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, gn represents a palatal nasal /ɲ/. The Portuguese and Vietnamese spelling for this sound is nh, while Spanish, Breton, and a few other languages use the letter ñ.

A common digraph with n is ng, which represents a voiced velar nasal /ŋ/ in a variety of languages.[8][9]

Other systems

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, n represents the voiced alveolar nasal /n/.

Other uses

  • In mathematics, the italic form n is a particularly common symbol for a variable quantity which represents a natural number. The set of natural numbers is referred to as .

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:
      • Ⲛ ⲛ : Coptic letter Ne
      • Н н : Cyrillic letter En
      • 𐌍 : Old Italic N, which is the ancestor of modern Latin N
      • 𐌽 : Gothic letter nauþs

Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations

Other representations

Computing

More information Preview, N ...
Character information
PreviewNn
Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N LATIN SMALL LETTER N FULLWIDTH LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N FULLWIDTH LATIN SMALL LETTER N
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechexdechex
Unicode78U+004E110U+006E65326U+FF2E65358U+FF4E
UTF-8784E1106E239 188 174EF BC AE239 189 142EF BD 8E
Numeric character referenceNNnnNNnn
EBCDIC family213D514995
ASCII[a]784E1106E
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Other

See also

Notes

  1. Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

References

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